Your Silence is Choking Me and #ICantBreathe

First written December 4, 2014

I see you almost every day. We grab lunch together at work or half priced drinks at happy hour. You’ve come over to my house for dinner. We laugh over the latest viral videos, chop it up about movies, and go over to each other’s houses for holiday parties. You like my Facebook and Instagram posts and we talk liberal politics together. And yet, when I need you most, when I feel like the country I live in is populated by white people who see me as less you, my white friend, are silent. You are silent or you are making excuses. Your silence is not, as you believe, a non-statement and your excuse making is not a display of your pragmatism. Both are choking the life out of people you call friends and aiding in a gross miscarriage of justice.

I wonder, my friend, who exactly are you worried about pissing off? Why do you feel the need to qualify the death of an unarmed man for a petty crime, by saying things like, “the details are unclear”? Are you defending the right of cops or individuals to kill without due process? If so, you are, unfortunately, not who I thought you were. And more importantly, I do not think you are who YOU thought you were.

The people who write blatantly racist comments about police officers or unarmed black children are easy to unfriend both on social media and in real life. However, it is your silence that truly hurts. Not because we need you to make a movement, because we don’t. Not because I need you to validate my existence, because I am here and I am fighting for justice with or without you. Your silence saddens me because it means that underneath our shared laughter, underneath your liberal politics, and underneath our friendship, you are deeply distrustful of people who look like me. It doesn’t matter that you worked with me to elect a Black man to the presidency. It doesn’t matter that you care about climate change, universal healthcare, or women’s rights because you are telling me that on some level you are not sure we are truly equal.

You may be surprised that I hear all of this when you don’t speak, but you should know that I’m not the only one. Your silence is a blank canvass not just for me, but for anyone else who would use your lack of words to demonstrate your complicity in their cause.

We will fight on, with or without you, but just know that your silence is like a weight on my chest and it’s making it hard to breathe.