I can’t keep her safe.

As a white person I do not know who to support my fellow people of color. I don’t even really know how to support my beloved wife and slave. I am terrified that she will leave the house, get pulled over and get shot. I am terrified that the racial violence and bigotry of this country will escalate. As people feel empowered by the racist ramblings of the madman running for the white house. 

I don’t want my love to leave the house, but at the same time I know – deep down- that I can’t keep her safe. 

This past weeks, the shootings have sent shock waves through all communities.  As I am not a person of color, I can only say that I feel like my position as an alley is simply not enough. Last Saturday I went to Synagogue, and the Rabbi said (I am paraphrasing here) reach out and give the scared and lonely a voice.  Your may not be able to change the system, but by giving that sacred person a voice, you can change someone’s expense of it. Do not stay silent in the face of others pain. 

Being so terrified myself about my slave being safe, I have frozen. I have stopped talking to her. I am angry- not at her, because I am so afraid that she is broken and I am helpless.  

These people of color were doing nothing, they were targeted, they were killed for no other reason than the perpetrators bigotry. I listened to an interview with the head of the Dallas police, he spoke so beautifully about only being able to do their jobs so much, and then it has to come done to law. He spoke about not letting 1 to 2 % of people decide how you feel about and treat the rest. He talked about holding police accountable. 

 I listened to an interview by the head of the surgery, an African American surgeon that talked about having to treat the officers that were gunned down at the “Black Lives Matter” rally. He talked with candor of being conflicted in his role considering the last week, his words brought me to tears.  

My wife and slave is black, the color of her skin is dark, luscious, and stunning to me.  I love the waves and patterns of her hair, I love her take on institutional racism, bigotry, and hate. I love the strength that it takes for her to do the day to day things that I, as a white person, take for granted.  Walking into a Walmart, a gas station, an independently owned store, or small a restaurant. Just to name a few.   

The daily strength that it takes to walk off our property and into the world is based on an illusion of safety.  It is a thin thing, a fragile thing. Over the past few years as more and more people of color have been able to make public even to live stream their incidences of violence at the hands on those entrusted and sworn to keep us safe, this thinly vailed idea of safety starts to erode. 

On one hand-  this is a good thing.  (Now that is the white person in me speaking) that theses episodes of violence are being videoed. That they are being brought to the public consciousness to shine a light on acts of barbarism that for too long has done ignored, invalidated, justified, and outright lied about.

We have Rodney King to thank. His videoed attack was the first that blasted into the media. He was the first to have gone through this and have it be something that we all had to do through. We as a country could no longer ignore stories of racial police violence as a “not in our time” story, or an exaggerated experience of only a few. I would never wish that violence on any one, but Rodney King’s brave fight after the incident kept us all accountable.  I am  grateful  to  him. 

On the other hand-  people are dying, People are being hunted, people are being terrorized.  People are doing all of the right things in life and they are being targeted BECAUSE those things make them EASIER targets. 

If my wife were to get pulled over, she would do the right thing. She would stop, get her license and registration, and wait.  And doing the right thing not only does not guarantee her safety, it furthermore makes her completely vulnerable.  The problem IN NO WAY being the color of her skin the problem being the personal beliefs of the person that stops her.  

I can’t keep her safe.  

And I don’t know how to support her, I don’t know how to help her to feel safe, I don’t know how to even listen with an open heart without my own fears and terror shutting me down.

I struggle deeply with putting myself aside to be there for her fully.  The idea that my love would die at the hands of a bigot who was given a gun by the taxes that I provide. That is backed by the city and state, that is more than fear.   

That is paralyzing terror.