Different

Just a little something I wrote to reflect on the recent outbreak in NYC and around the country regarding the Garner case. 

            I used to be an active member of Black and Hispanic Student Association (BaHSA) at my high school. During the election for a leadership position I told an anecdote that still stays with me. The summer after my first year at a boarding school, I was staying with my grandparents for a week or so in Korea. As my grandfather and I watched TV, out of the blue he grabbed my hand and very seriously told that I must not hang out with black people. “We’re just too different my dear,” he said. “Promise me you’ll never hang out with them.” At the time, I was dating a Hispanic boy and my best friend was black. I remember swallowing my tears and heading to the bathroom to get myself together. I couldn’t tell him he was wrong. I knew too well his angry, self-righteous response that would’ve followed. I shared my hope in my speech that if I continued to be educated and advocative of cultural and racial traditions and equality, someday my grandfather could notice the truth in our voice.

            This past Thanksgiving break, after watching the movie “Dear White People,” and hearing the Ferguson verdict, my moral discussions and concerns were stirred. “Dear White People” portrays and makes fun of the “bourgeois” micro-aggressions, and some times flat-out racisms happening on American collegiate institutions. It also portrays white institutional stake-holders as blind capitalists.

            The friend I was staying with during Thanksgiving was anxious all day when the Ferguson verdict was due. When it came out, he was disappointed but not surprised. I shared his sentiments.

            Now with the recent outbreak of the Garner case, and what seems like an explosion of anger and demand of consolation of all the overlooked past racial injustices, I want to remind myself to not loose hope. Humans in the modern day, (and yes this is a gross generalization) are addicted to verdicts –the truth that will blame and punish one person, and with the “criminal’s” pain, somehow the “victim’s” pain is compensated.

            I spent this morning reading up on the Garner case. In one video by the NYTimes, I was struck by Garner’s parents’ stance on the heat of protests and outrage. “Do it in peace,” the mother said. “Whatever you do, if you don’t do it in peace, don’t do it.” And another father asking an outraged man verbally attacking the police system on the streets, “please stop.”  Their wishes should be protected. It’s one thing to demand a re-evaluation of the US police-system, but when the popularity of this outrage is under the name of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, the family’s wishes is so crucial to protect.

            I am disturbed. Less by the two recent cases. Because at the end of the day, we don’t know what actually happened. We can investigate endlessly but the connection of self-defense and racial discrimination in such deaths will never be absolutely certain for us. I am sad that this is affecting so much people, and I am concerned that the way that people are expressing anger isn’t the most sensitive or effective way to bring change. So as a source of hope I turn to faith and the divine. Despite our differences and statement of differences, we are governed by the one divine. The way we connect to, celebrate and call the divine might be different. But what we have faith in must be the same.