Where we started: The journey from denial to recognition
In this series of conversations, Maggie and Sarita talk about our ongoing journeys shifting from “not racist” to “anti-racist.” This conversation is from early June 2020.
Sarita: Last conversation we talked about elevating our mindset from disliking racism, to being anti-racist, and the journey of accepting and doing the inner work to address our own racism.
About a month ago, Amy Cooper, a white woman out walking her dog, was filmed making false criminal accusations against Christian Cooper (no relation), a black man who was out birdwatching. Then, the very next day, police officers were filmed murdering George Floyd in Minneapolis. You and I both live in Minneapolis and have seen the protests and uprising that resulted from these events.
With our anti-racism conversation in mind, can you take yourself back to that time and reflect on how you felt, early on? When you first saw the news about Christian Cooper and George Floyd — can you recall what that journey was like for you?
Maggie: That’s a great question. Nobody’s asked me a question like that and I haven’t witnessed on social media people asking that kind of question.
With Christian Cooper, I remember thinking, “Oh my God, not again,” and just sort of writing it off as, “This is elsewhere. I can’t believe that dumb person (Amy Cooper) did that, and thank God it didn’t turn into an actual police confrontation.”
Looking back to what you said last time, about when people believe an act as if “this is normal,” it normalizes problematic behavior, I see I absolutely fell back on that thinking. I told myself a story that white people engage in this kind of aggression against Black people so often “it’s just the way things are” and there was nothing I could personally do about it, especially since this incident happened in another city. Like it’s going to keep happening, it’s just the way things are, and unless it’s done by someone I know, there’s nothing I can do.
When I got the news that George Floyd had been murdered, I think my initial response was, “I can’t believe it happened here,” which is a really deep denial. We love to think Minneapolis is this lovely adult place where this kind of abhorrent shit doesn’t happen because we’re better than that. It’s easy to have that attitude from a place of whiteness and white privilege and wealth privilege and to ignore that this has been happening for years — both in publicized and in silent/hidden ways — to our Black and Indigenous and poorer communities in the Twin Cities.
Sarita: I recall I had a defeatist mindset, Again and again and again. Jamar Clark and Philando Castiel. Now George Floyd. Unbelievable.
There has been such a seismic shift, watching this spur activism in so many different circles. It’s citywide, statewide, national, and even international; it’s actually given me hope that we’ve reached critical mass.
Maggie: It’s very, very worth working on this because we’re at a new type of tipping point now where real systemic change could start to happen. There’s no magic bean, and it’s not like one day this is going to be over and we can flip off this topic, like a light switch. But if real change can start to happen, it’s really worth contributing to that over the long haul. Inner work and outer action.
Sarita: I agree with that. It feels like a tipping point.
When I think back, as I started to recognize the difference in what it means to be white in Minneapolis and what it means to be black in Minneapolis, I had this question in my head: “Minneapolis. How can this be??” Acknowledging the gap was so dissonant and painful. I had loads of personal guilt and shame early on — I recognized I’d had willful ignorance. And I also had profound sadness and deep rage — it’s 2020 and racism is so deeply entrenched and normalized. And so profoundly unfair. Profoundly unjust.
You know the idea of the Buddhist second arrow? That the first arrow is the bad event and the second arrow is the suffering you inflict on yourself? Man, did I start accumulating arrows. There was the first arrow of these two real-life acts of criminal racism. The second arrow was recognition of my denial and the depth of the racism in my city. And the third arrow was sadness. Followed by rage. Followed by deep, deep shame.
The thing with Minneapolis is that if you’re white or Asian, then this is one of the best places in the country to live. All the quality of life indicators are amongst the highest in the country. But if you are Black, all those quality of life indicators are amongst the lowest in the country.
A few days before all of these events, I had been talking to a friend who lives in Manhattan. She had been thinking about moving for a really long time. And I had said, “You have to check out Minneapolis. It’s such a great quality of life, such a super progressive crowd.” I was completely over-the-top enthusiastic about Minneapolis.
And then George Floyd was murdered.
And as I reflected, I knew that I knew about that gap, long before George Floyd was murdered.
The racial gaps were not new information to me. I know there’s severe segregation in this city — drive into any neighborhood and you’ll immediately see it. I’m a high school graduation coach in the Minneapolis public schools, and I see the graduation data every year: If you’re white or Asian, we have some of the best graduation rates in the country. And if you’re Black, Latinx or Indigenous it’s a very different story. In fact if you’re Indigenous, there’s actually an equal chance that you’ll graduate or drop out. So it’s not like I didn’t know the data.
I had to ask myself, “Have I willingly been blind? Have I willfully chosen out-of-sight-out-of-mind?” And the answer was yes.
Then, I joined a few protest marches. At one Saturday protest, there was a speaker, a woman whose son had been shot and killed by a Saint Paul police officer four years ago. As she spoke, she had this combination of rage and grief that I hope very few people ever experience because it was palpable. She pointed to a group of us at the front. I’m Brown, of Indian origin, and I was with one of my best friends, who’s Black. It was a large crowd, and we stood next to a cluster of white marchers, ranging from young 20s to late 40s.
She pointed to them and asked, “Is this your first march?” They all nodded. Then she leaned into the microphone and said “So this is your first march. Where have you been? We have been living this every day, every year, for decades. Where have you been?”
I’m telling you Maggie, in that moment, I actually felt relieved I’m not white.
Then she said, “If you’re not going to come back, if you’re just marching today to make yourself feel better and you’re not going to come back again and again, then go on home. We don’t need you.”
She pointed her finger at the group, and grieved, and raged — “Shame.” And then, pointed her finger at the crowd — “Shame.” She was the embodiment of grief. All I knew was I could not understand her emotion, and I hope to never experience her emotion, but it was so palpable.
At that moment, I thought, and in my body I felt it — “She’s right.” People are literally being killed on the streets by the police over $20. Or for nothing at all. And where have we been?
This mother was right. Where have we been?
Maggie: She illustrated so powerfully the breakpoint between being morally not in favor of the situation vs being actively anti the situation, in an ongoing way.
We’ve got to wrap up now, but next time we’ll build on these themes and talk about fragility, inner-work, and action.
