‘White people, we’re never going to understand’: Vikings’ Conklin on George Floyd, racism, empathy
'As white people, we’re never going to understand'
— the debut collection —
an examination of systemic racism through five different perspectives
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— part one —
Tyler Conklin
Minnesota Vikings’ tight end Tyler Conklin linked with 1MEDIA to speak on attending George Floyd’s memorial service, why most white people struggle to comprehend institutional racism, the efficacy of listening, empathizing, and self-reflecting in pursuit of understanding ourselves and others, and his one-of-one quest from Division II basketball to the NFL.
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‘Eat the meat, throw away the bone’
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“I didn’t really know where I fit in, exactly,” Tyler Conklin remembered thinking.
Just over a week after the murder of George Floyd, Conklin was one of twelve Minnesota Vikings players to attend the private memorial held for Floyd in Minneapolis. In a conversation with 1MEDIA, he recalled working through a vast array of thoughts and emotions in the days leading up to the service.
“It can be tricky, you know? I wanted to make sure I was handling it right. Because, even if you have the greatest intentions, you might say something wrong, or people may try to spin it,” Conklin said of his concerns over making unintended missteps while trying to show his support for racial justice.
“So, it can be a tricky situation, but it is something that I’m really passionate about,” he implored. “It’s something I really want to be able to get out there and help with.”
To help him navigate the situation, Conklin reached out to Black friends and teammates for insight on how to best show his support as a white person. “I talked to a lot of my friends about it. Just, ‘What would be the best way for me to try to help?’” he said.
“Then, that turned into an opportunity that (teammate) Kyle Rudolph put together for some of us to go downtown and walk around and talk to people, you know, show our faces in the community,” Conklin explained.
“From there, it kinda turned into us (Vikings players) going to the memorial, which I don’t think any of us really expected. I didn’t expect it. But, it was definitely one of the most moving events I’ve ever been to.”
Walking into the sanctuary on North Central University's downtown campus, it registered with Conklin that he was undertaking a seminal moment in his life. He became seized by his surroundings. “We were going into this building, and I didn’t even know what was going on. We go in, and I start realizing the moment. We’re at the memorial, standing and singing through the whole thing. It’s kind of hard to try and transfer that energy and the feelings. It’s hard to even put into words,” he said.
He admitted that he still can’t fully comprehend the gravity of being present for Floyd’s memorial. He also knows that truthfully, he’ll never be able to.
“There’s a clarity in a moment like that,” Conklin asserted. “To be there with George Floyd’s family and people who knew him, and all these people who are really trying to make a change and need help.
“But, one thing I had to do, that a lot of people can — and need — to do, that’s hard to do, is to reflect. It’s really hard to reflect on how you were raised, or things that you might think or say or do that you don’t even realize are a problem.”
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“A hard thing for white people to understand is the systemic aspect of racism — and how there really are institutions set up against certain people,” Conklin expressed.
Raised in the Southeast Michigan suburb of Macomb by his parents, Terry and Diana, Conklin enjoyed a comfortable middle-class upbringing. With food on the table, two friendly pet Huskies, and a safe ride to school and practices, he and his two younger siblings rarely experienced much material hardship.
“My support system within my family is amazing. I mean, my mom still does anything I need, the littlest of things. If I need to set up a doctor’s appointment, she’s still willing to do it. Like, I’m still on her phone bill. I just send her money for it every month,” Conklin disclosed. “And my dad, he does a great job with helping me sort through stuff, whether it’s agents or whatever kinda comes up with football. He’s my extra set of ears and another opinion to bounce stuff off of.”
Since he attended George Floyd’s memorial, Conklin has structured time into his daily schedule to reflect on his past and present. Each passing day, he appreciates more and more how much his childhood circumstances aided him in achieving his dreams and reaching the NFL.
Simultaneously, he’s come to recognize how those same circumstances play a vital role in encouraging middle-class white people to misinterpret and ignore the struggles of minorities.
“Being white and middle-class, or just white in general, you can never really understand. That’s the thing. You’re never going to understand. But, that doesn’t mean you can just sit there and act like it’s not your problem,” Conklin pointed out, referencing how the experience of being white and middle-class often serves as a safe haven from digesting hard societal truths.
“As white people, we need to listen and try to understand. Not just try to come right back with an answer about how we had it hard too, you know?” Conklin emphasized. “If anybody is a firm believer that you can make it out of any situation, or that someone’s always made it out with a worse deck of cards — to an extent — it’s me. That doesn’t mean I can ignore the fact it really is a hundred times harder for certain other people to make it out of the same situation.”
Conklin isn’t suggesting that white people don’t encounter struggles. Instead, white people often perceive ‘struggle’ from only their perspective — one of privilege.
This practice fosters a pair of correlating adverse outcomes — first, a disengagement from problems faced by minorities, before subsequent forgiveness of the self for turning away. Simply ignoring the plights faced by others is encouraged when one’s lived experience caters full-time to validating one’s worldview.
“I do believe you can create something out of nothing. But, I also think there’s a lot of white people who have made it out of tough circumstances and think that negates the fact that there actually are systems set up to oppress people of color, and that makes it a lot harder for them,” Conklin contended.
“I’m not saying you had it easy, but you’re failing to understand that other people have it way harder than you do, just off skin color.”
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Eight minutes and 46 seconds remained in downtown Minneapolis.
— 12.20.2020 —
First-year wide receiver Justin Jefferson passed the ball to the referee, who placed it at the 20-yard line. The clock continued to tick following a third-down conversion. The Minnesota Vikings trailed the Chicago Bears in Week 15.
Time was running out on the Vikings, and they could sense it.
Seeking quick relief under the circumstances, quarterback Kirk Cousins knew precisely where to go on first down. As the Vikings lined up, the read hinted at a weak-side handoff for running back Dalvin Cook, who already had 129 yards rushing and a touchdown on the day.
Cousins took the snap and dropped back, faking the handoff to Cook in a play-action before circling back to his right and beelining a screen pass across the field to Tyler Conklin at the right hashmark, who secured the ball and turned upfield to see nothing but green pastures.
At 6’3” and 255 lbs., Conklin decided there was no way the defense could contain him from crossing the goal-line. It could pull the distressed Vikings back in the game and, with no fans in the seats, provide a spark of passion to his Minnesota teammates huddled on the sideline.
With each step, Conklin’s inertia built, carrying him past one Chicago defender at the fifteen-yard line before bulldozing him through three more once he reached the five. After finally being brought down and rolled over, Conklin opened his eyes and saw blades of purple turf. He had scored his first NFL touchdown.
After the comeback fell short, the Vikings lost, 33-27.
Still, Conklin is the first to admit how relieving it was to find the end zone.
“Man, that shit felt great. It was about damn time. That shit was starting to haunt me, damn near. There’s just not many opportunities down there. I was like, ‘man, I gotta get one,’” he expressed.
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“I think there’s a huge value in disagreement,” argued Conklin.
Amid today’s hyper-polarized social climate, very few people seek engagement with individuals who hold opposing views, which presents a challenge when trying to connect with others.
In Conklin’s opinion, there is an obvious — yet overlooked — flaw in that mindset. “Disagreement often comes as a result of people caring about the same thing. So, if you care about the same thing, then right there you have unity in disagreement, you know?” he said.
He also acknowledges, though, that resistance to being a committed listener is part of human nature. “Disagreement is hard because, as humans, we aren’t very good at listening. I know I’m not very good at listening,” Conklin admitted. “Whether it’s something silly, like my girlfriend will be telling me something, and I’ll say something back and realize, ‘Crap, that was bad. I didn’t do a good job right there,’ or if it’s something important, just listening is a hard thing to do — to truly listen. Not just to sit there and immediately try to come back with an answer.
“Because that’s what we do. Someone says something to you, you hear them, and you gotta have an answer for it. When, instead, maybe we just need to listen. Maybe you have to let them ramble on, maybe you’ll agree with them, maybe you’ll still disagree with them. First, you have to be able to simply listen. That’s going to help.”
And as the first step for white people to gain a fresh perspective, finding the power to listen extends beyond social media interactions. There are a lot of lengthy, uncomfortable discussions that need to take place in the home. “Family can get into arguments, you know?” Conklin mentioned.
“Sometimes it’ll be something a grandparent says, or maybe an aunt or an uncle, and they think that there is nothing wrong with what they’re saying. That’s when you can see how much of a challenge this can be,” he continued. “These people are your family, whether or immediate or distant, or maybe a friend. And they might see no problem with what they’re doing or saying, even though to you it’s blatantly wrong or discriminating.”
Finding a way to hold productive dialogue through disagreement can be excessively straining when balancing frustration and empathy. “To be in an argument about simple human principles with either close or intermediate family or just someone you care about? That can be a hell of a thing to deal with, right there,” Conklin acknowledged.
Above all, white people most urgently need to understand that there are some things they will never understand. “It’s really easy to not realize something when you’re not paying attention. As middle-class white people, we grow up and have always been blind to systemic racism, or it doesn’t affect us. We need to pay attention to what’s really happening in the world,” he said. “But, first, you have to learn a lot about yourself, so you can do these things.”
For that to happen, there must be a letting down of the guard.
“All people are a resource,” Conklin attested. “So I think if you can combine a little bit of those things and just realize maybe this person cares about the same thing, or they care about me, then we have a chance.
“Because as white people, we’re never going to understand. But we still have to try.”
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Eight minutes and 46 seconds that stained downtown Minneapolis.
— 5.25.2020 —
46-year-old George Floyd passed a bill to the CUP Foods cashier, who noticed it was a counterfeit $20. The clock began to tick following a tense conversation. Two Minneapolis Police cruisers trailed one another to Chicago Avenue on Memorial Day.
Time was running out on Floyd, and he could sense it.
Seeking quick relief under the circumstances, Floyd knew precisely where to go first. As the police pulled up, he sat outside in his vehicle, feeling shaky and weak inside with his hands up for officer Thomas Lane, who already had his gun drawn as he walked Floyd’s way.
