George Floyd was murdered in broad daylight by an officer of the law with witnesses standing near, yet I haven’t said anything here.
People are protesting in the streets, still I’ve stayed home, safe in my little world, pleading age and fear of contracting a virus.
Friends are hurting, at each other’s throats, but I’ve not written a word. That’s my privilege and my shame.
Instead, I’m listening. Learning. Taking notes. My whiteness is my shield and my weakness in matters of color.
I know this, though, black lives matter, and even if I don’t know what else to do or say. I’ll keep saying those three words.
Black Lives Matter.
Praying for Eyebrowz 
I am not protesting and catching Covid…you obviously saw how packed in and infiltrated by paid trouble makers the marches were……..the latest graph is off the charts….just live your life with mutual respect. Your next book could be a collection of black opinions and insights regarding specific questions on racism….that can be read, shared , and a portion of profits donated to black educational funds……lasts forever and actually raises money
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There are facets of this process that should call out to every white individual to look deeply within themselves and question their place within our society and their role as adding to, or detracting from real change. We will all make decisions about how and why we respond in the ways that we do. Becoming more self-aware and willing to own the inequity behind our privileges that so many others are not afforded creates an opening for growth.
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I have hopes that real change will come now.
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Real change is slow and made up of infinitely small steps. It happens so slowly that you don’t realise it is happening at all. One day you will wake up and think wow I can’t believe we did all that back then. Remember a few hundred years ago it was normal to capture Africans and ship them to the Americas to be sold to rich white people. It changed.
In my country First Nations people were legally defined as part of the native flora and fauna until 1960!!!!! Yes you read that right. Indigenous Australian people were considered native animals until 1960. Almost no one knows this.
Change will come through education. Your friend is right. Creating a fund for better education is a much more long term solution that marching in the streets.
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Thank you.
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Are you Australian? I am too! I’ve been trying to,on twitter though, remind people. That only as recent as the 60’s were Australians treating it’s Indigenous people, like they weren’t human at all. There are still people alive from the 60’s!It really did shock me when I found out, that only in the 60’s, they had that Referendum. 1967 to be exact, so NEARLY the 70’s!
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Yes I am. It seems there aren’t that many of us here.
Yes. Although it isn’t as cut and dried as the referendum. Before that rights varied from state to state. Since that many things still happened. It wasn’t until the 70s that unpaid labour (essentially slavery) was stopped. In fact there are some examples of grossly unequal working conditions still happening today.
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Well said, Leslie. I’ve been feeling the same way. My whole blog persona for the most part is to perpetuate the silliness of human nature. Inanity and imbecile humor is sort of my stock and trade around these parts. But I don’t want to appear like Nero fiddling, and like you I prefer to listen and learn. – Marty
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I’ve been posting meaningless stuff. A distraction, I guess. Think I’ll take a break.
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Well said. My youngest daughter and her family did join in in Nottingham. Everyone kept their distances and were very peaceful
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That’s good to hear! We’ve had some fairly large protests in Tallahassee.
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I have been a bit like you as well. I have written a couple times about Black Lives Matter and of the goings on, but mostly I have been reading and learning and taking it all in. If there was no COVID, I would be out there protesting, but I will not bring such risk upon my kids and my family. And you are right, that it is a privileged to have that choice to not take that risk.
I also can not only write about it, about George Floyd, about COVID, about the political and social upheaval and unravel, about the big and scary. I need an outlet to write about the frivolous and shining little moments in my life, a place of solitude that I have some control over, because I sure feel/know that there is a lot right now that is completely out of my control.
Thank you for writing this.
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Thank you. I struggled with the words because I don’t want to make it about me. And yet, it’s almost impossible not to.
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I have felt the same way. I don’t know how to lend my voice (on my blog) so I don’t. I also don’t want to join the masses of people protesting. If the virus wasn’t an issue I would, but I’m too old to consider myself invincible. I do know how to listen, learn, and open my checkbook.
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Exactly!
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