We owe it to our race

What does white America owe blacks? We owe them everything we have. We owe them the reality of not being judged by color. Oh, there will still be plenty of judgment, don’t worry about that. We owe them the reality of being hated, loved, rejected and accepted for all the other petty reasons, but not color. We owe them the right to fail for the same reasons we do.

Imagine your white life with a weight, not around your neck, but a weight that you carry in your bones. In your reality the earth’s gravity is doubled. You can’t see it or understand it, it makes no sense, but it is there, always. You will get used to it. You can ignore it at times. There is nothing you can do to get away from it. You can only hope that it will be lifted in death.

No one in my entire life has assumed that I somehow represent an entire worldwide complexion of humans. White people don’t lump whites together as lazy or criminally inclined. We owe them that privilege. We owe them the respect of people whose families were bought and sold, brutalized, were and are murdered and continue to be oppressed because of their color, and yet they stay, they built the South, they serve our nation, yet it is not blacks who want to secede from us. We do not live with a fear of law enforcement, the stress of being weighed down by bigoted systems from birth, or the group rage that is their reality. We owe them that.

Black lives matter. What matters are the lives they lead. Can they live the lives that they want to lead, the lives that they are capable of living, for the same reasons, with the same obstacles and possibilities as whites? We owe them. We owe it to our race, the human race.

MARK EASTBURN

Eureka Springs