ENOUGH!

One of the reasons that I speak with my father on the phone every day is to know that he made it home. He’s 83 and it’s not his health I’m worried about. He is VERY healthy. He walks a few miles every morning at the time when you and I are just turning over. Before COVID, he was on the 7:00 am bus to Manhattan at least three days out of the week just to hang out or to shop. So, you see, it’s not his health I’m worried about. 

Whenever my husband leaves the house, either for the five mile walks he likes to take or for the errands he runs, I’m worried until he gets home, I have a gnawing in my gut until I see his handsome face again. He could get stopped on foot, in the car, anywhere he is. There’s always a possibility that he won’t return to the home that we’ve made.

Our nephew goes to college in New Jersey. He’s young, he’s black, he’s a target. Our daughters go to college in Connecticut, they’re young, they’re black, they too are targets.

We are tired of the worrying, the pain, the anger. We are tired.

My brother is 6’6” he carries the additional burden of being seen as a threat. Like George Floyd, he’s a gentle giant. He hikes all around the country, rides his bike and calls to check on his big sister regularly. He’s been harassed by police on more than one occasion, once for walking his bike on the sidewalk. He’s called Costa Rica and America home.  He prefers Costa Rica. Leave my brother alone.

I stay in touch with several of the young men that were in a program that I managed at Morehouse College. Many of them are in medical school and dental school or have recently graduated and are now practicing. They are bright, hardworking young men who have worked hard to be able to serve. They are young, black and targets. I worry about each of them every day.

We all must continue to function with this fatigue. Function while working, function while dealing with COVID, function while taking care of our families. Families who are victim to these atrocities have to add grief and anger to their list of things that have to be tended to. It has to change. We deserve better.

If we don’t change the system (because it is a system that allows these atrocities) as a collective, IT WON’T HAPPEN. If we don’t change the system as a country, we will perish. Maybe we already have.

Namaste,

Dorian McDuffie