She's terrified

The other day I was looking at some articles I wrote a few years ago. I found this one from 2020 and felt drawn to share it with you. Maybe you’ll remember it - I didn’t! Here we are three years later and this issue has not been resolved and, I think, has only gotten worse. Here’s the article.

“While most of my choices about what sort of video programming to watch are socially acceptable within this community, I do have a few guilty pleasures I’m sure would be met with scorn. One of them is watching a show called Big Brother. Around 16 people live in a house for three months. They have no communication with the outside world. They scheme and lie, make alliances and break them, vote people off the show, all in the name of being the last person who then wins $500,000. I like to watch people, how they make decisions, and see human nature play out in all its glory. The part of me who has a degree in psychology has a lot of fun watching people figure each other out - or see them totally missing the mark. I’ve tried to coach them from the couch when I can, but they don’t always take my advice.

I haven’t watched every season because some of them have been too focused on people finding life partners, also known as hooking up, after only knowing one another for a few weeks. Boring. This year is pretty good and there was a recent conversation between two of the house guests that I found profound as well as deeply saddening.

It was between a black woman in her 30’s and a man, in his 40’s, who immigrated from Iraq. They were talking about some of their experiences as people of color. The woman said that every time her brothers leave the house, the entire family worries about them. Will this be the last time they see them alive? And, she said, when she’s driving somewhere, doing nothing wrong, and sees a police car, she is terrified. That’s the word she used: terrified.

Really let that sink in. If you have white skin and you are driving to the grocery store and see a police car, would you be terrified? I doubt it - unless you had just robbed a bank or killed someone. My heart went out to the young woman. I had been wondering lately how these shootings are affecting people of color emotionally.

When people say there isn’t racism in this country, that the issue has been solved, they are so wrong. We must continue to call out racism when we can and do the things we know will contribute to the solution. Let’s elect people who will take action on the issue of racism and not just speak platitudes or, worse yet, pretend racism doesn’t exist. Let’s create the day when no one has to be terrified to go to the grocery store because of the color of their skin.”

I have no further comment.

Living in grace and ease,

Krysta