Now you care about Black burdens? Prove it
If we’re horrified by the footage of a white police officer taking the life of a Black man but not horrified by the conditions that led to that moment, if we’re appalled by this incident but deny the many replicated across the continent, we might as well acknowledge that our hand-wringing and outrage and righteous condemnation of antiBlack racism is a feel-good fad, a mockery of the million cuts that constitute Black lives.
Derek Chauvin’s knee on George Floyd’s neck in Minneapolis last week illustrated precisely the cruelty of 400 years of ongoing white supremacy at work.
Black people constantly live with the state’s boot on their necks. Pushed out of schools, shut out of jobs, shunned from housing, treated like violators despite being historical recipients of violence, devalued, surveilled, threatened and locked up for the slightest slights — the horror of Floyd’s death strikes uncomfortably close. It exacts a toll.
It’s a cumulative effect that, particularly in the context of a pandemic, puts Black people in a precarious place.
“It’s like a coming together of multiple issues that remind us that what is ultimately and consistently at stake is Black life in one way or another,” says Ryerson University assistant professor Idil Abdillahi. “It’s painful because of the compounded circumstance and not necessarily because the reality has changed.”
There is minimal data to paint an accurate portrait of the toll racism enacts on Black mental health in Canada. However medical science shows a constant state of worry, anxiety and hypervigilance can be debilitating.
“Certainly, feeling exhausted all the time also makes you prone to your body running down and potentially getting physical health issues,” Abdillahi says. “Your mental health is not separate from your physical health.”
If Floyd’s killing is a wound on humanity, so too is the global violence of anti-Black racism. Truth is, the trauma that’s visible right now is the constant reality for Black people. Many of us just happen to be paying attention.
“What’s happened with the broader public is that because we’re paused because of CO
VID, because people are home, because people are a bit more connected with their phones, social media, etc., the rest of the world has had to engage these issues in a different way,” says Abdillahi.
It’s important that Black people know it’s OK to be in pain. “We should not be OK right now,” she says. “If people weren’t sad, if people weren’t hurting, if people weren’t in pain, I’d be worried.”
American cities are burning as people are pushed to the edge, while in Canada, thousands of protesters took to the streets Saturday to seek justice for Toronto’s Regis Korchinski-Paquet, who died under mysterious circumstances last week in the presence of police who were called to her apartment.
TikTok celebs are changing their profile pictures to the raised-fist Black power gesture, school boards and universities are releasing statements denouncing anti-Black racism, white and brown people are feeling suddenly provoked to “check-in” on Black folks. Wow, a true moment of change, right? Not really, sorry.
Protests create some pressure. Changing profile pictures doesn’t. Denouncing racism is not anti-racism. A dozen corporate statements the Star saw came from entities that “stood firm,” “remained committed,” and touted “core values” and initiatives already taken during this “heavy week.” But what concrete actions were they committing to? The University of Waterloo outlined steps such as training it was undertaking but acknowledged training was not enough.
Niceness is not anti-racism. Frankly, it’s not even niceness when people reach out to ask, “How can I help?” It’s not anti-racism to ask already suffering Black individuals to take up the labour of educating others, too.
Author and journalist Eternity Martis got an email from a white woman, a stranger, who asked her to “read and give her feedback on her letter to an MPP because she’s upset over police killing Black people. She also asked me to send her links to my articles.”
Abdillahi, who co-authored the book “BlackLife: Post-BLM and the Struggle for Freedom” with University of Toronto Prof. Rinaldo Walcott, says there’s a part of this “checking in” that becomes exhausting. “First of all I’m not interested in you asking me how I’m doing, I’m interested in you telling me what you’re going to do about the impact of what I’m experiencing right now.”
It’s disingenuous, she says, if the people who didn’t care about her during COVID suddenly call and expect her to share her feelings.
“Check-ins are based on relationships and care and trust. Just calling me when we don’t have a context for that — that’s actually about you, that’s not about me.”
It’s the people checking in who need to educate themselves. Make themselves accountable. Accountability is not punishment. It’s action. Spell out the action they’re willing to take and commit to it long after the news fades away and George Floyd just becomes a statistic, another name in a long list of Black people senselessly killed by the state.
“The truth is I don’t need you to care about me,” Abdillahi says. “I need you to care about the world that is being built right now and what you’re going to do about that world. I don’t need the internet to incite you to imagine that life is difficult for me.”