("The Trayvon Generation")
We pack the streets in protest, we white people. We know nothing.
We pack the streets in protest, we white people. We know nothing.
We raise our voices in anger, we white people. We feel nothing.
We lower our eyes in shame, we white people. We understand nothing.
We assuage our collective guilt, for we now inform that we have awakened, we white people. We have looked away. We have done nothing.
We do not know, we do not feel, we do not see, we do not act, we cannot remotely comprehend black existence in America.
The names scroll across our screens as abstractions, disembodied from the pain and grief. Untouched by the fear of a mother unable to protect her children.
And we read "The Trayvon Generation" and applaud ourselves. We are 400 years too late.
2 comments:
We have lived privileged lives and yet I hope we see and feel and act. Finally I think we have reached a tipping point. Generation Z has empowered us, our legislators and courts to be silent no more.
Your writing can add to the wake up call.
Helen
I am crying....again.
I think you have expressed what I wish was a massive, collective guilt and shame. That would be a start to a beginning.
....Please tell me you believe that there is some way we can actively do more of what is right and just and good; that some good and right and just will prevail and will replace a sense of helplessness, hopelessness and ongoing despair
and allow us to leave our grandchildren with hope and a better world.
EA
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