My #GeorgeFloyd thread ...

“I can’t breathe”

“Please, man”

“Momma, I’m through”

How do words adequately express the level of pain, frustration and hopelessness that comes from 400 years of the most massive failure in human history to see people as people?

These ones do.

They are the words George Floyd spoke in desperation as he lay, face down on the pavement, as a police officer dug his knee into Floyd’s neck for nine minutes until he died.

If we can’t see and feel the humanity in the most basic expressions of being human …

The need for air.

The need for help.

The love for a mother.

Then we are beyond saving.

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If we are more bothered by the damage done to property than by the loss of this life and thousands of others because of our inability to see the humanity of the people we share this earth with.

Then we are beyond saving.

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If we are more bothered by the profanity of rap lyrics than the profanity of poverty, racism, and the dehumanization of our brothers and sisters of color.

Then we are beyond saving.

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If we can’t let go of our stereotypes, most of which serve no other purpose than to divide us through fear, to hear a helpless man on the ground begging to be seen in the most basic way any human being can be seen.

Then we are beyond saving.

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If we can’t see that some of us, based completely and totally on the color of our skin and what is or isn’t between our legs, get to live a life freer life than others. Some of us get to avoid panic attacks when pulled over by the police. Some of us get to go jogging...

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... birding and walk through a neighborhood without fear. Some of us get to live without the scars of being systematically told we are somehow less important, less real, less valuable.

Then we are beyond saving.

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If we look the other way or enable our political leaders to make life harder for the least privileged among us. If we look the other way while our brothers and sisters of color are called “thugs” and “sons of bitches” and “niggers”.

Then we are beyond saving.

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If our Jesus is more concerned with our financial prosperity and gender roles than feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, turning the other cheek, loving our enemies and showing compassion to our neighbors and the least of these ...

The we are beyond saving.

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If we don’t understand, as Martin Luther King Jr. taught that “In a real sense all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly...

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I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

Then we are beyond saving.

& since all those above statements are true to some varying degree by too many people in our country

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...what can I say to a country and its people that appear beyond saving?

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I’m a conflict mediator. I’ve spent the last 15 years of my life working with divided communities around the world helping them figure out how to bridge divides and collaboratively solve the problems that we face today.

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But this week, I’m not sure what to say to my white brothers and sisters who are offended that African Americans, other people of color, and their allies, are in the streets protesting — mostly peacefully, but sometimes violently — about the death of George Floyd.

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I’m not sure what to say to my friends & family in law enforcement who hold a sacred trust to protect us from crime and violence, not be the propigators of it. Forgery. Resisting arrest. Whatever George Floyd did to warrant the arrest, none of it deserved the death penalty.
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But I’m going to try to raise George Floyd’s voice. Use his words. Maybe you can hear the words if I say them.

“I can’t breathe”

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Imagine your son or daughter laying on the asphalt begging for a breath. Begging for someone to take their knee off your loved one’s neck.

Imagine your loved one feeling that they emotionally can’t breathe at school, at work, shopping, or trying to get a cab at night.

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Imagine a world that has seen your loved one as somehow inferior because of the color of skin. Imagine those stereotypes came to be, not because of anything your loved one or their ancestors did, but bc the people practicing slavery had to...

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come up with moral justifications for a profoundly and hideous moral act.

“Please, help”

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Imagine your son or daughter laying on the asphalt begging for help. People are standing around with cellphones filming your child as they plead. The people killing your child look stoically outward, impervious to the call for help.

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Imagine them feeling that same way emotionally at school, at work, shopping, or trying to get a cab. Being told that help translates into handout while they watch other kids around them get not only everything they need, but much, much more.

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Imagine a world that sees your loved ones call for help not as a call for justice, but as a sign of weaknesses, as a sign of moral inferiority, as sign that somehow they’re supposed to play the game with both hands tied behind their back because, you know, freedom.

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“Momma.” “Momma, I’m through.”

Imagine it’s YOUR son or daughter calling for you. Calling knowing that you can’t come. That even if you were standing five feet away, you wouldn’t be allowed to help...

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That you, like so many thousands of African-American mothers have had to, for generations, mourn the mistreatment, abuse and even death of your children.

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They say that the number one fear of human beings is having a child die. For many of us, that fear is rooted in a horrific car accident, or a life threatening illness.

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Now imagine that fear is rooted in the same sorts of scenarios that George Floyd died. Imagine holding onto that fear every time your son or daughter leaves the home.

Can you see them?

Can you feel them?

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Can you see them so clearly that their needs, desires, hopes and dreams matters as much to you as your own?

Can you let go of the hundreds of years of prejudice and justification that has led to the dehumanization of a people?

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Can you let go of the fears that have blinded you to the reality that human beings, living breathing people with dreams, hopes and desires, have been and continue to be systematically mistreated?

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Can you stop asking what will happen to me if I stand up and speak out to their oppression ?And start asking, what will happen to us if I don’t?

Can you love them dangerously?

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Can you stand with those that mourn the death of George Floyd? Can you comfort those that stand in need of comfort?

Can you do something that creates space for healing, for reconciliation, for justice?

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Can you say with me to our African-American sisters and brothers “I’m deeply sorry” and not mean it in the thoughts and prayers way? But in the I’m going to rally folks into action to see what I and others can do to transform this conflict.

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Can it be more than a cut and pasted social media post?

A donation. A service project. Reaching out and getting to know someone who doesn’t look like you. A vote for political leaders that are committed to ending this 400 year human tragedy.

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Can you do something?

Today.

Can we be human?

Before we are beyond saving.

(Painting by @nikkolas_smith)

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