You may compartmentalize and walk away. Others can’t.
Q: What do I do?
A: When I was little-little, I would watch those who could have helped walk away.
On one blisteringly hot summer day, the sound of a broken bedroom window created such a loud crash that every neighbor from the block and even the next block came to see. Yet, no one seemed to notice or ask why the teenage girl — my sister — had used her own unshoed foot to kick it in.
Why she hadn’t taken 20 seconds or even a minute to find something else (anything else) to use.
Her blood was all over. Near the window, all over the driveway, on all our clothes, as the entire back of her leg was torn apart, tendons torn, and muscles visible. No one seemed to notice or ask why the teenage boy — my brother — was standing far apart from his own family, head hung low. No one checked to see why the little girl in the scene — me — was sobbing with relief.
While it was probably pretty obvious that child sexual abuse had been stopped or at least stalled, the neighbors focused on fixing the window.
Off went the ambulance; and off the neighbors went, too.
For a long time, I thought of these folks as blind. That they couldn’t see the situation for what it was. That didn’t know what was going on, and surely the different lies were super convincing, and so on and so on.
But that really wasn’t it. It was more that I didn’t matter. Not enough, anyway. They could look with their very own eyes, see all that despair, of a body being brutalized, and yet still choose to walk away.
Flip-flop sounds flapping as they walked down the driveway. Back to their own lives.
ARE OUR FATES SEPARATE OR LINKED?
They would rather return to that pot of spaghetti on the stove or that work project due on Monday than stick around this messy situation.
As if any of that was more important.
This second story hurts far more than that of blindness because it means they were making a choice. Categorizing, prioritizing, compartmentalizing.
They could see a problem but also see it as not their problem.
That house, not their neighbor.
That child, not their cherished one.
They could walk away and so they did.
In doing so, they missed how each of us is a necessary and interwoven part of the whole. How our fates are not as separate as we are sometimes sold. That our fates are linked, not ranked.
And, I’d bet money that as they walked home, they asked the very question you’re asking at this moment. What do I do?
DO SOMETHING
So that’s the lens with which I read your question, you asking that question at this time is just…not…enough.
First off, there are no good or fast answers. It’s not as if some magic pill can be taken to solve what is a 400-year-old problem; slavery and violence of black bodies have been at the very foundation of American history, as the 1619 project spelled out. Of course, read and read better. Yes, learn specific actions you can take. Do the work of the great unlearn. And, also, know how to talk about this kind of thing at work.
But, we cannot be like those neighbors who asked the question but then likely tut-tutted about the “unfortunate situation” they had just witnessed, as they walked away to the comfort of their homes.
Doing so makes us bystanders.
Bystanding means the person or people being harmed are alone, while the person doing the harm gets the okay that they can continue doing more harm. To perpetuate the status quo. A bystander gets to return to one’s life, to compartmentalize, to “focus” on their stuff, while ignoring the commons.
Engage. Do something. Start. Now. Where? Really, anywhere. How about where you already are, where you already work. Because the particular event that’s causing you to ask this question is part of something bigger. It is what happens when structural decisions are backed up by mental models and conditioning we’ve come to accept as true. Racism is not just something “out there,” in terrorizing near 9-minute videos or near-lynchings by white women in the park. Racism & its effects are everywhere.
Will what you do make any bit of difference? I bet that’s running through your mind as you ask the question. Asking, what will be the key?
Let me be honest with you about this: We don’t know. Who could?!
The truth is, we don’t know what happens, what can be changed, until we stop walking away. We will not see what lies on the other side of this issue until and unless, unflinchingly, and without illusions, we show up to do something, and then do more. And then do it again. And are willing to go on doing until we live in a world that reflects the fact that Black Lives Matter. Simply because.
DON’T LET PERFECT BE THE ENEMY OF GOOD
Years later, I ran into some of those neighbors. Paul? Peter? And was his wife’s name, Pam?
There we were in the building section of Home Depot, ironically.
He asked, hey, really are you okay? I’m sure I said something like yes, I’m fine. And then he apologized, saying he knew. He knew all along what was going on. He had not only noticed the aromas from our kitchen but the screaming.
And that he knew when he walked away after sweeping up the glass from that broken window that he was leaving something far more precious unprotected and alone.
He said he felt bad that he didn’t step up. We talked about his own kids and how he worked so hard to protect them and love them, but he didn’t know what to do back when.
But of course, he did. He had just finished telling me that he knew.
Maybe he didn’t know the specifics, but he knew the imperative. What he didn’t say — perhaps because it is too painful to see in one’s own eyes — was that he let his ambiguity of the “right” or perfect action cause inaction.
RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS VS. EACH INDIVIDUAL HAS RIGHTS
Our broader culture accepts and enthusiastically celebrates this notion of individual rights, without seeing that each individual has an equal right to have their voice count.
Many argue that we don’t need a commons to which we all belong. So we become not a people, but disparate peoples.
Most modern business follows in that vein. Our business-as-usual world often works overtime to create separation vs. solidarity.
We see it in policies that exclude contractors from perks that “regular” employees receive as nearly every Tech Company does. We see it in software that creates schedules for hourly workers that optimize workplace efficiency while minimizing the value of an employee’s personal life, like Starbucks, Walmart, and countless others have done. And we see it in modern-day COVID times, when some workers are given resources to allow for workplace flexibility while others aren’t even given hazard pay; labeled “essential” as they die. It’s not unclear who is “at the bottom,” who is affected, who is at risk and so those same businesses who posted black boxes need to decide if it’s just Black Lives Matter or if Black Life also matters.
And I suspect that’s why you asked this question of me, knowing what I care about. Why I fight otherness, with the framework onlyness.
So, maybe you were hoping for just this answer.
Not a feel-good thing listicle to say read x learn y, but asking you — using Rihanna’s beautiful language — to pull up. Meaning, if you are a friend, act in fellowship. If you are a neighbor, step up for those in your ‘hood. If you want to be a colleague, act as if we really are in the same league.
There is work to be done. And that work needs you. Pull alllllll the way up.
And keep on stepping up. With sustained energy, over time. Until it’s done.
So, dear one who asks, what do I do? Do what only you can. Do, and do it with love.
