Fighting the good fight

This has been the summer of our discontent. On a personal level, July and August have been needles stabbed at us again and again — my husband landing in the hospital for heart problems, being forced to sell our house — and while the pain of these months have settled to a dull, constant ache, there have been other things at play adding to the turmoil that has become life as I know it.

From Gaza to Iraq to Ferguson, it has been a summer of strife. For those of us who devour the news, whose passion for a world of peace and understanding makes them take every bad headline to heart, these months have been hard and nerve wracking.

Like many, I took in Mike Brown’s death and the events in Ferguson in real time, consuming tweets as fast as they came in until mass media picked up on the story and then we consumed that also, reading every tidbit, every major write up, watching every video, reading every tweet and becoming more outraged and more vocal about that outrage as the hours passed and the story fleshed out.

Most of us, we take Ferguson personally, we feel it on an emotional level not given to Gaza or Iraq because it’s here. It’s in our backyard. It’s happening to us. If that’s a nationalistic view, so be it. Seeing the armored vehicles roll in, the guns pointed at peaceful protesters, it’s nightmare fuel for a nation that’s supposed to be about freedom. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, the only witness to that phrase was in the residents of Ferguson who stood their ground against the army that was once their police force. It was unnerving, to say the least, and frightening.

Our outrage peaked when a fundraising site was set up for Darren Wilson, the cop who killed Mike Brown. Littered with racist comments and ugly rhetoric, we saw a side of America on display that gave validity to the idea that racism is not only far from over in America, but it is still going strong and runs deep.

I wrote to GoFundMe, the site in question. I complained about the nature of the fundraiser and asked them to take it down. I donated money to a fund set up for Mike Brown’s family. I voiced my outrage on twitter. I signed petitions. And I wondered the whole time, as a white person, what is my role here? Is my voice wanted? Can I be part of this fight? Is it ok to figuratively stand with Mike Brown’s family, with his friends and relatives and with the citizens of Ferguson and all the people who are victims of racism in one way or another every day of their lives?

I don’t know what that feels like. Yes, as a woman I face some adversity in life, but I live in this privileged white skin, in a predominantly white community, in this nation that harbors too many people who still judge their fellow human beings by the color of their skin.

Am I wanted in this fight? Should I be out there at the forefront, finding ways to combat racism, to bring people together, to fight injustice? It pains me to see how people of color are treated, to read their stories of profiling, to hear how their lives are affected by who they are. What they are. What happened in Ferguson is not an isolated incident and that infuriates me, ignites in me a passion to do better, to get our nation as a whole to do better.

But I don’t know how. I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know what’s needed of me. I know I need to listen. I need to learn. I need to recognize my own privilege and own my pre-conceived notions. But I want to do good. I want to fight for what’s right. I don’t want there to be another Mike Brown. I don’t want there to be another town on the edge, mourning another young black man while the militarized police stare them down. That’s not the country I want to live in or believe in.

I’ve heard people say “This is not our fight” and I don’t believe that. But what if that’s true? What if it is not my fight and I’m intruding where I don’t belong? I don’t want to believe that’s true but I don’t know because I haven’t asked.

I’ll remember this summer as one I want to forget, for many reasons. But we can’t and I won’t. The way that I can’t forget my husband’s hospital stay because it colors how we live our life now is the same way I can’t forget Mike Brown or Ferguson. We’ll remember this summer in the way we remember the summer of Katrina. Most of us will, anyhow. But what lesson will we learn from it? Will we do anything with what we learned?

So I ask. What can I do?