This is an opinion piece I wrote for the Greenfield Recorder where it was published on June 4, 2020. Following that is a poem I wrote for the same reason.
IN HONOR OF BREONNA TAYLOR, AHMAUD ARBERY & GEORGE FLOYD
Black men being lynched by white men in daylight, with witnesses. Still. It is not O.K.
Black mothers of black boys unable to keep them safe once they walk out the door. It is not O.K.
Navaho Nation deaths from Coronavirus way higher by comparison because they are historically denied access to clean water and adequate health care. It is not O.K.
Privatized prisons, a whole new industry, bulging with black men put there by white society as a substitute for slavery, causing their sons to grow up without fathers or stable communities, and the fathers to be denied the right to vote, further disempowering them. It is not O.K
Cities like Baltimore with sky-scraper downtowns and yet whole blocks of apartment buildings boarded up, as if black and brown people didn’t need housing, and no one held accountable for redlining and slumlords. It is not O.K.
Children with Spanish names in cages and no one knows where their parents are, while the parents are in tent cities (concentration camps) or in freezing, dirty ICE detention cells until they are deported with or without their children. Whole families fleeing death in their home countries forced back across the border to camp out in Mexico, prey for gangs and extortionists. It is not O.K.
“Essential workers” (now we find out just how essential) who aren’t paid a living wage. They keep us alive but we don’t keep them alive. It is not O.K.
War is not O.K. Climate change denial is not O.K. Upgrading nuclear weapons instead of abolishing them is not O.K. A foreign policy based on exploitation instead of sharing is not O.K.
We have become, or always were, a country without a moral compass. Yes, there are good people, neighbors who help neighbors through floods and fires, who sew masks and give them away, medical and nursing home staff who labor to save the rest of us from the deadly virus. But our country is not O.K.
I am not O.K. as long as these things happen in my name. It IS my country, and I have to take responsibility. I want these words to make a difference. But words can’t jump off the page and create magic. Actions to take? Now? With a paralyzing pandemic? Yes.
We have a history of resistance and it will continue. Let’s be sure we are part of it. Locally, we took a step towards justice as we protested the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery last Saturday on Greenfield’s Town Common. For the long, urgent haul ahead, we can join national movements like
The Poor People’s Campaign, the Sunrise Movement, racial and environmental justice groups. It is harder during the pandemic. I get discouraged too. Yet, the lynchings must stop; racism and militarism must stop. Destruction of our natural world must stop. We have to find a better way to be America.
Not Waiting
This man should not have died:
George Floyd.
Pre-deceased by Ahmaud Arbery
and Breonna Taylor.
They should not have died.
Predeceased by Eric Garner
and Trayvon Martin
who should be alive today.
Predeceased by Sandra Bland,
Michael Brown, and
12 year old
Tamir Rice.
They should still be alive
but instead their killers
are alive.
White America,
you have a lot to answer for
having started your climb
to fame
with the genocide
of indigenous peoples
whose land you took
whose lives you took.
Who are you, white America?
Who are you and
who gave you dominion
over all of God’s creation
and permission to kill it?
Is it just because you have
the bigger gun,
the bigger bomb
more young lives
to throw away in war?
You have a lot to answer for.
And where are the answers?
Are they in the prisons
where you put our black men
to further emasculate them?
Are they locked in the brown bodies
That crossed the Rio Grande?
Those that didn’t die in the desert?
Watch out, white America.
You are turning brown.
The hordes you have sent
back to die in El Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras
have relatives here.
Which reminds me.
There was a brown
man named Jesus
of Nazareth who
said your way of doing things
is not God’s way.
God’s way is merciful
but you are not merciful.
There are many dead
to answer for. Say their names:
George, Breonna, Ahmaud,
Tamir, Trayvon, Eric,
Sandra, Michael. Freddie Gray,
Amadou Diallo, David McAtte,
Tony McDade…
But there are too many names,
new ones every day
and ones I don’t know.
I am not going to wait
for the answers.
Grief doesn’t wait.
Rage doesn’t wait.
The melting Artic
is not waiting.
Sherrill Hogen
June 4-8, 2020
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