The Center

I do this thing where I read black books or watch black movies and tell the people of color in my life about them as if I deserve a cookie that has “Thank you for being a woke white person” written in pink icing. I had picked up Hidden Figures from the library because it was February and Black History Month and wow, remember libraries? When I sat down for my one-on-one with my supervisor, I brought it up watching it and its depictions of microaggressions. She immediately rattled off 5 other movies that I hadn't seen that she said were essential watching for Black History. One of those films was Selma. I'm sorry to say the only other one I remember is The Color Purple. I nodded my head, smiled, and then we got back to talking about teaching.

On June 1st, I placed a hold on Selma. Sure, the library wasn't opening for another month, but the cultural movement around George Floyd and Breonna Taylor was swelling and the movie had come up again and again on those “anti-racist primer” lists that have been swirling around social media. A few days later, Ava DuVernay announced that it would be streaming on all platforms for June. I couldn't believe my luck.

On June 20th, after completing a dice workout on the second floor of our unconditioned house at 9 o'clock at night, I put on the movie.

When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr (David Oyelowo) started preaching, I wasn't sure what hit me. I was rooted to the spot, riveted by his craft, his faith, and his urgency. I saw the full force of a man who is fighting for his life and his community's lives, for his nation's life. When Jimmie Lee Jackson (LaKeith Stanfield) was shot, I started crying. I didn't stop for the rest of the movie.

I felt the cold rage pour over me as I watched this reenactment of an activist’s death: engulfed by the injustice created by the white men like George Wallace in politics who planned/plan for violence against peaceful Black marchers, by white men in law enforcement like James Bonard Fowler who shoot Black people with no consequences, by my own feelings—that young black men have been shot this past week, past month, past year, past decade, past century, and it is only at this very moment, during this historical retelling, that I can find my love for my neighbor swelling up in anger.

Where was it when Ahmaud Arbery died? When Trayvon Martin died? When Breonna Taylor died? When Freddie Gray died? When Rayshard Brooks died? When Riah Milton died? When Tony McDade died? When Quintonio LeGrier died? When Che Taylor died? When Pamela Turner died? When Nathan R. Hodge died? When Alvin Cole died? When Omer Ismail Ali died? When the rest of the names on this list and displayed on this map died?

How can I be outraged at the ignorance in history when the ignorance is still right inside me?

Believe me, I'm not looking for sympathy or excuses here. There are none. I'm mad that my white self has to have every roadblock removed before I bother to educate myself: that this movie had to be made, come out to critical acclaim, be recommended to me 5 years later, and come out free on streaming platforms before I decided I should know more. I'm mad that I expect my white gaze to be catered to by all. I’m mad I haven’t recognized it before.

“I have no interest in pimping out my oppression, my trauma, my pain, for your colonial consumption. I have no interest in spilling my stories for your shallow reflections and intentional inaction. I exist. Not so you can sip knowledge from my vessel of racial pain and ‘learn’. I exist. So I can thrive; me and mine.” — Hema Khodai, “Amma”

There is a time for action steps. There is a time to learn. But right now? I'm stewing in this anger to help myself remember for when I'm in a job, when I'm in a room of only white people, when I notice whiteness being centered. Maybe then I can look back and remember how I felt watching that fictional life being taken away, how I felt seeing my ignorance thrust fully into my face. Maybe then I can better push against the systems that would prefer me to stay ignorant, stay guilty, stay silent, stay centered.