Floyd, fearing the officer might snap, pulled back while keeping his hands off Lane to avoid a forceful reaction. After being circled back around his car and handcuffed, Floyd was beelined across the street to officer Derek Chauvin, who secured Floyd by putting him right in the squad car. As his anxiety turned up, Floyd saw he was in nothing but a fast hearse.
At 6’4” and 235 lbs., the officers decided that the only way to contain Floyd was through crossing the line. They pulled the distressed Floyd from the back of the vehicle, forcing him out of the seat, which provided a spark of passionate fury to the Minneapolis bystanders now huddled on the sidewalk.
With each step, Floyd’s inertia built as the officers tugged from all angles. One of the officers began forcing Floyd to the ground before three more bulldozed him into the pavement. After finally being brought down and rolled over, Floyd opened his eyes and saw a Minneapolis Police cruiser's rear tire. Then, he felt a knee land on the back of his neck.
After the knee remained on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, Floyd lost his life.
Imagine the relief Floyd might have felt had he been given a chance to take just one breath during those eight minutes and 46 seconds.
That shit probably would have felt great. It would’ve been about damn time. That shit had to have started to haunt him, damn near. There was just not any opportunities down there. Man, why wouldn’t they let him get one?
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“It’s probably going to feel damn near impossible to feel like you can even start to help,” Conklin warned.
When asked about the most important thing he’s learned about the world in the past year, he let out a nervous laugh before offering a candid response.
“That’s tough. I mean, I don’t understand it, to be completely honest. I think how vulnerable I am to the world is something I realized, how vulnerable we all are. Because, uh, you don’t have a ton of control, you know? I think the world is a scary place,” Conklin disclosed.
Every person on earth occupies only one vessel of consciousness in a sea of over seven billion. Giving critical thought and sincere empathy to problems that afflict everybody besides oneself is likely to leave one feeling helpless — initially.
“You can either look at it and be like, ‘Wow, I have no control over the world so there’s nothing I can really do,’ or you can look at it like ‘Well, there’s gotta be something I can do to help somebody,’ you know? Whether it’s one person or twenty people or thirty people,” he said.
Last year, Conklin and his friend started the DNA Training Camp in Macomb, where they mentor local recruits who wear the shoes he once filled. “Home is special to me. I take a lot of pride in where I come from,” he affirmed. “So, instead of bringing something to a big organization that I don’t really have ties to, I try to always tie it into something back home. A lot of the stuff I want to do is with youth and helping kids, whether it’s athletically or in the classroom.”
In the future, he hopes to affect lasting and global change alongside the people who helped shape him — his siblings Trevor and Tori and his girlfriend, Scottie.
“My little brother, he’s going to be a Navy SEAL, and he’s out in Coronado (California) right now. He’s probably the hardest worker I know — and extremely motivational. And my sister, she’s going to school to be a civil rights lawyer, and she works her butt off. She’s passionate about a lot of these things going on in the world right now, and that helps me. Then, my girlfriend, she really loves the environment, and she’s getting big passionate in trying to create a business rooted in sustainable fashion,” Conklin glowed.
“Eventually, I think when we kinda keep getting to where we want to go, we can really make an impact with some of the stuff that we are doing — together.”
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“I just want to be remembered as a good man, honestly,” Conklin shared.
Regarding what he’s learned most about himself in the past year, Conklin cites his awareness of the self-growth that comes from practicing daily reflection. “I realized that if you’re not working on yourself as a person every day, you’re not going to get better,” he proposed. “You can’t just go through life and expect to end up the person you want to be.
“If you don’t sit down and work on yourself, your mindset — maybe it’s ten minutes a day — you’re never going to become the person you want to be. You’re either going to regress or stay the same.”
Making a lasting imprint is paramount for Conklin. “I’ve always taken pride in trying to create a legacy,” he said.
On the field, that means taking full advantage of his opportunity — once he gets it. “I want to be one of the best that there is. I just need the opportunity to do it.” Conklin proclaimed. “People love to say you can’t do stuff based on you not having had the chance to do it.
“That’s the thing, you could have a thousand people read this, and they’d be like ‘Man, he’s barely even played his first three years, he’s alright, had a couple of good games,’ and it’s just like, that’s all the opportunity I’ve had. When I get that opportunity, I think I’m gonna be able to have a great career, and people will remember my name.”
Off the field, Conklin strives to shape his legacy through his actions. “During this season, I started writing down my values,” he revealed. “Whether it’s coming home from a game late at five in the morning on the west coast, or I’m driving home listening to music, and I think of something and think, ‘you know, I want to make sure my kids hear this or hold this value one day.’ So, I started going home and writing things in my notebook.”
Through practicing the daily reflection that he has prioritized since George Floyd’s memorial, Conklin grows perpetually closer to being the man he hopes to become. Because of this commitment, he, too, grows closer to providing meaningful help for all who he yearns to — both close and far.
“I want to be remembered as a family man, a good man, a loyal man,” Conklin said. “My dad always told me, ‘Don’t take advantage of people, help people who are less fortunate than you.’ So, whether it’s stuff I wanna do in the community or have been doing, I want people to be able to sit there and say, ‘He was a hell of a guy, he worked his ass off and cared about people, he loved his family, and he loved people in general.’”
To love people in general, one must understand people in general. To understand people, one must understand themselves. To understand oneself, one must commit time, attention, and vulnerability to the effort.
“And on that, I gotta be honest and accountable for the fact that I haven’t been enough at the forefront since the memorial,” Conklin confessed.
“Some of it is that I don’t know how to go about it. But I’ve also used the excuse that I’m ‘busy’ or whatever it is,” he continued. “So, to have that accountability, if you know you want to do something, you have to find a way to do it. Just wanting to, that ain’t gonna be enough, especially right now.
“And that’s something that I need to get better at myself, every day.”
It isn’t easy, but it is mandatory.
“You know, after everything we talked about, it all comes back to these things,” Conklin summarized.
“Listening. Empathizing. Reflecting.”
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— epilogue —
“Man, this is a bunch of bullshit.”
Tyler Conklin isn't sure exactly how many times that thought has crossed his mind along his arduous and winding path to the NFL.
But one thing he is sure of? Giving his time to the bullshit was worth it.
How else would he have made it this far?
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In 2012, when the thought crossed his mind during a football meeting ahead of his senior year in high school, Conklin was ready to hang up his cleats then and there. Already on the fence about suiting up one last time, he sat in disbelief as the new head coach of the L'anse Creuse North Crusaders promised his players they would host the school’s first-ever playoff game — and win it — in his first season. The Crusaders hadn't won a game of any kind in three years.
After a heavy dose of pleading from friends, namely his quarterback, Conklin elected to stick it out and play with his teammates to finish his career on the gridiron. He put together his best individual season at LCN, helping carry the Crusaders to an 8-3 record to make the state playoffs. They also hosted their first playoff game — which they won.
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The sentiment again crossed Conklin's mind while eating with friends at Buffalo Wild Wings during his first semester at Northwood University in 2013. With it came a temptation to let bitterness brew. Instead, he remained engrossed in the Michigan State football broadcast that had caught his attention, intensely studying the tight ends. After a few minutes, Conklin broke his silence: "I can do that."
To do that, Conklin needed to transfer out of Division II Northwood (located in Midland, Michigan), where he was on a full-ride basketball scholarship. His brightest fantasy was to play in the NBA, but his baseline dream was to be a professional athlete. He knew Division I college football offered him the best opportunity to achieve that, so Conklin reached out to a coach from Central Michigan who had recruited him during his senior year of high school. The coach pulled some strings and secured Conklin a tryout, where he impressed enough to earn a walk-on spot with the Chippewas in 2014.
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Conklin continued to dance with the thought, almost daily, for over a year after arriving at Central Michigan. Only weeks into his first season (which he had to sit out due to NCAA transfer rules), the coach who had organized his tryout split town for another school. Conklin — the roster's freshest face — felt isolated and kept to himself early on, even forgetting how to get to the locker room at times. As spring camp came around in 2015, coaches had him taking reps at wide receiver. When the fit proved unpromising, they moved him to the defensive line as an undersized end.
Frustration mounted within Conklin. His motivation for making a move to Central Michigan was to play tight end. Over the summer, he went back to Macomb and worked construction, even considering another transfer. Having lost the one staff member likeliest to speak up for him, Conklin realized that he was his own best resource. So, he asked the coaching staff directly for an opportunity to play tight end, which they granted. Conklin started the 2015 season as the eighth tight end on the eight-man depth chart.
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The thought once more reverberated through Conklin’s mind while sitting in a hospital bed in August of 2017. After climbing from number eight to number two on the depth chart as a sophomore, he had a breakout junior season in 2016, catching 42 passes for over 500 yards and six touchdowns. Heads were turning, and with a strong senior showing, he would cement an opportunity to play in the NFL. On the first day of training camp, Conklin suffered a broken left foot, his first career injury.
Initially, it was unclear how long he would be out. Foot injuries are fickle. Team doctors were not going to rush his comeback for any reason. Understanding the significance of the season, Conklin chose to be patient and adhered to his rehab plan, cutting no corners during recovery. Thanks to equal parts doctors and diligence, he returned fully healthy in time to play — and make a statement — in the Chippewas’ sixth game, catching ten passes for 136 yards and two touchdowns, including the game-winner, against the University of Ohio. Over the next seven games, Conklin caught 25 passes for 368 yards and three more scores, earning him invites to the Senior Bowl and 2018 NFL Draft Combine.
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The Minnesota Vikings selected Tyler Conklin with the 157th overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. His dream was now his reality, and Conklin was privy to knowing that this is where his most grueling work began. That’s why, when he pulled his hamstring in Rookie Minicamp and missed Organized Team Activities (OTAs) ahead of his first season, he took it in stride. He had to learn the playbook without stepping on the field and be prepared to execute the first time he joined an NFL huddle, which didn’t happen until fall training camp.
