For the better part of our fall semester here at MiNT, we have been working on different ideas to help expand the reach of our website, and the thought of an updating blog has come up more than once in discussion. We hope that these posts can give readers insight into some of the current conversations that are occurring all over SUNY Geneseo’s campus. We want these blog posts to be opinions, and as such, add to the dialogue. If you have an idea you would like expressed, or are interested in writing regularly for the website, please send all work and inquiries to mint@geneseo.edu. Without further ado–
You walk out of Psychology and see a mass of people walking with signs that read “#BlackLivesMatter” and “No Justice No Peace” and other phrases that they chant into the cold winter air. They walk in a block, claiming the sidewalk as their own while other students skitter around the group. You walk a short distance behind them, unsure of whether or not you should join. You want to join. You feel the rage that these people do over the unjust deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. But you’re scared.
Why are you scared?
Because you feel like, in part, this is your fault, because you are white. You don’t have to worry about being shot on the street by a cop who was “scared.” You don’t have to worry about whether a hoodie will result in your death. You don’t have to deal with the daily racism that seems so common that no one thinks of it as racism anymore. People don’t skirt around you on the sidewalk. No one will look at you in a classroom that lacks diversity and expect you to speak for your entire race. People will never try to eliminate your race when they talk about colorblindness, because they don’t realize it’s just another way of saying you act white. Whatever acting white means.
Because you know that your ancestors were the ones who were too power hungry to care about other human lives.
Because the black community is still treated like second class citizens, while you are not.
Because you have a privilege, and you are ashamed of it.
You watch as the group of protestors gather around in a circle on the college green. They’re in the middle of campus, the area every high school senior in New York will see on the Geneseo brochures. Wind rustles the hair of the protestors as they bow their heads. Their hands are clasped together in a moment of silent for all of the victims of police violence, especially the ones in the past few months. Tour groups watch on in silence. Students watch in silence. A few people take pictures with their phones. You walk into the ISC, because the silence is too much to bear. From the couch next to the window you see the protestors let go of each other’s hands and raise their signs. They start chanting, but you can’t hear it from where you sit.
So you go back outside. You walk around the circle of protestors and watch. You become the tour groups. You become the other students who simply stare and seem not to care about the issue enough. All of these people are out on the green to share their opinion and their hope for a whole where race doesn’t predetermine the life that you live. You support them, but you feel like you don’t belong with them.
And that’s when you realize that you are part of the problem. You are a bystander too scared to take action, to show where you stand. You are a silent voice that allows racism to slip by on whispers of unconscious conversation.
One step. Two steps. Three steps. Pause.
You stand a few feet behind the ring of people, further forward than the other silent viewers but still not part of the group.
Your breath catches and your heart speeds up. It makes no sense, because all you’re doing is joining a circle of people.
But joining a circle is not as difficult as being black in a culture that works against you. Joining a circle is not as scary as wondering whether or not you will return home, because an aggressive cop decided you were too threatening to live.
So you take those last steps to join the circle. The shift from passive watcher to active participant is made, and the silence dissolves. You chant with the crowd. You put your hands even with your shoulders as the mantra of your generation’s civil rights movement echoes through the valley.
“Hands up. Don’t shoot.”
“Hands up. Don’t shoot.”
“Hands up. Don’t shoot.”
Everyone in the circle joins hands and holds them above their heads as the chant continues.
You do not know the people on either side of you, but that doesn’t matter. One is white like you. The other is Chinese. Both are male. On either side of them are white girls. There are black girls. And black guys. You recognize a few people from Pride. Your friends stand somewhere else in the circle. Together you all stand in solidarity with Ferguson. You all stand for a community that still faces struggles, and you all pledge yourselves to help as best as you can.
–Lizzie Pellegrino
Picture: “Untitled” by Sarah Simon (Volume 30 Issue II)
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