All parents were summoned when George Floyd cried out for his Momma
/By Matt Halvorson
Have you seen the video? Have you heard all of George Floyd’s last words?
“I can’t breathe.”
Do you know that he pleaded for his life over and over? That he called out for his Momma, who had passed away two years earlier?
If you are a parent, George Floyd named you by name.
“Momma…”
If you have a parent, or if you have been loved, you can imagine calling out for that person as you felt the life being pressed out of you.
“Momma…”
Our own children are calling out to us in his voice, desperately pleading for a protector, and this is the moment to step up and act.
Right now, we are grieving the loss of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Fuhr, Manuel Ellis, and so many others like them. And we are fearful, wondering who will be next. At what point will my oldest son — a big biracial Black boy turning 12 next month — stop looking like a cute kid and start looking like a scary threat to police officers carrying guns? It’s probably already happened, if we’re being honest, and that’s terrifying.
We’ve been talking for decades in Seattle about opportunity gaps in our classrooms, about disproportionate discipline of Black students in our districts, about racist policies and segregated schools and neighborhoods. And our schools have remained an inequitable mess the entire time, with students and families of color bearing the greatest burden.
Pioneer Square in Seattle on May 30, 2019. Photo by Matt Halvorson.
If you have acknowledged in recent years that the status quo is not okay, then at some point it was going to need to change. That was always going to require some sort of disruption. This is what that looks like.
And since this disruption is called for — necessary — longed for, even — I don’t find it disruptive, personally. I like to think of what’s happening now as more of an intervention. Enough is enough.
And in the midst of this unrest — because of it — we have some momentum. The question is whether or not we can sustain it long enough to force real, actual change.
Let’s be real. The System is not going to just disappear quietly into the night. He will prosecute and persecute protesters. He will suggest soft reforms in order to avoid the revolution we need. He will test our endurance and our fortitude. He will try to camouflage himself behind the myth of “good” police officers and “bad” police officers. “Good” people and “bad” people. “Good” kids and “bad” kids.
If it wasn’t clear before, we all know by now that education is just a branch on the American tree of systemic oppression and injustice. Prisons and policing make up another branch. Healthcare has a branch, too, and so do the banks. It’s all connected, of course, with capitalist-imperial-colonial roots that run deep.
Our liberation is tied up in the liberation of our neighbor, and now is the moment to live out that principle more fully than ever before, because it’s more than just a principle. The oppression of Black and Indigenous people in this country and around the world is a matter of fact that demands our attention and our deep consideration.
Near 12th and Pine in Seattle on June 8, 2019. Photo by Matt Halvorson.
It demands our attention as human beings with feelings. It demands our attention as parents. And it even demands the attention of our survival instinct, because know this: even if you are privileged, even if you feel safe, even if you are white… you are still all of these things within a violent, racist capitalist state. The System will kick you out on the street and watch you die without a second thought if you, for example, need too much help with a mental illness and/or addiction for too long. Or if you find you’ve lost your income and your safety net at the same time. Or if you get too sick and require more medical care than you can pay for. Or if you exist as a person of color. Or if you ignore racism in your community for so long that someone is murdered, and the “safety” you clung to so tightly disappears under the weight of your neutrality.
Now is the time to let go of old habits, and to embrace a future much brighter — more alive and more loving — than The System ever allowed us to dream of.
We are on a path toward abolition. Consider that it took a Civil War to end chattel slavery, and that the Montgomery Bus Boycott alone lasted 382 days.
How committed are you to this? What will you do? And what will you keep doing?
What can we do?
For (white) folks looking to get involved, here are a few ideas. For people of color, maybe some of this is applicable, but I’m not trying to tell you what to do here. Take care of yourself and please feel free to tell me what I’m missing.
Support radical Black and Indigenous leadership. If things are this bad, which they are, the solution might seem radical at first. You might not understand it yet. It might feel uncomfortable. It might even sound like something your schools conditioned you to fear. But trust that radical change is what’s needed, and that Black and Indigenous leaders are the ones to show us the way. Feel the fear, and do it anyway.
My sleeping babies.
Show up. Wherever you are, something is happening, and it needs you.
I’m a white dad with biracial Black kids. Our kids have been with us in Ferguson, in Standing Rock, at ICE detention centers, and for the past week out in the streets in Seattle. My five-year-old son joined me at four daytime marches last week. We marched down Rainier Ave yesterday pushing two kids under 2 in a stroller wagon. You’ll be fine.
In Seattle, there is a constant presence at Cal Anderson Park in occupation of the nearby police precinct, which the police abandoned yesterday. The barriers on Pine near 12th Ave., now removed, had been the site of most of the police violence against protesters in the first week-plus of the uprising.