Conklin laid low his first couple seasons, working on earning his stripes. Known for his pass-catching in college, he spent most of those first two years on the scout team doing everything but catching passes. Waiting for an opportunity, Conklin refused to entertain the thought that had crossed his mind so many times before. Opting to refine his game's grittier aspects, he zeroed in on route-running and sharpening his blocking in all phases: pass, run, and downfield. During that second season, at a scout team practice, he was in conversation with a defensive line coach when the coach used a phrase that is now one of Conklin’s favorite mantras.
“Eat the meat, throw away the bone.”
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“You know, I wasn’t a five-star recruit that went to ‘Bama or one of these Power 5 schools and then got drafted in the first round or something,” Conklin continued. “I was a basketball player at a D-II who transferred and walked on to football and faced adversity — whether it was being hurt or moving when I transferred and those things. I broke my foot senior year first day of practice, my first ever injury of any kind. I mean, everything that happened — going back before college to high school, when I decided to choose basketball over football initially — lined me up for this.
“So, what (my defensive line coach) meant with that — ‘Eat the meat, throw away the bone.’ — is that every person and situation in this world has something of value you can take, you know? Whether it’s just one thing, the littlest of things, you can take that and disregard the rest. Then, some people might have a shit ton of information they can give you, and there’s less to throw away, but you’ll never know without giving it a chance.” he explained.
“It’s something you can think back on when someone’s trying to help you, and you might think, ‘Man, this a bunch of bullshit.’ But maybe they just told you one little good thing in all that ‘bullshit,’ and it could still help you a little bit.
“But if you don’t listen, that can’t happen.”
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— end, part one —
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images for this story provided by NFL Media via Tyler Conklin
note — the co1/1ection published part one ahead of the Derek Chauvin trial, where new evidence showed George Floyd’s neck was knelt on for nine minutes and 29 seconds, contrary to the duration of eight minutes and 46 seconds referenced in this story
— part two —
Selwyn Jones
author’s note — because I am a white person, it would be grossly inappropriate to speak on issues like the murder of George Floyd, systemic racism, and Black history without consulting someone whose life has been directly impacted by them.
George Floyd’s uncle, Selwyn Jones, sat down with 1MEDIA to discuss hearing about his nephew’s murder, how his life has changed in the time since, and his numerous experiences before and after Floyd’s murder that reflect the differences in the lived experience of Black and white Americans.
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‘Listening’
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“I sat there, and I watched my heart and soul completely leave my body,” Selwyn Jones confided.
The morning after Minneapolis Police murdered George Floyd for using a counterfeit $20 bill, Jones began his Tuesday the same way he would any other at his motel.
The 54-year-old Jones — who lives and owns KJ’s Inn and Suites in Gettysburg, South Dakota — started the day with his standard routine. “I did the same as I do every morning. I got my babies dressed, I sat in my chair, and I made me a couple of croissants,” he told 1MEDIA.
Once he was situated, Jones turned on the news and saw cell phone footage of a police officer kneeling on someone’s neck in Minnesota.
“I didn’t realize it was my nephew at first,” Jones recounted. “I’m eating these croissants, and I’m thinking, ‘They’re gonna kill this dude, man.’ You know, talking to the television. ‘Why won’t somebody stop them, man?’ ‘Why won’t somebody help this dude out, man?’ That’s when my phone rings.
“‘Hello?'
“‘Did you see what the police did to Ge-’”
At this point in his recollection, Jones paused for a moment and sank back against the stained pine wall of his lobby, crossing his arms before he continued.
Speaking more with his body than his words, he fluttered his fingers out from his chest — almost as if releasing sand to the wind — to describe his heart and soul departing him.
“I’m seeing somebody that I felt sorry for, and then that person I felt sorry for was one of mine. And I sit there, and everything that’s ever happened to me because of the color of my skin — ‘woooshhh,’” Jones said, flashing his fists in front of his eyes.
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“I haven’t sold a vacuum cleaner since my nephew was killed,” Jones mentioned.
Before moving to Gettysburg in 2016 and purchasing the Sage Motel — which he renovated and rebranded as KJ’s Inn and Suites — Jones made his living as a vacuum salesman in the rural midwest. After the murder of his nephew, he spent time grappling with numerous experiences that occurred throughout his career.
Over his 25-plus years in the trade, Jones sold more than 8,000 vacuums — but only three of his customers were Black. With nearly every new referral, he understood that he had to turn into somebody else to make a sale. On phone calls with prospective customers, the conversation often started with Jones answering an inquiry into how Black people could have freckles.
“In order for me to go into someone’s house and sell them a vacuum cleaner, I had to overcome being Black. How did I overcome me being Black? Well, I’m a hell of a comedian. I make people laugh. If I can see your teeth, I got you. I’m in your wallet,” Jones half-joked.
“How many white folks wouldn’t laugh at, ‘Hey, man, what year is it, 2020? I bet you didn’t think you’d have a Black dude cleaning your house, would you?’”
Aside from leaving his humanity at the doormat on housecalls, Jones brought up frequently being accosted in public by customers who recognized him around town. “I use to walk through the mall, and people would see me and point,” he said. “‘Hey! There’s the big Black vacuum man with the freckles! Hey, vacuum man! Heyyy, Black Power! Black Power!’”
Jones grew accustomed to these mockings, often brushing them to the side; he had still gotten their business, he figured. For a long time, this was enough to let him overlook how others treated him. “I’m the only Black dude in town, you know? I could handle a white person saying, ‘He cleans a hell of a carpet,’” Jones shared. “But, out in the middle of nowhere, I’d be out in the middle of public, and one of them will go, ‘HEY JONES-YYY! It’s the Black man with FRECKLES!’ you know?
“That’s alright. I got your money.”
After Floyd’s murder, he waded through a monsoon of these memories. The realization set in for Jones that he had no choice but to barter his dignity in exchange for income.
“I had to trade my respect and my humility to earn a living,” he expressed.
He hasn’t sold a vacuum since. “After seeing my nephew die and seeing how he got treated,” Jones clarified, “nobody better call talking about ‘Hey! Black dude with freckles, can you sell me a vacuum cleaner?’
“You can kiss my ass.”
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“We ain’t changing nothing just because a dead nigger’s uncle moved here,” Jones recalled being told.
In the weeks after losing his nephew, Jones attended a city council meeting to request that Gettysburg’s police department dissociate from a Confederate flag emblem used in its insignia. The emblem — incorporated into the department’s design in 2009 — appeared on officer uniforms, doors of police vehicles, and the entrance to the police station.
In response, area residents lashed out at him. One of whom argued that the Confederate flag is part of the town’s heritage. “‘That ain’t his right. This is our town, this is our rights,’” Jones paraphrased.
“‘Look, man. Should the flag be on the patch? No. But if we wanted to vote it off, we would vote it off,’” another person told Jones — before using a racial slur to suggest what happened to Floyd has nothing to do with their town.
To be clear, ‘their town’ of Gettysburg, South Dakota — initially platted in 1883 by Civil War veterans — was affectionately named to honor fallen Confederate soldiers lost in the Battle of Gettysburg. It remained a settlement until officially incorporating into a city in 1907, long after South Dakota joined the Union in 1889. Local citizens challenged Jones, suggesting Gettysburg maintains a direct lineage to the flag.
The town — named more than eighteen years after the Civil War ended — is located in a state which joined the Union more than twenty-four years after the Civil War. Further, it became a recognized city more than four decades after the Confederate Army last existed in any official capacity.
To counter, Jones contacted officials in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where the Civil War battle took place.
“I got a letter from the real Gettysburg that they sent to me and the town,” he explained. “It pretty much stated that if this town wanted to remain being called Gettysburg, they would remove that Confederate patch off of the police uniforms — or else. They had the power to make this town change its name if they kept playing around.”
Beyond that, the assertion that Gettysburg’s (non-existent) lineage to the Confederate flag has nothing to do with the murder of George Floyd overlooks the history, design, and intentions of institutions in post-Civil War America. Floyd’s death — and more importantly, his life — was a somber mosaic of myriad systemic practices installed to give white people an upper hand.
“George — if you knew him, you called him ‘Perry’ — Perry didn’t want to die in the street for the world to see,” Jones stressed. “Yes, he had an occurrence of making some wrong decisions, but he paid his debt to society. He just wanted to be different and to do something different for his life.
“He just never got the chance to.”
Gettysburg Police officially parted ways with the Confederate flag on July 6, 2020.
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———
“Because my nephew was killed, I’m a piece of shit,” Jones stated.
Ever since he first spoke out in the wake of Floyd’s death, people continue to reach out to Jones. Every day, he receives messages from all over the country. To lose a family member in such a public fashion, it’s sensible that people would take time out of their day to connect with him.
However, what speaks volumes about most of the interactions is the vitriol at the root of them. “I have to stay off Facebook,” Jones said.
Scrolling through his feed, he began sharing posts — all of which had been sent to him within the past six hours. The first one was a cartoon that depicts George Floyd with angel wings and holding a pregnant woman at gunpoint, with the words ‘I CAN BREATHE’ written underneath. The user who sent Jones the image captioned it ‘YER HERO.’
Next, he showed a message that featured an image of himself speaking to reporters after Floyd’s murder. In bold text, ‘If you’re offended by a piece of cloth, but think dealing drugs to kids is alright, you might be this moron’ is written underneath the picture. This message came from baseless rumors circulated online during Jones’s effort to have the Confederate flag emblem removed, suggesting that he funded his motel purchase by selling drugs to minors.
After presenting some other similar messages, Jones concluded by playing a video sent to him. In the video, a fidgety, bald, white man sits in front of a Confederate flag and mocks Jones’ call for the Gettysburg Police to divorce from it.
Appearing filled with angst, the man — who didn’t disclose his hometown — began by defending Floyd’s killer, saying “everyone in the United States is real quick to put a noose around his neck.”
The man then boasted about organizing and traveling to a ‘Freedom Rally’ in Gettysburg, South Dakota, to intimidate Floyd’s uncle — Selwyn Jones. “That’s one of the only reasons I have this flag behind me. I hope it pisses you snowflakes off,” he sneered.
