Breaking my Silence on Ferguson

I have been quietly thinking and researching and stewing the past two days about the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri. And I have remained silent to my friends and family on Facebook while I process. Maybe I don’t want to say anything on social media because I don’t feel qualified to respond. Maybe I don’t want to say anything on social media because I don’t want to engage with the polarized language I feel saturated in. Maybe I don’t want to say anything because I am still processing.

Perhaps that processing time is a luxury afforded to me by my privilege.

And maybe that doesn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t feel compelled to engage on social media about many “political” ideals that matter to me. My social media being my “friendly  place” seems like my prerogative.

But maybe that’s selfish and short-sided. Because the truth is that the entire world is a friendlier place to me, a white woman, than it is to my black friends and students and colleagues and neighbors and fellow humans of the world. White privilege is a fact in this country. A fact.  While I cannot convince someone who does not believe this of its truth, I will not be silent about it.

My heart is heavy this week with the tragedy of Ferguson. My heart is heavy because a family lost a son, and I cannot imagine this pain. My heart is heavy because black lives matter, and too many have been lost in tragic death sentences that were unsanctioned and unwarranted. My heart is heavy because I know good law enforcement officers who long to keep peace in communities and make the world safer, and they do the best they can every single day. My heart is heavy because I, too, am a public servant in a field that “lacks accountability,” which people think they can do better than me simply because they’ve lived it on the other side of the desk. My heart is heavy because again, what I see on social media shows me that people coming together on an issue that matters so much is further away than ever. My heart is heavy because folks are making broad generalizations about many based on the actions of a few.

My students wrote conclusions for their argument papers on social issues today. I urged them to acknowledge the “gray” in their conclusions. I told them something like this: “If you are pretending like your issue is 100% black and white, then you are being irresponsible. The way to acknowledge the importance of your issue is to acknowledge that it is difficult to discuss and difficult to understand.”

And I brought up Ferguson in my classroom because it’s been on the fringes of our conversation for two days, and I didn’t want to be silent to my students anymore.

“You can say something like, ‘I get that being a law enforcement officer and making split-second decisions is difficult’ and follow it with ‘And I also get that black young men are 21 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than white young men. We have a problem with racism in our society.’ These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, so don’t feel like you have to pretend that they are. Admitting that you’re unsure, that there are multiple perspectives that are difficult to sort out--that doesn’t weaken your argument; it strengthens it. Because you’re showing that this is an issue worth discussing, worth seeking to understand. Don’t ever think that looking at the whole issue and trying to understand it demonstrates weakness.”

I don’t know if these are the right things to say because I’m not sure there are right things to say. But because there are so few “gray” voices in my news feed right now, I wanted to say something. Because if silence indicates that I don’t care about this issue--and the deeper underlying issues it exemplifies, that would be woefully incorrect.