Just about every evening for the past week and a half, I came home from a march, helped get my kids fed and to bed, and then went back out to the Cal Anderson area for several more hours. You’re part of this, too, whether you want to be or not. Now is the time. There is no neutral.
Be prepared for The System’s tricks. He will try to tell you that the protesters are violent. That they are extremists. That they represent a tiny fraction of the country’s interests. He is lying.
The System will try to convince you that you’ve won when you still aren’t free. He will tell you about solidarity without really changing a thing.
Capitol Hill in Seattle on June 3, 2019. Photo by Matt Halvorson.
See through his empty gestures. We don’t need elected leaders to kneel in showy faux-solidarity any more than we need police officers to kneel at a protest. True solidarity would be to take off the badge altogether, or to fervently support legislation to disband the police and free incarcerated people. To choke off the System’s funding sources by divesting from for-profit banks and their long history of racism, redlining and financially backing the extractive industries we’re fighting.
Because let's be clear: we can reform police policies until they’re blue in the face, and they can ban choke holds and excessive force as much as they want, but that won’t prevent another Black person from dying at the hands of a violent police force. Disbanding that violent police force, on the other hand, would do exactly that.
The goal is not to make sure The System prosecutes the next killer cop, but they will try to convince you that’s enough. The goal is to keep the next innocent person from dying, and to abolish the structures and institutions that perpetuate the violence.
Expect the police to lie, fabricate charges, intimidate and escalate. Already this week in Seattle, after “banning” tear gas for 30 days, police have shot rubber bullets at unarmed protesters, launched flash grenades at media, sprayed pepper spray into a woman’s car, and been authorized to use CS gas and OC spray.
On Sunday night, they shot a young woman in the chest with a flash grenade. As volunteer medics frantically performed CPR on her in little tent, the police shot a flash grenade into the same tent. From what I understand, the woman survived, driven to the hospital in someone’s car because no ambulance could reach her.
Always remember that property destruction is not violence.
Control what you can control. You can do your part to personally disempower the police by taking a pledge to end your own relationship with the police. Here’s a quick trivia question that sums it all up.
Q: Knowing what you know now, when is it appropriate for you to call the police?
A: Never! I will never, under any circumstances, voluntarily invite the police into my vicinity or engage them for “help.” To do so is to knowingly endanger the Black and Indigenous people around me. In fact, if I see a person of color interacting with police — especially a Black or Indigenous person, and especially if they alone — I promise to stop and bear witness.
Correct! You are on a pathway toward reclaiming your personal power from the police state.
Racism only exists because we are all conditioned to perpetuate it. All of us. Confront the racism you are complicit in and that you perpetuate in your world — with your families, friends, children, co-workers, and with the institutions and organizations you hold dear.
This will often be a difficult and sad process. I personally find it much easier to confront racism in strangers, or in institutions, or in people I’m not lovingly invested in. It’s been much more difficult — to the point of being completely paralyzing much of the time — to talk with friends and family about ways they personally have impacted my partner or my kids, or to confront the ways our day-to-day lives are part of the problem.
The difficult reality is that we all mean well, for the most part. Most of us don’t want to be “racist.” But we are. All of us. And shouting down elected officials, shaming school board members, railing on about strategies to dismantle the System… that’s all well and good (or maybe it’s not, actually), but it starts to ring hollow if we don’t exert our influence within our closest relationships as well. As someone raised on Midwestern passive-aggressiveness and “niceness,” it doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m working on it and still coming up short. Eclipse me. Show me what’s possible.
Weaponize your privilege to support the uprising. What is your sphere of influence? Is there a school leader or an organization that might be interested in your opinion? Tell them to end their relationship with the police and to adopt formal policies to keep people safe from the police. Do you know Mayor Jenny Durkan? Drop her a note and encourage her to resign. Do you know someone on the city council? The school board? Let them know how serious you are about defunding the police. Use your superpowers for good.
King County Equity Now, a coalition that has spent nearly two decades working to build sustained equity for the Seattle area’s Black and African people, has always been fronted by local Black leaders and organizations. You can follow their lead now by familiarizing yourself with their demands, which have been shared widely by recognized community leaders like Nikkita Oliver, K. Wyking Garrett and others. We should be listening to them. Note in particular their final demand, as it relates to our kids and our schools, but remember that it’s all connected. This is not a time to cherry-pick our support.
Thank you for everything you’re doing. I appreciate you. Let’s abolish the police.
Love,
Matt
Matt Halvorson is a musician and writer living in Seattle with his partner, Lindsay, and their four kids. He is the founder of Rise Up for Students, a blog advocating for equity in education in Seattle and beyond, and of the Rise Up Music Project. Matt’s most recent album, “Sermons,” is available everywhere except Amazon.
