2 days ago, I made an impulse turn from my usual path and found myself on a posh Newport Beach street that I’ve never biked before. The homes are mostly walled off, except the ones that are in the process of being torn down and rebuilt even swankier. So I only saw a few local residents who passed me in their shiny cars.
How did they react to me, these people who have never seen me before in their lives? Smiles, nods, waves. Same as everywhere I go. They didn’t seem to wonder if I belonged there. They didn’t seem to wonder if they should hunt me down and shoot me because I might possibly steal… something?… from one of the construction sites.
They didn’t seem to wonder if my life mattered.
365 days ago, Ahmaud Arbery went for a jog. His life mattered as much as mine. His neighbors thought it mattered less than a piece of construction material.
Don’t tell me anything about how his life story is different from mine. The shiny car people don’t know shit about me and my life story. Never stops them from smiling when they see me.
As always, I post this in hopes that it may be helpful. To my White friends, because I know from my own slow and very unfinished process of realization that it is hard to GET IT at a gut level, how different it would be to walk “our” streets in a darker skin.
And to my Black, Indigenous, and people of color friends, by showing respect for what you’ve been trying to tell me all along: #BlackLivesMatter.
Love to all. May we do better.