Yesterday was a hard day. So much conflict, so much emotion.
I want to step up and be supportive of black people. I want to educate myself. I am listening. I listened to posts the last few days, black friends, black therapists speaking out, listened to the speakers at the protest. The messages I’m getting are so confusing. Care, have empathy, but you aren’t allowed to care and say you are trying to understand because that isn’t enough, you can’t understand and it hurts. Speak up for us, help our voices be heard, but don’t speak for us. Shut up and listen.
It upset me to hear the Director of RCPD say he cares and he doesn’t allow his officers to treat black people unfairly. He encourages people who are treated wrongly to speak up, his officers to speak up against each other. But that flies in the face of what my black friends are saying. They are pulled over much more frequently than white people. They are made to lie down or sit on the curb and are detained for no reason frequently. In my community. They don’t feel safe to speak up about their concerns.
The bottom line is we ALL have feelings about this. We ALL care. I’m ok with the riots because I understand the emotion behind it. A trauma response to feeling so helpless and angry for so long. A desperate attempt to be heard when they have felt so unheard for so long. It makes me upset that it had to resort to this for sure.
My heart also goes out to the police, most of whom are doing their jobs. They are afraid every day too. They are being hurt and killed in higher proportion right now too. Are many in the wrong? Yes! Are many behaving in racist, unfair ways? Hell yes.
We ALL have a responsibility to look deep inside and examine our own beliefs, values, motivations, behaviors. We must treat ALL with respect and kindness. We MUST speak up constructively when rights are being violated. We MUST all work together to figure out how to change what is broken, to right the wrongs. It will take trust and communication to do that. No more sides. Working together.
We can do that here. Please, hear our voices, too. We DO care. We DO want to understand. We DO want to stand with you and help you. Please let us.
dianegclark 