BLACK LIVES MATTER

by Elizabeth Yeter

We’ve been waiting. We’ve been listening.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

We here at Resuscitating You stand in solidarity with you. We hear your pain at the injustices that have occurred and continue to occur every day in America. We grieve with you over the losses. Life, freedom, and dignity to name a few. Thank you for the awareness you are bringing to the whole world about the systemic racism that still exists in America.

 In 2015, my sister and I visited Turkey, the land that our father is from. For most of our stay we were with a small tour group of twelve people. As our little bus bumped along the road, we engaged in lively conversation not only about the rich history of Turkey, but also about a vast array of topics that come up when you have the opportunity to compare yourself to another culture.

One day our tour guide, Mehmet, was telling us a story about the racial divides that have historically been present in Turkey. He noted that some members of those minority groups had gained political power and were now represented in their equivalent to Congress. Therefore, Mehmet concluded, racism was no longer present in Turkey.

He began comparing it to United States. “You have a president who is black, right?” he postulated. “So how can you say that racism against black people still exists in America?” As you can imagine, every single person in the now close-knit tour group had a strong reaction. We tried to explain that just because Barack Obama had reached the highest level of power in the United States did not mean that all people of color were suddenly freed from centuries of oppression. It didn’t mean that systemic racism on the individual, institutional, and social levels were somehow magically erased. We tried to explain this to Mehmet, but he was having none of it. His mind was set: America had democratically voted in a black president, and so America was no longer a country plagued by racism.

I wish that his conclusion was true, but it was based on faulty logic. The liberation of all people from racism doesn’t come when one person from a group of the oppressed gains political power. To truly enact change, real change that persists, every American must look at the way we have been socialized – our attitudes, behaviors, language, thought patterns – and see how they have contributed to perpetuating a society that tolerates inequality. Yes, we are all the problem, and yes, we are all the solution.

We are listening. We are with you. We are silent no more.