Initially, Jones was taken aback by the frequency of receiving notes like these. As time passed, he grew to understand it wasn’t likely to slow down. “This is all day, every day, my brother!” he proclaimed.
Straying from the blatant abhorrence of the exchanges, more alarming is how the architects of these messages find justification in pressing send. To them, Floyd deserved to die, one way or the other. As a result, Jones, guilty only of being a murdered Black man’s uncle, has been sentenced to daily baptisms in hatred.
When viewed in contrast to the treatment of white people — and relatives of white people — who have committed notorious murders, one begins to see how systems can shape the views of those who benefit from them.
On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold was one of two white gunmen who murdered twelve classmates and a teacher during the Columbine High School shooting. Since the killings, Klebold’s mother, Sue, has become a New York Times best-selling author for her book, ‘A Mother’s Reckoning.’ The book explores the grief and heartache she had to work through after her son executed thirteen innocent people.
Today, in addition to giving TED Talks to promote Mental Health Awareness, she attends events across the country for speaking engagements. Let this be interpreted not as a call for aggression toward Sue Klebold but rather an inquiry into why that same empathy and opportunity does not extend to Jones.
For a more racially pertinent example, one can look at the public response to the victim’s response following the 2015 massacre of nine Black churchgoers at an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Charleston, SC.
Less than twenty-four hours after a 21-year-old white nationalist named Dylann Roof shot to death nine Black victims during the concluding prayer of a Bible study session, the killer sat and enjoyed a Burger King meal provided to him by arresting officers seeking his confession.
Another twenty-four hours later, family members of deceased victims appeared in court for Roof’s arraignment — where the judge granted them an opportunity to speak directly to the defendant.
One by one, relatives of those slain in the AME shooting offered forgiveness to the killer. Roof appeared in court via video feed with an empty-eyed, unrepentant gaze on his face. For the duration, he refused to look at the camera.
Broadcast on local and national news cycles throughout the country, the media at large showered praise on the act of collective grace for a murderous racist. More than thirty opinion pieces — all authored by white people — ran in national publications, celebrating the mercy shown to the accused.
What all of these opinion pieces neglected to acknowledge? The rationale behind the victim’s forgiveness.
The victims did not forgive Roof because they wanted to become pen pals with him. No. The families — channeling raw emotion through their cries, their pleas, their stories of who they lost — were not laying B-roll footage for a ‘Local News at 6’ feel-good story.
They forgave the killer of their loved ones because, often, that is the only way for Black Americans to ensure closure — for themselves — after centuries of being a target in the United States strictly due to their skin color.
When one extends forgiveness toward a remorseless transgressor, one does so to reclaim power and control over their emotions — not to communicate that everything is okay.
To this day, Roof has not apologized for his actions.
“Every day, I see something, that if it was any other world, you’d probably need to whoop them. But, you know, you can’t whoop the world. So, I gotta take it,” Jones said. “I’m at a point in my life where there’s a bigger movement than somebody calling me a ‘nigger’ or telling me to go back to Africa. That’s ignorance.
“There ain’t no use in being scared. I’m on a journey, my man. Somebody has to push this to the point of exhaustion.”
———
———
“Would you let a Black person spend the night in your home?” Jones asked.
More specifically, that is the question he wants white people to ask themselves.
“My nephew was a normal person,” Jones said. “He had his issues. He had his problems. He had his complications. He had his love. He had his likes and dislikes. He had his wants. He had his needs. Did he need — or did he want — to die in the middle of the street, in the middle of the afternoon, by somebody who thought of him as less than a piece of scum?
“Think about that, man. How do you kill somebody in the middle of the day, with thirty or forty people videotaping you? While he’s completely held down by three other people? And you just sit there like it’s a walk in the park?”
To Jones, the scene bears a striking similarity to photos of lynch mobs throughout American history. “You go back and look at lynching photos, and you see the look in their eyes,” he noted. “Sitting there posing beside their big kill, it looks like an obsession. If you look in that officer’s eyes at the end of the tape, he looks like he’s in a daze, like ‘I got me a big one.’”
Jones understands that the sin of racism will still scar this country when he passes on. His goal for this life is to weaken the forces that drive racist ideologies while maintaining his nephew’s dignity. George Floyd was a human being — just like you in some fashion, no matter what color your skin is. Jones needs people to know this, and you need to know this.
“So, yeah — with your babies, yourself, and your family there — would you let a Black person in your home? And let them spend the night?” he reiterated.
Thinking back on a recent exchange he had with a white woman, Jones distinctly remembers her lightning-quick response to that inquiry. “‘Mr. Jones, I don’t think that’s relevant to understanding racism,’” she snapped.
“Well, yeah, it is. Because, if you’ve never welcomed a Black person in your home, how could you possibly tell me how you treat Black people?” Jones asked.
————— 1/1 —————
“The Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice — I must mourn.”
— Frederick Douglass
On July 4, 1852, Frederick Douglass — a former slave — was invited to speak at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, NY, in front of over 600 white members of the local Ladies Anti-Slavery Society. In his speech, he called out the audience, made up of ‘supporters’ of his cause.
Continuing, Douglass detailed the horrors of his experience in slavery, his point being that a white ‘Anti-Slavery Society’ inviting a former slave to speak on their national holiday achieved nothing for Black people. His audience understood that slavery was wrong but simultaneously wouldn't engage in the work needed to topple it. Agreeing in theory with a concept is not remotely comparable to comprehending its nuanced realities.
“America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future,” Douglass prophesied nearly 170 years ago.
Recently, Selwyn Jones has distanced himself from those in the media who contact him for comments or stories. “I talk to so many people. I have this radar, and I know when I’m talking to someone genuine and heartfelt,” he imparted to 1MEDIA. “Do you know how many people I’ve been telling to go to hell? They reach out, want to hear from me.
“Yeah, I know you want to hear from me. But do you even want to listen?”
————— 1/1 —————
— end, part two —
————— 1/1 —————
racial epithets used in part two were written as Selwyn Jones wanted: “I’m pretty blunt. Sorry.”
— part three —
Mary Liuzzo-Lilleboe & Dr. Joseph E. Flynn, Jr.
Mary Liuzzo-Lilleboe is the daughter of Viola Liuzzo — the first and only white woman assassinated for her contributions to the civil rights movement. On the night of March 25, 1965, after a five-day march led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., four Ku Klux Klan members noticed Viola Liuzzo driving with a Black man, Leroy Moton, outside Selma, Alabama. The Klansmen followed Liuzzo down a deserted stretch of highway, pulled up alongside her, and fired fourteen gunshots into her vehicle.
Dr. Joseph E. Flynn, Jr. is an African-American professor of curriculum and instruction at Northern Illinois University. His work centers on the intersection of race, curriculum, and social justice. In 2018, Flynn published ‘White Fatigue: Rethinking Resistance for Social Justice.’ His book explores proactive approaches to reaching and engaging with white Americans who find racism morally reprehensible yet also struggle to understand the nuance of its functions on a societal scale.
Mrs. Liuzzo-Lilleboe and Dr. Flynn joined 1MEDIA to lead an exercise in empathizing with both the systemic barriers placed in front of Black Americans and the systemic barriers placed in front of white people to comprehending those realities. They explore obstacles faced by white people when introduced to these concepts, the history of racial classification, examples of discrimination in federal and state policy, the vitality of white representation in anti-racism, and how the marginalization of minorities in American systems also prevents white people from accessing a better lived-experience.
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‘Empathizing’
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“Perhaps one of the greatest gifts I have gotten in my life is that, because of the way my mother died, I have had a glimpse into what it means to be Black in this country," Mary Liuzzo-Lilleboe confessed.
In the early morning hours of March 26, 1965, seventeen-year-old Mary Liuzzo (now Liuzzo-Lilleboe) awoke in her home on the northwest side of Detroit, Michigan, to the family telephone ringing. On the other line, an Alabama State Trooper informed her father, Anthony, that her mother, Viola, had been shot and killed while driving on Highway 80 outside of Selma, Alabama.
"Mom had packed her bags and left Detroit about a week prior. I never thought I wouldn't see her again," Liuzzo-Lilleboe recalled to 1MEDIA.
Viola had traveled to Alabama to attend and assist in a five-day civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. The march, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was the third and final iteration in a protest of restrictive voting laws in the south and Jimmie Lee Jackson’s murder one month earlier in Selma.
"My mother educated us on civil rights. She was from the Chattanooga area (of Tennessee), so she knew the south well," Liuzzo-Lilleboe said of her exposure to social injustice as a child. "We knew about Emmett Till. We knew about the church bombings. We knew about Jimmie Lee Jackson."
When the march concluded, Liuzzo — an outlier at the time for her activism as a white, married mother of five — volunteered to transport Black demonstrators back to safety in Selma. On the final trip back to Montgomery, nineteen-year-old Leroy Moton, a Black SNCC volunteer, accompanied her for the ride.
As they drove along Highway 80 and made it a few miles outside of Selma, Liuzzo and Moton observed a red Chevy Impala tailing them into the Dixieland dusk. The car grew closer and closer, and Moton — born and raised in Selma — sensed the imminent threat.
Catching up to her, the Klansmen positioned themselves next to the driver's door and shot into her vehicle fourteen times. Liuzzo, who was 39, died instantly when two bullets struck her head. Her car then careened off the roadway and crashed into a fence. By a stroke of fate, Moton was not hit in the shooting and survived the crash.
In the days and weeks after Viola's death had left a hole in the Liuzzo residence, more and more parcels of mail began cascading in. "Mom taught us a lot, so I thought I understood," Liuzzo-Lilleboe said. At the time, she considered herself well-informed on social justice matters, but she soon experienced something that very few white Americans have — or ever will — experience.
"Right as soon as mom died, we started getting mail in those big, brown satchels, like you might see on TV. So my sister, Penny, and I started to open them," Liuzzo-Lilleboe continued. "We did receive some condolences, some love.
"But, what struck me was the hatred."
