I've been a news junkie since I was little. I would go to sleepovers in elementary school and ask if we could watch the national news at 5:30, preferably Tom Brokaw on NBC. To this day I love watching the news and have strong opinions on news anchors and a preference for who reports on certain breaking news topics. I love being in the know. I get up and watch the news before I head to work (and the first hour or so of my work from home life). I come home from work and watch the news at dinner. I get it, the news is usually depressing and there can be a lot happening and it might feel far away. Often those slow news days where they report something ridiculous about butter cow themes or the latest place to try a Viking taco (it's just lefse with plain ground beef for the record), I beg for different headlines. I know the cost of exciting news can be high - it's likely that someone's life is jeopardy or worse.
The average day I use social media to keep up to date on the world happenings. This is how I found out on a car ride that Kobe Bryant had died. This is how I discovered there were COVID-19 business closures. I spend much more of my time on social media looking for the latest news updates than I do looking at your wedding photos, new babies, and fancy brunches. But lately, social media has been overwhelming. Like overwhelming to the point my mood was sour and my heart rate was up after I scrolled through it. I deleted several apps off my phone so that I could not obsessively check for updates. I make a conscious effort to go on Facebook and Twitter on my computer and I do it sparingly because I end up down a rabbit hole of information overload. The COVID-19 updates were bad. The George Floyd updates are worse. Every outlet is a dumpster fire all day long.
I'm not black and I can't pretend to know what it's like to be black. I can't fathom living life that carefully or consciously every single day. That doesn't mean I don't care. I ache for the people out there trying to exercise a fundamental right only to be run over by trucks and hit with teargas. I've seen some wonderfully organized protests turn violent in the blink of an eye. No one deserves that treatment. At the same time I hurt for my neighbor, a local cop, working 10 hour shifts during the day and SWAT team all night, running on a few hours of sleep each day. He has four kids under 10. I see the worry in each of their eyes. His wife sends me daily updates of how they are doing because her support networks are sparse. There's always room for more care. This is a trying time and the only way we get through it is working together because no man is an island entire of himself.
White people need to work harder to have compassion and be openly supportive, myself included. White people need to listen to what black people think and feel about racism. And I mean truly listen without judgment or assumption. Be open to the fact that not being white is tremendously harder than you ever thought and you have absolutely nothing to compare it to. I've found myself on the sidelines lately because I wasn't sure what to say. I was overwhelmed with the information overload and overanalyzing all of it. I decided a word vomit blog post might be needed to process and reconcile some thoughts. The headlines are nearby: Minneapolis, Des Moines, Davenport. These places matter to me and are too close to deem them insignificant. I needed to step up with a purpose.
As a white person I want to work harder to more openly support oppressed people. I know I am not a racist but I put nothing out there to prove it. So here it is: I'm here for you. All of you, oppressed by whoever or whatever is holding you back, because of something you can't change. It might be the police; it might be your workplace; it might be your neighborhood; it might be the grocery store; it might be your family. Or maybe it is literally everywhere you go. You didn't sign up for assumptions and oppression and you certainly don't deserve it. You deserve to be treated with respect. And I am here to give it to you. This post is not perfect but I hope I am at least headed in the right direction. Hold me accountable if I'm off base.
I'm hopeful for a very different world and some very different (and uplifting!) news soon. Unrelated, it was reported a tiger went missing from the Oakland zoo this morning and it barely made the national headlines. I miss the days of boring news headlines. But a lot has to change - and it won't just be headlines - before we get more missing tiger commentary at the top of the hour.
