Facebook Publication Date: 3/24/2018 22:03
On The Subject Of This Day Of All Our Lives
This was a rare day indeed.
Literally millions of young people, and the adults who supported them, turned up all over the country to protest gun violence. By all measures it was a great success.
But for some—including for myself—embedded in that success, is real pain.
Lace on Race just did a series of tweets that highlighted the disparities between today, and the experiences of young brown and black activists over the years.
I have also amplified some of the voices that spoke to the gulf, writ large here, between who is allowed to protest, how, and under whose protection and approbation.
Because of that there has been some pushback from some people who basically hold that (like with the Women’s Marches) that critique or commentary disrespected the march and, as well, the young people who put it on.
Not so. The critique is not aimed at the young people, rather, at their elders. The disparities that exist; the differences in the experiences; the ramifications and outcomes and consequences, which will be, and have been, very different for different cohorts and demographics are not to be placed like albatrosses around the necks of the highschoolers. They are to be laid at the feet of the people who perpetuate and profit from these differences.
My observations are not unique. Many people saw and spoke and wrote about the glaring chasm.
Many more did not, and instead of listening, made some statements (some directly to me) that leads me to realize that the differences in how *the adults*, who still make and enforce the laws, however selectively, chose to react and process (or not), acknowledge (or not), internalize the real pain and insult and betrayal of their darker neighbors (or not) is telling.
The questions/statements can be clumped.
One which has always set my teeth on edge are various permutations of ‘The Children Will Save Us’. I hate that to my marrow. Adults kick the can of authentic, sustainable change on to children when they refuse to do the work themselves. As in racial justice work, gun violence, since the Brady Bill of the early 1980’s, has been nibbled at around the edges with no real substantive change. But we are supposed to believe that this one time action, today, will turn this NRA funded aircraft carrier around?
Truth: this March (too soon to call it a movement) will have staying power and gravitas and performative value and efficacy *to the exact extent that adults allow it to*.
Period. Which means that both the marketplace aspect and the legislative aspect needs to be dealt with. And children will not be in the room. Adults need to have the fortitude we displace on to children.
We are doing what narcissistic parents do—parentifying our children; expecting them to save us from our worst impulses and motivations. In a real way, that is passive abuse. We need to stop this.
The second issue is no less urgent. We need to hoover the money out of violence; again, something that only we with skin in the financial game can do. Economic activism has had mixed success–*because it has been done intermittently and incompletely.* We need to divest from anything that carries the taint of gun violence (and that includes the prison industrial complex which does great violence to people marginalized by race and or class).
Yes. Yes. Yes. Our lives will change. Our economy will feel the shock and strain. But if we are serious about listening to these children, we gotta be willing to do exactly that.
We need to vote, yes. But we also need to use our franchise on the other days outside the Tuesdays when elections are held. We gotta be there the other 364 days. We gotta know what and how our reps vote. We gotta know who gives them what. We need to be able to rattle off our congressperson’s and senator’s and statewide and municipal/county elected officials stats like we can with GoT or the Dodgers or the Patriots. This has to be more important than anything else. If we are not willing to do these things, today was an abject waste of time.
Lastly, but certainly not least, we absolutely have to look at the fetid racial narrative that played out today—not the fault of the young people who did, on the main, a good job of amplifying the concerns and the visibility of persons of color. But like the tweet series underscored, we gotta look at what days of marching and protest mean for different cohorts.
And I mean a hard look at what those in power said in word and deed to the young people today, and to their brown and black counterparts who have been fighting this fight for literally decades.
To which, when confronted with this last sentence, a lot of people—a lot of *white* people, resorted to feigned helplessness and indirect sarcasm and disingenuousness. ‘So you would rather we stayed home then?’ they asked. Can we do nothing right? Why even bother?
Because just as the modern environmental movement wound up being a pivot from civil rights; so can this focus be a pivot (well, not a pivot; that would suggest that there was focused, serious, sustained action in the first place) from issues that have, yes, terrorized, brown and black bodies and psyches and soul for decades, nay, even centuries.
Today will have value, again, to the exact extent that dominant culture is able to generalize and extend the compassion and empathy that they rightly held for those they could relate to; to those in whom they could see their own sons and daughters—till they are able to say without stuttering or twitching or clenching and with full throat that every life does indeed matter.
Despite the numbers that came out today, that dream is as unfulfilled this evening as it was 24 hours ago. We need to have the rapid response like we saw in these short weeks, fueled by authentic and unwavering and reliable and relentless empathy and solidarity to every child—including Marquita. Including Navood. Including Francisco. Including Tran.
Until then, Welp.
The march happened. Good. The sponsors can take down their banners; the hydration stations can be dismantled; the police can take the sunscreen out of their holsters and put the batons and tear gas back in.
What happens now? You with the voter cards and 401k’s and contacts; what are you going to do; not just for those with whom you identified; but for and with the people you have, both directly and indirectly, both covertly and overtly, both by commission and by omission ignored and scorned; what are you going to do on 3-25 and beyond?
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