Every day, she remembers her home flooding with letters, pictures, and postcards featuring unconscionable messages rooted in disdain for Viola's support of Black Americans. “We had pictures — police photos of my mother’s body in the car, things like that — sent to us within days of her being murdered,” she said.
Night Riders, an official KKK magazine, mailed a copy of its exclusive ‘The Inside Story of The Liuzzo Killing’ release to the family. The cover was a picture of Viola’s body lying across the front seat of her blood-stained vehicle.
"I mean, to me, hatred was fighting with my brothers, you know? 'I hate you,' when we were arguing," Liuzzo-Lilleboe equated.
"But, the hatred that was hurled at us, at my mother, at the people my mother went to help. It was beyond anything that I could even — I couldn't even grasp it," she said. "I couldn't understand it at all. They had to take the mail away from us."
Liuzzo-Lilleboe realized that this treatment her family was now subject to is what every African-American has been dealing with since America's inception. "That was my first experience into what it's like to be Black in this country," she expressed.
Her heart already broken, she felt the remaining fragments grind down to granules. "I remember my mom talking to me in my head during this time," Liuzzo-Lilleboe remarked.
"She said to me, 'You know, those people I went to go help?'"
"'They experience that hatred every day of their lives, as soon as they walk out of their doors.'"
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Viola Liuzzo
———
“The world that I knew — the United States? This country? Everything that I thought that I knew, I didn’t,” Liuzzo-Lilleboe asserted.
On the night of Liuzzo's murder, the four Ku Klux Klan members responsible for her death were apprehended and taken into custody within hours. Swift resolution of this type was exceedingly rare for violent hate crimes in the southeastern United States during the 1960s.
Following the arrests, President Lyndon B. Johnson showered effusive praise on the FBI and its director, J. Edgar Hoover, for their efficient handling of the case.
Already grappling with a recently-fractured sense of reality, Liuzzo-Lilleboe soon came to realize how exactly the Alabama State Police did apprehend her mother's killers so quickly. More crucial — and perhaps more indicting — she learned why the President was so prompt in his portrayal of Hoover and the FBI as bastions of justice.
"There was a letter from President Johnson that he wrote to Hoover. And Johnson wanted to know if Hoover thought it was a good idea to call our family and offer condolences," Liuzzo-Lilleboe referenced. "And Hoover said, 'This is not exactly the kind of family we would want held up as American heroes.'
"As you may know, J. Edgar Hoover was not a friend of the civil rights movement.”
In the immediate aftermath of Liuzzo's death, authorities received a phone call from Gary Thomas Rowe, alerting them of the murder. Rowe worked with the FBI as an informant within the Ku Klux Klan. "We had thought Rowe was a hero," Liuzzo-Lilleboe said.
In actuality, Rowe had phoned the call to authorities because he participated in the murder. "We came to find out that Rowe was present or involved in — on some level — almost every significant violent act during that particular couple of years," she explained.
Information later surfaced that Rowe had a littered past of hate crimes committed against Black people, including beating Freedom Riders with a baseball bat and connections to the Birmingham church bombing that killed four young Black girls. Additionally, Rowe faced previous accusations of murdering a Black man.
The FBI — therefore Hoover — needed to act swiftly to keep public attention away from any government involvement in the murder. To achieve this, Hoover launched a smear campaign on the life and character of Liuzzo following her death.
Hoover illustrated her as a drug addict, a negligent mother, and an unfaithful wife through baseless accusations, falsified reports, and targeted slander. One official public attack from the FBI bluntly referred to Liuzzo as a 'nigger lover.' Another report erroneously stated that Liuzzo's body had track marks on her arms from injecting drugs.
For its intents and purposes, the FBI's smear campaign against Liuzzo worked. Public perception in America of her and her family remained unfavorable, at best, for years. "People threw rocks at my sisters. They burned a cross in our yard. We had objects thrown through our living room window," Liuzzo-Lilleboe detailed.
According to a poll published in the July 1965 edition of Women's Home Journal, fifty-five percent of readers did not view Liuzzo as a good mother. It included a testimonial from a woman who said, "I feel sorry for what happened, but she should have minded her own business."
Due to Hoover's successful defamation campaign, few white Americans cared or remembered what happened to Liuzzo's killers. Thanks to Rowe’s status as an FBI informant, he avoided any charges at the state or federal level. After one of the other men died of a heart attack following the first trial, only two of the participants ended up serving any time for charges relating to Liuzzo's killing. Neither were for murder. Instead, they were both sentenced to ten years in prison — and only served six — on federal charges of 'violating Mrs. Liuzzo's civil rights.’
Permanently stained was the canvas on which Liuzzo-Lilleboe had painted her portrait of the United States. Somehow, she still sought a way to appreciate whatever beauty she could find in the abiding brushstrokes.
"When the men that killed my mother were acquitted, Dr. King was talking about my mom, and I'll never forget what he said. It struck me and stayed with me my whole life," she brought up. "He said, 'Three of our poor, sick, white brothers murdered this woman,'"
"I thought, 'Wow.' I couldn't hate them because that would be betraying my mom. So, to see and think of them as sick people or having a sickness, I could handle that. So, that path of nonviolent resistance became my path," Liuzzo-Lilleboe clarified.
Working through the turbulence of losing her mother, she steadied her trajectory through an unwavering commitment to fighting for racial and social equity. "One of my goals in life has been to help white people understand systemic racism. To me, that means how society contributes to the day-to-day wearing away of people's sense of value or worth," she emphasized.
The world that she thought she knew — these United States — she didn't at all. Digesting the fact that the answers she thought she knew were instead lies, Liuzzo-Lilleboe reflected on how her mother taught her to approach thinking about complex issues.
"Mom never gave us all the answers," Liuzzo-Lilleboe evoked. "She taught us that it was far more important to ask tough questions than to look for easy answers. So, I started to think back on questions my mom used to ask me when I was a little girl — 'Have you ever noticed there's only a white Santa Claus?'"
"It just made me think, what does that feel like when you're a child? When you're four or five years old?
"To never look up to anybody who looks like you?"
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Mary Liuzzo-Lilleboe with her friend, the late John Lewis
———
"When you hear about a Black boy who gets murdered, do you think about what activities he was involved in? Or, do you think, 'What if that were my child?'" Liuzzo-Lilleboe asked.
If you are white, think sincerely about that question for a moment.
What goes through your mind when you hear about a Black boy who gets murdered? For the time being, worry not about your answer but rather how your mind arrives at that answer.
"'It's too bad they get thrown and jail and killed more than we do, but it's because most of them are violent or criminals, anyway," Dr. Joseph Flynn, Jr. sarcastically hypothesized.
For those who live in a majority white area or who question the existence of systemic racism, did your mind jump to something like gang activity? If it did, then yes, that is a problem. But, you can take the time — now — to reflect on what contributed to that thought process.
Is it the evening news, always talking about the crime rates? Or what you learned in school as a kid? Perhaps you have an uncle who grew up in the city and always told you how nice it used to be, 'before they all moved in.'
Maybe it is none of those. Regardless, some critical consideration and research reveal that it is, indeed, this system that shapes those thoughts, no matter who or what your stimuli are.
"There's a reason you think most Black folks are violent or criminal in the first place," Flynn said. "I can track American history and explain how and why African-Americans are constructed as criminals. And it is that representation of Black men, specifically, as being criminal, that satisfied the taste of a lot of white people. So those images, they stick around, and you consistently see them and assume — especially if you don't know the history," he stressed.
That history begins, quite literally, with the origin of race as a concept — and the rationale behind it. "We — Black folks — didn't create these categories," Flynn said. "These categories were imposed upon us by the group of people who decided to call themselves 'white.' So, no, when I talk about this, I'm not talking about you just because you're white. I'm talking about this group that got created — and we know that it got created.
“We know that in the history of the planet, the term 'white' to describe a distinct group of people didn't happen until the mid-to-late-1600s. So, without public education or media that helps inform poorer and working-class white people understand how they have been constructed and pitted against non-white communities, you arrive where we are today," he expounded.
"Aside from Black folks, look at immigration. What does it always come down to? 'They're gonna come here and take our jobs.'" Flynn added. "There is more than enough data and evidence to show that is not what is happening with undocumented immigrants. So, that rope-a-dope, so to speak, has been consistently used to divide poorer and working-class white folks from everyone else."
In the late-1600s, Virginia's wealthy land-owners began implementing legislation to distinguish people based on physical appearance. The ruling class took these measures in response to growing solidarity among the Black and white working-class, the most notable example being Bacon's Rebellion.
"In the wake of Bacon's Rebellion, the Virginia aristocracy, or ruling elite, began to start passing laws that started that process of structuring society along racial and class lines, and that is one of those inconvenient, incontrovertible truths," Flynn said. "Because it was encoded in the law, and these laws stood for centuries."
From the beginning, Colonial elites viewed the entire labor class as disgusting and lazy. Still, they saw Blacks inferior to whites, describing them as 'marked by an intelligence hardly superior to that of a monkey.' However, until these elites incorporated the codifying of racial differences into the law, it is unlikely that working-class white people shared these views based on cooperation in work, resistance, and even sexual relations.
The colonial ruling class adopted these racist, classist ideologies from the European elites and brought them to the colonies. Once there, they passed those views onto working-class whites through legislation. That legislation then shaped the operations of American slavery. To preserve this burgeoning racial hierarchy, the ruling class utilized targeted anti-Black messaging to working-class whites. "Representing African-Americans as violent was also used as a strategy to maintain order within slavery," Flynn added.
"So, you have all of that. Then, you see that these laws, policies, and practices continued to happen, even after Emancipation — Emancipation happened in 1865," he underscored. "You know, end of the Civil War, slaves are freed, all is good.
"Well, no. Because, then, you had convict leasing," Flynn mentioned.
Convict leasing is the practice of using prisoners for free labor. After the thirteenth amendment granted emancipation to slaves in America, many states enacted 'Black Codes,' which were new laws and applied only to Black people. These laws subjected African-Americans to criminal prosecution for 'offenses' like loitering, breaking curfew, and not carrying proof of employment. Once prosecuted, they were incarcerated and sent off to provide unpaid labor.
