“All living is listening for a throat to open. The length of its silence shaping lives.” - Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (2014)
Never before have tempest and tranquility coexisted so beautifully. Never before. In my life, perhaps never again.
What is the first thing you think of when you hear the name “George”? I think of my older brother George Z. Bakuli. Since he passed away six years ago, I think about him literally every single day. Every single day. I am blessed to have had him in my life. I am blessed to continue to have him in my thoughts. But the heartbreak lingers, especially with each passing year; the feeling grows of just how young he was when he died. Just 29 years old. Just beginning his life in so many ways.
When I think of George, I think of his social courage. His steady moral compass. His independence of mind. I think of his indomitable will. His loyalty to those he loved and who loved him. His pride in his Blackness, his ancestry, and his family. I think of his big smile; how he playfully lorded over me that, unlike me, he had a great smile without ever needing braces. How he encouraged me to stand up for myself and to never brook the opinion that I wasn’t capable. I think of how he knew, like I knew, that the odds were stacked against us; and how he encouraged me not to mind if pursuing my dreams or doing the right thing made other people feel uncomfortable about themselves, especially white people. I think of how every time after I achieved some big goal growing up, whether an A on an essay or victory in a school election, I would tell him, “Next time, y’all best bring kryptonite”. I think of how, many years later, just a few months before he passed, on New Year’s Eve, after midnight, he unexpectedly texted me, “Next time, y’all best bring kryptonite! That’s your saying. Don’t ever forget that!” I think of how grateful I was and am that he remembered and appreciated details from our lives. I think of his arena-sized laugh. I think of his beautiful energy and ambitions and hopes and dreams. I think of how those were cut short, at just 29 years old, because of mental illness. I think of how it was not his fault. I think of how he fought for his life and his dignity. I think of how the health care system failed him. I think of how his employers and human resources failed him. I think of how even six years after he died, too many people continue to use language that stigmatizes mental health, unaware or uninterested of words besides “crazy” or “insane” to describe something negative. I think about so very, very much.
Above all, though, when I think about George, I think about courage. I think about how before he got sick, his courage to live better was his greatest gift to me. I think about how courage is the real wellspring of any meaningful change in our lives, communities, and societies. Since he passed away, on his birthday, June 11th, I’ve tried to meditate on courage. I try to remind myself to live courageously. This year was no different. If anything, the reminders were heightened. Because when I think about “George,” I also think about George Floyd. Unlike my brother, I don’t know intimate details of Floyd’s life. He was a Black man too. He had energy and ambitions and dreams. He had people he loved and who loved him. He also died too soon. In many ways today he is a symbol. A symbol of so many Black lives unjustly ended. Whether at the protests I have joined or on social media, when I see all the glorious signs for him and Breonna Taylor and Eric Garner and Tamir Rice and too many Black lives lost trying to say they mattered, I can’t help but think of my brother George, whose life mattered so much to me.
I’ve read a lot of late from white strangers, friends, and acquaintances about what they are doing to help make change happen and to prove that Black lives matter. They seek a better criminal justice system. Some even go further; they understand we will not have a better criminal justice system without other forms of justice, whether social, medical, or, above all, economic justice. This will take stamina, resolve, and courage. They are signaling they are ready to actively join a fight so many of us have been battling every single day of our lives. When I think about courage, though, I can’t help but think how unaware or uninterested so many of these strangers, friends, and acquaintances seem to be to opportunities to be courageous in their daily lives. It seems so much easier for people to stand in solidarity with people they have never met, and will never meet, than people in their own lives and communities. Black people in their own lives and communities. I don’t have a lot of answers for how to improve criminal justice. But I have some thoughts around how to improve economic justice. Here are a few:
Hire and retain Black people. Promote Black people. Fund Black people. Become a customer of a variety of Black businesses. Compensate Black people justly. Don’t steal Black people’s ideas and efforts and then erase their contributions. Don’t make excuses for, give special treatment to, or put on a pedestal non-Black people if you wouldn’t do likewise for Black people. Don’t penalize Black people for things you wouldn’t penalize others for. Don’t label Black people “angry” or “agitators” when they display the courage to specify their experiences as relates to being Black. Don’t gaslight Black people when they hold you accountable for your words, policies, and actions.
These aren’t hypotheticals. These are tangible choices in response to events I’ve both experienced and witnessed firsthand.
One thing in particular is critical: It’s not giving implicit special treatment to white people. I’ve seen over and over again white people say they are “acknowledging [their] privilege” and “learning to use [their] privilege well”. On the wide spectrum of say John Brown to Jefferson Davis, it is a gesture on the progressive side of things. But it is hardly enough. It just perpetuates in new ways the problems that got us here in the first place. I can’t help but think, “There’s no universal law that you should have privilege in the first place. How about a world in which white privilege doesn’t exist?” That seems to me a truly courageous idea and series of actions worth publicly speaking up about and fighting for. As a Black woman I work with said so well, “Rationalizing or compartmentalizing racism because it preserves privilege is a form of racism.” Rather than recognizing how good you have it undeservedly, and benevolently using that goodness for the benefit of Black people, how about a world in which you don’t undeservedly have it so good? Wouldn’t that be truly courageous?