June.. 2020 ago

I know…it’s not June yet BUT….today brings back memories for me.

We were in the middle of COVID, I had just decided that I would offer antiracism education to the Fitness/Pilates community and the Black community had just experienced another lynching. This time though it seemed so personal. Not like it wasn’t personal then but this one hit different. It was a lynching felt all over the world.

I wish that Emmet Till’s death would have had the same experience but things were different then.

I did not expect to get the response from white people that I did. It was OVERWHELMIING. There was the Black insecure part of me who wanted to be seen by white folks and who enjoyed the “recognition.” This was a colonized Sonja. A Sonja whose mind had been conditioned to believe that ANY attention a white person gives you means you have been given entrance into the the world of privilege and respect …. from white people. The “know better than that” Sonja knew that this would only last for a SHORT bullshit season. And it did.

I thought that after George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and many others, that perhaps white silence would become more like white noise disrupting their racist believes. That lasted about two months. Even after Breonna’s trial of injustice, it never returned to June 2020.

Tomorrow is June 1st and it feels completely different. As I gaze through Facebook and instagram, the white community has returned to its same status white qou. My DMs are just my friends which is fine but for context I am mentioning the lack of the white folks half way concern. Yes, it was what I call “white knee jerk reaction” but I am realizing that unless we die, white people could care less. Honestly, I am not sure if they would react the same way if George Floyd happened again with a different Black person.

How gruesome it is to innately want to see Black blood spilled and then to react.

White supremacy has such a hold that it only responds to death.

I hope that the education I have offered (and will continue to offer) has made some impact…hopefully to the point that those who continue to do this work of antiracism, will not need the bloodshed of Black lives.

White knee jerk reaction - When white people respond to Black bloodshed without thinking ie. donate to Black organizations they were not donating to in the first place, create scholarships, DEI officer positions; reach out to Black friends hoping to get some sort of relief from their guilt, buy all the books and attend webinars on antiracism/DEI and then stop. These are just a few examples.