Additionally, states leased African-American children who had been orphaned or committed juvenile offenses. During this time, penal systems across the United States saw more Black prisoners than white prisoners for the first time in history. This practice overwhelmingly targeted Black Americans until the 1940s.
"Even after all of that, you still have another hundred years of Jim Crow. Another hundred years of a society that had absolutely no objection whatsoever to consistently and negatively representing African-Americans, and to a lesser degree — but still as jarring — Asian-Americans, Indigenous-Americans, and Latinos. All of those groups were negatively marginalized,” Flynn said. “There will be people who will say, 'What about the Irish, what about the Italians, what about the Poles,' and that's true, they were also caricatured and marginalized — but trust, it was not to the same degree. It simply was not the same thing."
Flynn has dedicated his career to understanding why white people struggle with or resist the notion of systemic racism. He pointed out that, when viewed in a historical context, these thought patterns in white Americans — viewing Blacks as criminal — are the intended result of hundreds of years of grooming through media stereotypes, propaganda, and policy.
The system does not have an operations center, nor is it a drafted document that explains how American society should limit class mobility opportunities for African-Americans and other minorities (actually, in many cases, it is).
The system is a network of historical events, government policy, public institutions, targeted education, news media conglomerates, and carefully schemed, long-term initiatives carried out by political figureheads intending to maintain racial and social inequity.
On the surface — given what you probably learned in school, or wherever, your entire life — this might sound unbelievable. If it does, then entertain the notion that this approach to developing society curates only two guaranteed outcomes.
First — and most crucially — it catalyzes an uneven distribution of wealth, separating a small group of elites who hoard most of the money from the rest of society.
Furthermore, it cultivates a sorely divided, underpaid, and feuding working class who have been historically encouraged to focus on their differences, preventing them from uniting against the very system that neglects them.
This information and these incontrovertible truths only become learned knowledge by asking the difficult questions that Viola Liuzzo implored her children to ask.
So, what goes through your mind when you hear about a Black boy who gets murdered?
If your answer is gang activity, ask yourself just one more question.
Who exactly is the gang?
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Child victims of convict leasing
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"I'm not talking to you because I want you to be uncomfortable … or because I want you to be mad … or because I want you to be embarrassed," Liuzzo-Lilleboe petitioned.
It isn't easy for many white folks to hear this history — and even more difficult for them to truly reflect on it. But the more time that passes, the harder that becomes.
Liuzzo-Lilleboe, referencing a specific childhood exchange with her mother, emphasized how eternally grateful she is for Viola’s goadings to ask these challenging questions about the world.
“As a young lady, I was sitting one day and reading Seventeen Magazine — which is what all the young girls read at that time — and my mom was standing behind me,” she recounted. “And she said, ‘Hey Mary, have you ever wondered how you would feel if you never saw a magazine that had pretty white girls in it to show you what makeup would look good on you? Or what hairstyles you might want to try?’
"I just looked at her, and she asked again, ‘Have you ever thought about that?’
“Well, I hadn’t. And it was really uncomfortable for me to even think about it. But it was a door that opened for me,” Liuzzo-Lilleboe revealed.
Asking uncomfortable questions leads to uncovering uncomfortable truths. Absorbing these truths for what they are — the underpinnings of a perpetually racist system that still plays referee within the United States — is not a simple process. Dr. Flynn points to an exchange he had with a white student following a lecture on structural racism during his first year as a professor as what sparked his intrigue with this notion.
"We were having, really, a great class discussion, and one girl looked like she was, just, over it," Flynn said. "So I asked her, 'Why are you so quiet?' And she told me I didn't want to know. So, I'm like, 'Now I gotta know,' And she told me that race wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for people like me and the NAACP," he continued.
"The room just went silent, and in my head, I was like, 'Wow. I can't remember the last time anyone said some shit like that to me.'"
Over the next few minutes, other classmates chastised the student for her comments, even offering examples from class literature to communicate the error in her words. After the lecture, he asked the student to stick around to talk further. She did, and that conversation is what lit the flame for Flynn.
"That's when she started telling me, basically, 'Look, I'm from a rural area in northern Michigan,’” he remembered. “‘There aren't many Black people in my town. I didn't grow up around Black folks. My family has no reservations about dinner table discussion being 'nigger this, nigger that.' That's all I've known.’ and I was like, ‘Okay …’
"And at the same time, she was also trying to say she understood the basic concept of the marginalization of Black folks. But for her entire life, she also got all these counter-messages, like, 'Well, they've got Affirmative Action, they've got this, they've got that, everybody is concerned about them,’” Flynn explained.
"That's what got me on this path of thinking about how and why some white folks respond to these conversations the way they do," he expanded. "As I looked back on that conversation, I came to recognize that it wasn't necessarily that she didn't believe in the idea of privilege, but rather she was confused by her own lack of economic privilege."
While this interaction still stands out to Flynn, the dynamic has existed in many other exchanges he's had over the years. "In countless conversations with people, the most common response that I get is, you know, 'Privilege? I'm not privileged. I work hard. Nobody ever gave me anything,' and so on, so forth. And I have to gently remind them, 'That's a completely different kind of privilege,'" he said.
What separates these other exchanges from the student who stuck around to talk with Flynn is precisely that: she stuck around to talk — to ask difficult questions and have difficult questions asked of her. She could have opted not to speak up in the first place or to leave campus after tossing her argumentative grenade and receiving heavy return fire.
Liuzzo-Lilleboe also acknowledged that being quiet is the most comfortable option for white Americans. She, too, struggled with it at earlier points in her life. In time, she recognized that white people are the only ones afforded the luxury of staying quiet when issues like racism and privilege arise.
"I would meet people, and if they had heard of me, and they were pro-civil rights, they liked me. If they were anti-civil rights, they didn't like me," she said. "It didn't much matter what I did or what I said at all. It was their take on civil rights that determined if they liked me. But, if I were in a group of people who weren't sure about who I was, or if I didn’t know how they felt about the topic, I would just shut up. I just wouldn't tell them anything. But, my mom kind of tapped me on the shoulder again, and it occurred to me.
"'If you were Black, you couldn't hide.'"
That fact — if you are Black, you can't hide — further cemented itself with Liuzzo-Lilleboe via interactions with Black friends whom she met through her involvement in civil rights activism. "I remember this young woman, 21-years-old, who I befriended in nonviolence training," she recalled. "Really upbeat, just a bright spirit of sunshine.
"I called her one day, and I could tell she was really down, and I said, 'What's the matter with you?' And she said, 'You know, for just one day — just one day — I wish I could wake up and not have to deal with being Black.'"
This statement encapsulates the dichotomy of the lived reality for Black and white Americans. Black Americans — of all economic standing — must carefully consider how their skin color will impact them at several junctures of their day, every single day. In contrast, white Americans — regardless of economic standing — exist with such mobility and autonomy that our skin color seldom registers with us, even as an afterthought.
"She didn't mean she didn't want to be Black," Liuzzo-Lilleboe elaborated. "She was asking if she would ever be able to get through a day without having to account for being Black."
Herein lies another common misconception shared by many white folks: an unspoken fear that 'equality' entails lowering the quality of the white lived experience. The fear that we, as white Americans, will have to experience what it's like to be Black — or more simply, a minority — in this country.
The irony of this fear is its unintentional acknowledgment that the systems in American society operate to assist certain people more than others based on skin color. Beyond that, the concept of 'American equality' does not revolve around worsening the livelihood of white Americans. Precisely, the idea of 'American equality' is the polar opposite.
"A lot of white people are afraid that the goal is to make every white person in America feel what it's like to be Black. But, that isn't it at all," Liuzzo-Lilleboe contended.
"The goal is allowing everyone else in America to finally feel and experience the freedom that white people feel each and every day."
Although this message centers on race, taking in this history and responding to it is not a race — to treat it as such would make this about white people. If you are white, this is not about you or about getting recognition for helping, nor is it a competition to be the most helpful white person. "Don't go debating all your white friends trying to one-up them with your knowledge. If you do that, it just becomes a battle among white folks about who can better communicate the history or say something better than someone else who also wants to help. You can share information, but don't just go around arguing your information. Because, then, all this shit just becomes a competition," Flynn stressed.
If you are competitive, compete against yourself — every day. Your effort should not be rooted in standing out or outperforming as many other white people as possible; your impetus should be simply getting as many other white people as possible to stand up and perform alongside you. This is not a game. There is no need for scorekeeping. No matter how much research one has done, how many conversations one has had, or how many documentaries one may watch — there will always be more to learn.
Furthermore, consider that comprehending these truths comes at a different rate for everyone. Within the lived experiences of white Americans, while all share a particular privilege, there are still no two alike.
"If people don't have the knowledge, then people don't have the knowledge, you know? They're not going to know things or see things clearly in the way that you do yet. It's likely that you were once at a point where you didn't have that knowledge. But you gained it, whether from reading books or sitting in a classroom or having a profound experience or — most importantly — through having these discussions," Flynn expressed. "But this isn't a competition, and other people may not be there yet, so don't try to make them feel bad about who they are or what they don't know yet.
"Because, if we're going to say that racism is a system of advantage based on race, well, we are all immersed in that system. So, it's sensible that they don't know. It's sensible for them to think the ways that they do. So, don't pass judgment on people. Just be present, 'Hey, I'm here for you. We can talk.' Keep yourself open."
A 60-something white man who spends ten hours a week watching FOX News and lives in a rural, mostly-white community will absorb this history differently than a 30-something white woman who lives in a multicultural metropolis and receives CNN Breaking News Twitter alerts. However, it is imperative to keep in mind that neither of these hypothetical people can truly understand more than the other — because this is not a partisan issue.
"This is a long, long history. There is no one-minute answer I can give to explain this. It is so deeply rooted and impacts so many facets of all of our lives. Systemic racism didn't start with the Obama administration. Systemic racism didn't start with the Trump administration. Systemic racism started over a hundred years before this country was ever called the United States," Flynn pointed out.
