I spent the good half of yesterday watching a live feed of the protest in Seattle. It had started peacefully enough, but soon Eileen Fisher was being looted. People were fleeing the Helly Hansen store with arms full of puffer jackets. More puffer jackets than a single person could need. Cop cars were set afire. (How exactly does one set a car on fire? My husband and I wondered. It's the seats. The seats catch fire first). A woman made off with a whole cheesecake. A whole cheesecake precariously perched atop a plate, uncovered, unsheltered from the chaos of civil unrest as she made her way down the street. A one-legged mannequin lay naked next to a light post.
Michael from KING5 repeatedly inhaled that chemical smoke that made his throat burn. But he continued covering. He be reporting, we noted with admiration.
When news of George Floyd started flooding my newsfeed a few days ago, I signed an online petition for the police officers who murdered him to be charged for their crime. And then I thought to myself-- what good will that really do? Does my one name on this one petition mean anything?
And we've been having this ongoing conversation about racism. We all have our own experiences with racism-- enduring it, harboring it, ignoring it. But now cities are on fire. And we need to face this big problem. It's ugly, and we don't know how to start.
We are all human. In all shades of the flesh-toned rainbow. Pink, yellow, black, brown. We all deserve to be treated as such. As human. We're different, but we're all human. Let's be human together.
-j
