Moving Forward

I always thought after this whole Covid fiasco cleared up the first crowd I would stand in would be that of a concert. There would be people screaming and jumping around. Smiling. Laughing. Emotions would overflow upon emotions and we would repeat the lyrics being thrown at us. We would lose our voices and that is just fine. I pictured all of the different people that would be there. People of different size, race, age, sexuality, and backgrounds coming together to unite under the console of music and freedom to express.

I guess this wasn’t much different.

But this was much more important.

I am a mere moving particle in the cusp of a movement. A movement taking place simultaneously around the world. A controversy for the ages. A needed break to the surface. The day is June 5th, about a week since the video of a black man being silenced indefinitely challenged the silence of our existence.

And now, I stand in a crowd heaving forward down a street. We are stopping intersections, acquiring attention, and demanding justice. All around me are faces of different color, which is what makes this more powerful. Not one face stands out in the crowd because each is so very different. Black, brown, white, old and new; we mesh together like a wave crashing over the sand.

One question rang through my head, annoying enough. Before I arrived at the protest, my friend’s mother asked me, “If you are white, why are you going?”

Privilege. That forsaken word. It is what they call a blessing and a curse. The safety that came with that word and the paleness of my skin made me feel guilty. It made me uncomfortable and sometimes, it made white people feel more comfortable; which was even more disgusting. I always knew that with privilege came responsibility. Yet, I did not always know what that responsibility was.

In the sea of distraught faces and pleading justice I finally knew what the responsibility that came with privilege was. We were all outliers tied together in a similar force. “If you are white, why are you going?” Because if I don’t go, that is one more privileged person sufficing to how easy their race has had it for the past centuries. My responsibility and everyone else’s responsibility is to fight the apathetic natures of our society. Silence was no longer an “option.”

The Movement banded together and continued down the street. My eyes brushed over everyone ahead of me. Signs were waved with creative and powerful messages scrawled, fists were thrusted into the air, voices chanted to the cries of fallen names that will not be forgotten. The amount of people concentrated in one area with the same breaking heart was invigorating. A source of energy destined to enact change.

The Movement stood together. Although some of us could never understand. We stood for those around us. For those who weren’t with us anymore.

My heart breaks for you.