It does not matter if you watch FOX or CNN, or if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, or who you voted for, or if you posted a Black screen on your Instagram account after George Floyd’s murder. White Americans will never truly understand the impact of this issue.
With that said, this is not an exemption for white Americans, by any means, to continue hiding behind their privilege. "This is absolutely not a free pass for white folks, even though it is sensible that a lot of them have the thought processes they do," Flynn pressed. "I always hear some version of this question, you know, 'Why are Black folks always complaining? Why do they always have to complain?'
"Well, because sometimes, we just get shit on because of our race — as in, like, every f—ing day."
For white Americans, that means once you commit to comprehending and combatting systemic racism, it must continue in perpetuity — as in, like, every fucking day.
"So, white folks must make an effort to see themselves within the story, and they must try to gain a sensibility for what it must be like, what it must feel like. On top of that, this is a lifelong project. This is something that you will always be engaged in. There is no end date," Flynn asserted.
This process — listening, empathizing, reflecting, learning, talking about things you'd typically avoid — is painful. It is inconvenient. It is emotionally draining.
If that shies you away from participating, then imagine how painful, inconvenient, and emotionally draining it must be for the victims.
"If you don’t see it or acknowledge that you see it, then we can’t fix it. The moment you see it, spot it, admit it, whatever you want to call it — when you acknowledge systemic racism, you become accountable,” Liuzzo-Lilleboe highlighted.
“People know it will make them angry, or they’ll feel sorry, or they’ll feel embarrassed. That’s why they avoid it so much. But, all we are interested in is communicating the truth,” she entreated. “Not for the sake of anybody’s guilt or innocence, but for the sake of paving the road to change.
“Because once you pick up this fight, there is no putting it back down."
———
Memorial for Viola Liuzzo near Selma, Alabama
———
“I look at some of my white friends sometimes and say, ‘If only you would spend a few days and immerse yourself in Black culture — how much you would gain!’” Liuzzo-Lilleboe beamed.
Understanding the Xs and Os of how American institutions have historically placed earmuffs on citizens — whether through policy, public education, or media — allows you to see the why behind it: we aren’t supposed to know too much.
Reflect on these methods, and it is easier to see how so many white Americans could deny the existence of systemic racism. There is one inquiry, though, that most white Americans haven’t sincerely entertained with regards to taking action against that systemic racism: ‘What’s in it for us?’
Look past the historical irony of white people not asking that question and ruminate on it for a moment. What is in it for white people? What rewards could we reap from a systemically anti-racist society? Based on the fact that hardly anybody asks, white Americans may find the answers shocking.
“We have to encourage people to recognize that we are all part of this much larger story,” Flynn proposed. “We can’t just look at our own single chapter. We have to look at the whole book. Otherwise, we are just this short story unto ourselves, even though that isn’t reality.
“We are all still part of this larger volume, so we have to make sense of all of that. And, when you don’t, that’s not only to the detriment of non-white people, it is to your own detriment, as well.”
On the surface, it might seem puzzling. How could white people be better off from leveling the societal playing field? While noble in concept, wouldn't that mainly just improve the lives of those currently marginalized? What tangible benefit would that bring to white Americans?
“Historically, racism has probably done the most to pull away from our collective resources. Look at all the brilliance that has been passed over because it was labeled ‘Black.’” Flynn said. “And as a society, economically, socially, culturally, we would be so much further advanced, had we have not had this gape of race — and class — that has hobbled the abilities of a lot of people to do wonderful and great things.”
Had true equity existed from the start in the United States, ponder how much more we might have achieved by now — collectively — from uplifting, encouraging, and supporting non-white citizens. Incalculable is the impact of the unseen advancements in our arts, literature, sciences, educational institutions, feats of sport, and of course, public policy.
“We all have to get to know each other!” Liuzzo-Lilleboe propounded. “White people don’t realize it, but they are hurt by systemic racism, too, because it continues to limit the society they live in. There is so much love, so much joy, so much delight that white people in America continue refusing to allow themselves to feel.
“Our country has so much to benefit from uplifting Black culture.”
Contemplate these ideas, and it is curious why any white American would deny the existence of systemic inequality, given that they would also benefit from its eradication. This paradox indicates the presence of two separate — but equally sad — truths.
First, it suggests that most elected officials, on both sides of the aisle, operate with a primary goal of prioritizing their own agendas.
Think about it — most of the people occupying an office in Washington, D.C. are white, and most of those folks are ‘well-educated’ concerning American history, often having graduated from prestigious universities. Surely, then, they must have a hastened grip on this history, these policies, and the centuries of documented injustices. They have to know, too, that our society would advance — in all facets — more expeditiously if all citizens had legitimate equity.
So, why wouldn’t they do everything under the sun to bleach racism from the fabric of our society, thus raising the floor for all Americans?
Hopefully, by now, it’s obvious: they don’t have your best interests in mind, either.
More importantly, this notion — that white people unequivocally stand to gain from erasing racial inequality — serves as concrete evidence of the individualist mindset chiseled into most Americans early on in life.
“It says a lot about us as a country when we consciously choose to disregard the calls and pleas from people who are hurting because of social inequity,” Flynn said. “It’s frustrating to hear us talk about ourselves. How powerful we are, how respected we are, how great we are, and how wealthy a nation we are. Yet, at the end of the day, ultimately, what we quibble about is money.”
Across America, blatant issues and injustices go ignored until certain citizens — usually financially stable, white folks — are the ones afflicted. Far too often, citizens only begin to care about an issue once they, or people who look like them, stand to benefit. When this is how one prioritizes their support of others, it is reflective of one valuing only their individual interests.
“We live in a country that’s constantly telling us, over and over and over again, that it’s about the individual. One person. It’s you, it’s you, it’s you,” Flynn pointed out. “A lot of other nations, and definitely other cultures, value the collective over the individual — the idea that if one of us is hurt, then all of us are hurt.
“That is a way I would like to live.”
As he pictured this desired society, Flynn wasn’t having delusions of grandeur or imagining any sort of utopia where Americans receive wealth and abundance as a birthright.
Simply, he envisions an America where all citizens have a genuine and equal opportunity to earn that wealth and abundance — while looking out for one another. “I’m not saying everyone in the United States should be driving a Mercedes-Benz,” he said. “But, everyone in the United States should have what they need to survive and a foundation to be able to thrive — and that’s it.
“Otherwise, stop talking about how much money we have.”
Innumerable factors outside of one’s control determine one’s place on the societal totem pole. Therefore, to perceive one’s standing in American society as a reflection of merit or achievement is counterintuitive to empathizing with the struggles of others. In parallel, this practice minimizes one’s ability to see how our systems favor some more than others.
“I mean, shit, look at Rosa Parks,” Flynn pointed out. “Ask almost any white person how they think that went down — ‘One woman, Rosa Parks, woke up and decided to take a stand.’ — No, that is not what happened. That leaves out the whole backstory.
“That version, the one taught to most people, attempts to inform without talking about how she was the secretary of the NAACP. Without talking about the fact that she came from this activist tradition. Without talking about Virginia Durr, one of her best friends — a white woman who helped Parks attend the Highlander Folk School, where she learned grassroots organizing practices and who also bailed her out of jail on a moment’s notice. Without talking about all these people that strategized and organized the bus boycott to make sure the bus boycott even happened,” Flynn illustrated. “All while ensuring that people could still work, go to their jobs, take care of their families, get to school and so on, so forth, without using public transportation — at a time when they were the largest consumers of public transportation.
“So, when you dismiss all of that complexity, it gives the impression that we are just a nation of individuals.”
Flynn mentioned Virginia Durr, an extremely disregarded figure from the 1960s civil rights movement. “Who is Virginia Durr?” he posed. “Virginia Durr was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and grew up a segregationist — yeah, bought into all of that — before she attended Wellesley College in Boston, Massachusetts, for undergrad. When she first arrived, Wellesley had a policy that you had to sit at a different table every single day, so that way, you had to get to know all of the girls in the class.
“The first day that came around where she had to sit with a Black student, she refused to. So, she went to the Dean and pleaded her case, and they basically told her, ‘Look, we aren’t changing our rules for you. If you can’t sit with a Black girl, there’s a bus station down the street,’” Flynn explained.
“She stuck it out, and by the time she left Wellesley after her third year, she had come to realize that everything she had been taught about Black intelligence, Black beauty, Black ability — it was all undone,” he expanded. “After her time there, she went back to Montgomery and married a lawyer, Clifford Durr, who was an advocate for civil rights. So, they became known around Montgomery for being on the side of righteousness, if you will. And, at one point, Virginia hired a seamstress. And this seamstress’s name was Rosa.
“So, Virginia and Rosa — Parks — developed a friendship. Virginia encouraged Rosa and made it possible for Rosa to attend the Highland Folks School, where Rosa learned grassroots organizing strategies, protest strategies, how to interact with police while protesting, all these things. So, Rosa’s experience at the Highland Folks School really kicked off her involvement and participation in the civil rights movement — and that happened because this white woman, Virginia Durr, encouraged her to go.’
“When you have stories like that out there, but they aren’t known, then it seems like ‘Oh, Rosa just woke up one morning and decided to sit in the front of the bus,’” Flynn specified.
Today, very few white Americans are familiar with who Durr was or her role in Parks’ activism career. In spotlighting Durr, Flynn elucidated yet another blockade for white people in joining the fight for equality — a severe shortage of white representation in anti-racism.
There is immense value to white people in engaging with the history of Black America. In taking the time to absorb the intimate details — both the tragic and the triumphant — and getting to know the prominent Black figures of the American story.
However, there is even more value to white people in engaging with the history of white America. In taking the time to absorb the intimate details — both the horrific and the honorable — and becoming familiar with the prominent white figures who laid the framework for systemic racism in America — and beyond that, gaining knowledge of those who have worked to dismantle it.
