I Don't Get It

I don’t get why, when a black man tells a white woman to follow the law and leash her dog, she calls the police and screams that she is being harassed by a black man. Amy Cooper did that to [no relation] Christian Cooper.

I don’t get how, when a black man, intoxicated and ALLEGEDLY resisting arrest, is pushed to the ground so a police officer can put a knee on his neck and murder him. George Floyd screamed, “I can’t breathe,” and they didn’t stop.

I don’t get how a white woman in a park feels she has the right to walk up to a group of Latinos listening to mariachi music and demand they play “American” music, and screams how “fucking disrespectful” they are. White Racist Karen did that.

I don’t get why a man spent 37 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and when he’s finally exonerated by The Innocence Project, Natalie Morales of NBC News suggests he was convicted because he couldn’t afford a good lawyer, even though the evidence clearly proved he was innocent. Archie Williams is a black man who, like so many other black men, was screwed over by the American judicial system.

I don’t get why more people aren’t speaking up. Oh, the brown people and the black people are speaking up, but white people, a lot of them, just shake their heads and say, ‘How sad,’ and then go on about their day. If we want to end racism in this country, we … WE …all of us, need to speak up and tell these stories and all of the other stories and demand that abusive murderous police officers get fired; demand that dog-choking racists in the park be fired from their jobs; find and name the Karens of the world; protest when a person of color doesn’t get a fair shake by the American judicial system; and shout back when those in positions of leadership call Nazis “very fine people.”

We may not end racism in this country because it’s still being taught, but we can shout it down and shove it into the light and shame the racists into silence, rather than continue to do nothing and let them terrorize this country.