Memorial Day commemorates the men and women of the Armed Forces who have died in the defense of the United States.
Yet, like every other thing existing with the COVID-19 pandemic in the background, even this celebration morphed into the latest wave of international protest.
On Memorial Day 2020, two black men, one in New York City and the other in Minneapolis, both going about their lives in the great pursuit of happiness, entered the most dangerous space known to black people: the mind of a racist.
Avid bird watcher and Harvard grad, Christian Cooper, merely wanted a woman to leash her dog, so it would stop trampling all over the plants–or “plantings” as he called them. (Let the record show that I thought of him as a nerd long before I knew he was a Harvard grad when I heard him talking about “plantings”!)
When the woman didn’t comply with his reasonable request, he took a treat out of his pocket for the dog. His reasoning: most people didn’t like strangers feeding their dog, so they would leash them. At least that was the usual response, but thank goodness he videotaped her response.
Amy Cooper (no relation) reached into her arsenal of white privilege and told Christian that if he didn’t leave her and her dog alone, she’d call the police. She calmly voiced her threat to weaponize the police against an African American man who’d done nothing more than ask her to put her dog on a leash and then offer the dog a snack.
(Side note: I italicized “African American” because Amy made a point to use the politically correct phrase while doing something racist. To which I say, don’t bother calling a black person an “African American” if you’re just going to treat them like a nigger.)
Christian told her to go ahead and call the police.
See, when black people stand our ground, we usually don’t have a gun aimed at the other person. We stand our ground by daring to show our courage and bravely staring down our threats.
With her bluff called, Amy called 911. Her demeanor changed as she displayed her voice-acting skills. She shrieked into her cellphone about how an African American man was threatening her and her dog–all the while Christian was obviously more than the acceptable 6ft of social distance away from her.
The police arrived and, thank God, saw through the sham. After all, both Amy and Christian were still there. No tickets, no arrests, no shooting, no death. The police concluded that two people merely had had a verbal altercation.
Afterwards, Christian reached into his arsenal of social media and uploaded the video. It was the ultimate clapback. Of course the video went viral. Millions of people, especially black people, witnessed the how a white woman, who was fully aware of the potential police brutality against a black man, proceeded all because she could.
The backlash was swift. She lost her job because her employer said they didn’t tolerate racism. She lost her dog. Yes, the same one that she’d rather weaponize the police over than to put a leash on.
The animal shelter insisted on her surrendering the dog so they could place it in a safe home. You see, despite Amy’s insistence that an African American man was threatening her dog, all Christian really did was offer the dog a treat. Amy, on the other hand, had dragged the dog around by hooking her fingers into its collar.
In the aftermath, Amy did two predictable things: she offered a self-serving apology and she declared she wasn’t racist.
Let’s hope her apology indeed made her feel better. So much better that it leads her to read up on systemic racism. And while she’s at it, perhaps she’ll learn that racism isn’t like pregnancy: either you are or you aren’t. No, racism has degrees.
Picture, if you will, a racism continuum. At one end are microagressions such as when a white co-ed during my freshman year in college paid me the insulting compliment, “Teresa, you don’t talk like a black person!” At the other end is first degree murder like when a white gunman carried out his plan to mass murder black people at the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina. In between is every other racially-biased action such as when Amy voice-acted her 911 call to weaponize the police against a black man.
She, like many white people, don’t view seemingly nonviolent actions as racist. What she fails to see is the “death by 1000 cuts” aspect of her actions. She contributed to Christian’s everyday stress of living while being black. This violence is slow-moving, collective and deadly over time. This constant racial stress has been shown to shorten the life expectancy of black people.
An example of the racism most white people acknowledge as racism occurred on the same day in Minneapolis when George Floyd encountered weaponized police. For 8 minutes and 46 seconds, Officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck as he agonized about not being able to breathe. With his dying breath, Floyd called out for his deceased mother.
For all who watched this viral video, it was the last straw. Firing the four officers involved was not enough. Even Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey stated in a press conference that if anyone else had done what former Officer Chauvin had done, they would’ve been arrested.
Waves of local protests grew into national protests, which spread into international protests. By that Friday, former Officer Chauvin had been charged with third degree murder. The protests continued. Former Officer Chauvin’s charges were upgraded to second degree murder while the other former officers who had stood by watching him kill an unarmed, handcuffed black man, where arrested and charged with third degree murder. The protests continued. Even when opportunistic looting erupted, the protests continued. Even when some police were brutal with peaceful protesters against police brutality, the protests continued. Even when some police took a knee and marched with protesters, the protests continued.
(Side note: Once I witnessed cops taking a knee against police brutality, the situation had come full circle for me. I instantly thought out loud, “So when is Kap getting is job back?” Lest anyone forget, Colin Kapernick started the nonviolent taking of a knee to protest police brutality.)
Protesters declared that black lives matter even when there were next to no black people in the protest. Around this time, corporations and city councils, those uneasy bedfellows, starting saying that black lives mattered.
Many questioned how a cop could choke a man in broad daylight, with 3 other cops around, and witnesses and videos. The short answer is systemic racism curated over 400 years. Everything in former officer Chauvin’s past experience, what he knew to be true, told him that he’d not receive any serious consequences. He figured he’d not be charged for months if at all.
What he hadn’t counted on was the waterless flood known as COVID-19. What once was, was no longer. The pandemic had already changed the contour of our existence. Anyone under the illusion of things set in stone need only to look at how the Colorado River shapes the Grand Canyon.
The biggest difference, the coronavirus didn’t need millennia to fundamentally change our environment. Infrastructure vulnerabilities revealed. Food and product chains disrupted. Healthcare professionals swamped. Essential workers exposed.
Systemic racism depended on hiding in plain sight. The constant, distracting rat race of existence provided an excellent cover. Lots of stimuli to draw focus in several different directions all at once.
Then–POOF–the frenzy stopped. Without the blurring fog of activity, systemic racism no longer had shadows to hide behind. No denial plausibility of something else actually going on.
So the real debate: what to do when there’s a glaring problem?
Nostalgists long for things to return to “normal.” Realists embrace “the new normal.” Optimists dream of a future better than before. Pessimists dread that the best days are behind us. Conservationists seek new ways to preserve old structures. Revolutionists want to tear this motherfucker down to rebuild with equity.
While all the “-ists” jostle for position, Mother Nature rages on.