I Think I'm Tired

I’m sick and tired of all the news. On top of the pandemic we have been dealing with for the last three months, now it’s all about black men being killed by police, rioting, protesting, violence, burning, shootings, demonstrations, and videos of people inciting violence and looting. There have been a few nice stories and videos that have shown solidarity, such as the sheriff in Flint, MI and the Camden, NJ law enforcement. It feels, however, like a constant bombardment of bad news, distressing headlines, and painful stimuli. I want it to end. I want it to stop. I want the movie we are watching to reach its conclusion and just let us go home in peace.
That’s what I want. That’s how I feel. I’m not the one bearing the brunt of this week after week, month after month, year after year of my life. I’m not the one who can’t just change the channel, log off Facebook, stop looking at Twitter, and go back to a life where the violence felt by people of color does not impact my life. For far too many around me, there simply is no escape. There is no turning off the constant, draining blast of degradation that has been a way of life for generations.
Even living in Brazil, I experienced racism and classism from a safe distance. I could remove myself from the burdens others bore as I went back to my single-family dwelling to shut out the world around me. I had a nice, safe buffer from the realities I saw so many people struggling against day after day. I heard time after time that I needed that respite for my own mental and emotional health. What about those who had to shoulder the burden of living in their own skin day after day after day?
That’s not something I was supposed to really think about. I was supposed to leave them at the office and go home to be refreshed and guard myself from burnout. Just as we leave work at the office, I was supposed to leave behind the struggles of the world all around me as I shut the front door coming home.
If my skin were another color, I would not have that luxury. If my parents had not been white, I would not have that luxury. If I had been born a few blocks over, my life would have been radically different that what it has been. I would not be able to look at the news in distress over what has been happening in the lives of those other people out there. If this were my story, if I were the one whom our institutions keep in their place, there would be no escape from this news. It would simply be the ongoing saga of my life experience.
I want things to quiet down because I am emotionally inconvenienced and that has gone on for almost a full week. My neighbor has been dealing with this very same distress for decades. When it was a few athletes taking a knee during a football game, we told them they were disrespecting the flag, the anthem, the military. When they tried to tell us of their suffering in words, we could not be bothered to listen. When they took to the streets to march peacefully, we told them not to march where we might see them. Time and again, we told them to protest as long as we were not inconvenienced, as long as we did not have to make any changes to our lives, as long as we could ignore them. We had that privilege, because we did not see ourselves being impacted by the violence they decried.
If I think I am tired after a week of reading about what is happening to other people, can you even begin to imagine what they must be feeling after dealing with this their whole lives?
I just think I’m tired. I have no idea what tired really means. I have no right to even use that word. I’m just a little inconvenienced. It’s probably about time.


— ©Copyright 2020, Christopher B. Harbin

http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

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