Contrary to my more, shall we say, “light-hearted” first post saying that I intend to only post maybe once weekly for the most part, I really need to vent some of my rage today.
Today I wanted to celebrate more people discussing and honoring Juneteenth. Not because, ooh maybe a new holiday, but because for me, I want to take it as a symbol of hope in dark times that people are getting more comfortable with confronting the true racist history of the U.S. While my (multinational) workplace did not give us the day off, it did make space for our Black coworkers and a special guest speaker the time and space to share their thoughts and feelings through an internal podcast. They encouraged everyone to tune in and reflect.
Yes, I know it can seem somewhat performative, but it is a baby step in progress. And it is important considering that the tech industry is overwhelmingly White and Asian. That latter point is why something like this matters, as I’ve born witness in the last few weeks to many a White European and Asian Immigrant coworker display dismay and horror at what’s happening across the U.S. and the world, as well as their own ignorance at the historical context of slavery, racism, and police brutality. Many of us are also subject the racist history of white washing education. More on that later.
But that’s not why I had to stop to write this. I’m angry, hurt, and sad. Even writing those words cannot convey the surge of rage in me, like a violent storm pushing inland off the ocean in which it generally circles. They cannot convey the pall of despair that I’m struggling to cast off my heart right now.
Listen, it’s been a shit year. A shit year in a shit country with a shit history. A lost year due to a pandemic. And even in the midst of a large scale pandemic, Black and Brown folks can’t catch a break. I don’t know how to convey the helplessness and the dissociation of waking up a week and a half before my birthday, in February, glancing through the morning’s news only to see front and center an article about a young Latino man with my same exact first and last name having been shot in the face for trying to defend a loved one. Shot by a plain clothes undercover ICE officer who was accosting their loved one.
That dissociation is a familiar companion and a constant specter. It shows up anytime I bear witness to the news that another Black or Brown person has been murdered. It shows up when I have to go to work and everyone around me acts like everything is honky dory. It’s there to protect me from getting lost in the torrent of anger/despair/hopelessness that might otherwise drive me insane or convince me to commit suicide. It showed up for Trayon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, Kirvan Fortuin, and so many others. And now it’s been called forth to show up for Andres Guardado.
He was gunned down in Gardena, CA. I grew up there until the age of 5 and afterwards still formed a large part of my life, as many of my friends still lived there. Gardena was a large part of my life growing up until I started going to college. He ran because he was scared. He ran because he carried that sense of terror that anybody growing up overpoliced knows. I’ve known that terror (and rage). That could have easily been me on any random night that I was hanging out in Gardena with my friends. That easily could have been any of my friends. That could have been my brother.
I’m tired of beautiful people just trying to live their damn lives being gunned down in the streets. I’m tired of living these endless cycles of numbness and pain. I’m so fucking tired. All cops are bastards. The police is a terrorist organization. You can’t reform a system built on top of racist and flawed premises. Abolish the police. If you value human life and dignity and truly have an ounce of compassion in your body, abolish the damn police.
I need to go because that specter and I have some negotiating to do. I don’t want swim or sink in this well of despair. I need to go tell the people that I love who are at most risk for this state sanctioned ethnic and racial cleansing that I love them, because I don’t know if there will come the day that one of their lives is suddenly stopped short for no other reason than the color of their skin and/or their language and culture. Or it could be me that dies in the streets and I want them to know that they were important to me.