White Americans frequently complain about the ‘politically correct’ nature of minority groups demanding more representation in mass media — whether for Blacks, Asians, Latinos, Muslims, the LGBTQ community, or any other ethnic or religious outlier. Consistently, white folks grow confused and frustrated about why it really matters if there is at least one Black character on every TV show, or if there is a non-binary character in a cartoon, or if the new sitcom needs to be about a Latino family.
Hearken back to the questions Liuzzo-Lilleboe’s mother asked her when she was younger.
“‘Have you ever noticed there’s only a white Santa Claus?’”
“‘Have you ever wondered how you would feel if you never saw a magazine that had pretty white girls in it to show you what makeup would look good on you? Or what hairstyles you might want to try?’”
Rephrase those questions, and if you’re paying attention, a few dots may start to connect.
“‘Have you ever noticed schools only teach you about Black civil rights icons?’”
“‘Have you ever wondered how you would feel if you never saw a textbook that had other white people who had fought for civil rights in it to show you what actions you could take? Or ways that you could use your privilege to help?’”
Think about when you were a child in school, learning about slavery and the civil rights movement. Are you getting a glimpse into what that feels like? To never look up to anybody who looks like you?
“There’s a whole lot of white folks throughout history who have been anti-racist. But we don’t really talk about those people,” Flynn said.
“And since we don’t talk about those people very much, that means that the larger white community has fewer and fewer role models for what a white person doing anti-racist work looks like, you see? Now me, I’ve got hundreds of role models,” he quipped. “We can start naming names, right? Dr. King, Abernathy, Shuttlesworth, Jackson, Rosa Parks, on and on and on, right?
“But … what about white people?”
Let that simmer. It feels a little shitty — doesn't it?
Perhaps, you are now starting to see how a lack of representation creates massive disadvantages for certain groups of people.
“White people need to know these stories. We need to uplift these figures in education. People like Durr, people like James Lloyd Garrison, like James Reeb, like Jim Zwerg, who was close friends with the great John Lewis,” Flynn delineated.
Liuzzo-Lilleboe was another close friend of John Lewis, the former United States congressman from Georgia. For decades, they participated in civil rights demonstrations together. Despite the duration of their friendship, the two held a shared experience — from long before they became friends in any official capacity — which was unbeknownst to her until 2015.
Last year, after Lewis passed away at the age of 80, Liuzzo-Lilleboe was one of four speakers at his memorial in Selma. In her final goodbyes, she shared this memory and what it signified with the audience.
“In 2015, someone had reached out to send us some videos. You know how news stations sometimes sell old footage or keep story footage for decades?” Liuzzo-Lilleboe explained. “Well, someone sent us footage of my mother’s funeral, the full service, and procession. So, I’m watching the video, and I see John Lewis — a young John Lewis — with Dr. King, sitting in the congregation and taking part in saying goodbye to my mother.”
She distinctly remembered that Lewis had never brought up the fact he attended her mother’s funeral throughout the entirety of their friendship to that point. After reflecting on the video, it clicked with her why he never mentioned it.
“He wasn’t there for himself. He wasn’t there to tell anybody he was there. He was there for us and to say goodbye to our mother,” Liuzzo-Lilleboe evoked.
“The last thing I said at his service was, ‘So, 56 years ago, John Lewis was in church to help me say goodbye to my mother, and now I’m here with his family to help say goodbye to him. What warms my heart — and what makes me smile — is knowing that last Friday, John Lewis and my mother said hello to each other for the first time.’”
For Liuzzo-Lilleboe, speaking at his memorial will forever be a cherished memory. What sticks with her even more, though, is the underlying theme from her farewell message to Lewis and what it says about Black culture.
“It still amazes me,” she gleamed. “But that’s who — and what — John Lewis was. Love.
“And that’s what Black culture is — pure, pure love.”
————— 1/1 —————
“Yet, Selma, Alabama, became a shining moment in the conscience of man. If the worst in American life lurked in its dark streets, the best of American instincts arose passionately from across the nation to overcome it.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
On March 25, 1965, Viola Liuzzo — mere hours before her assassination — listened intently from outside the steps of the state capitol building in Montgomery, Alabama, as Dr. King spoke these words. His comments came in light of extensive violence against peaceful protestors during the preceding months, which attracted nationwide attention on March 7, also known as ‘Bloody Sunday.’
It was on ‘Bloody Sunday’ that a group of 600 peaceful protestors — led by a 25-year-old SNCC chairman named John Lewis — crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge while exiting Selma en route to the capitol in Montgomery. After crossing the bridge’s crest, a cordon of Alabama State Troopers met the protestors and instigated a ruthless clash, intent on keeping the activists from reaching Highway 80.
The confrontation hospitalized seventeen protestors — while more than fifty others received treatment for lesser injuries — after police used tear gas, clubs, and even horses to force the outnumbered marchers back across the bridge. The entire ordeal was captured on video, making national headlines.
Moreover, headlining the savagery in Selma were the murders of Jimmie Lee Jackson and James Reeb. Jackson — a 26-year-old, unarmed Black man — was shot by a state trooper while defending his mother on February 18, dying eight days later, while Reeb — a 38-year-old white minister from Boston — was beaten to death by members of the Ku Klux Klan on March 9.
This violence and these slayings substantiated King’s claim that the worst in American life did, indeed, lurk in Selma’s dark streets. Concurrently, Liuzzo’s response to that violence — traveling from Michigan to Alabama to stand up against it — corroborated King’s claim that the best of American instincts, indeed, also arose passionately from across the nation to overcome those darker angels.
View this excerpt, and this history, in context with the murder of George Floyd and, correspondingly, how Americans responded to it.
King’s words ring truer now — at the moment you are reading this — than ever before.
———
John Lewis and Jim Zwerg after the march on ‘Bloody Sunday’
———
Yet, Minneapolis, Minnesota, became a shining moment in the conscience of man. If the worst in American life lurked in its sunlit streets, the best of American instincts arose passionately from across the nation to overcome it.
From all corners of the country, American citizens were finally — or in some cases, once again — galvanized into taking action. Nearly everyone remembers where they were when they first saw that video last May.
Among them is Mary Liuzzo-Lilleboe.
“I struggled so much with George Floyd and what happened to him,” she said. “But to me, it struck differently for different reasons. There was this whole aspect, because of COVID, that there were people at home watching TV who would have never seen that blatant murder of a man.”
The heinous nature of Floyd’s murder clearly — and sadly — distinguished it from other, indeterminable instances of videotaped police brutality and hate crimes in the United States. Due to looming public unrest in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, immeasurable is the impact of the moment in history in which the murder occurred.
Because of that timing, millions — many of whom otherwise wouldn’t have — came face-to-face with the unnerving reality that there is a deep-rooted, special sort of hatred reserved for those with colored skin in America.
This deep-rooted, special sort of hatred revealed itself — yet again — because this hatred does not care if someone records it on camera. This hatred conceives the conditions for one to kneel on the neck of another human being for more than nine minutes. This hatred basks in the paparazzi of distressed citizens, knowing that has never truly weakened its influence.
Floyd’s murder only caused the societal reckoning it did because someone recorded it on camera. Without the video, Chauvin likely isn’t found guilty — or even facing charges. Without the video, there wouldn’t have been historic protests carried out. Without the video, America doesn’t know George Floyd’s name.
For personal reasons, Liuzzo-Lilleboe also thinks about the fact that without the video, there would — at least — be a slight reprieve from the trauma faced by Selwyn Jones and the rest of Floyd’s loved ones. “I can’t imagine how I would have felt if I had to watch my mother’s murder on TV,” she empathized.
“To watch them drive her off the road. To watch them shoot her in the head. To watch her body laying there — all alone — on the side of the highway. To watch her take her last breath.”
Because of her mother’s death, Liuzzo-Lilleboe has a unique capacity to empathize with Floyd’s family. Her heart mourns for how it must have felt for them.
To watch the officers force Perry to the ground. To watch Chauvin put his knee on Perry’s neck. To watch Perry laying there — all alone — on the side of the street. To watch Perry take his last breath.
She knows what it feels like to lose someone to this hatred.
But, more acutely, she knows that this knowledge does not mean that she understands.
“I still don’t ‘get it,’” Liuzzo-Lilleboe rationalized.
“Because, at the end of every day, I still get to go home and be white.”
————— 1/1 —————
— end, part three —
————— 1/1 —————
Liuzzo-Lilleboe and Dr. Flynn conducted independent interviews for part three
— part four —
Me
I am a white American. I wrote this story as a plea for other white Americans to realize their misinterpretations and contributions to systemic racism. If I don't acknowledge how I am guilty of those same sins, there is no purpose in publishing this.
I built this outlet with the intent of helping inform others about the intricacies at the center of so many prescient social issues. When I designed this website, I knew the first story needed to address systemic racism.
Since the murder of George Floyd, I have tried my best to learn about racism through listening, empathizing, and reflecting on the history and operations of America. Initially, the more I learned, the more I thought I was starting to understand it.
That listening, that empathizing, and that reflecting shifted from internet research to actual, immersive dialogue with people who deal with systemic racism every day. I then came to understand that I can never understand — which was an essential first step.
Although I created this website, wrote this story, and shared some of what I have learned through this first collection, none of that means anything if I don’t lead by example and publicly admit my transgressions and my role perpetuating systemic racism.
I am no better than anyone. When it comes to this fight, I must be fully transparent — as a white person — if I want to sincerely help. For at least one other white person reading, my hope is you follow this lead and deeply, openly reflect on your wrongdoings.
I am far from perfect. But so are you. If we accept that as a baseline truth about everyone, maybe we can start taking baby steps forward alongside each other. No, you don’t need to start a website and tell the world how you’ve messed up. Just tell someone.
In my experience, the more I learn about other people, the more I find out about myself. Therefore, I try to spend time daily learning about others — their struggles, victories, and histories — to better understand my place in this world.
I hope that, above all, the co1/1ection helps convince you to do the same.
You might be shocked about all of the things that you don’t know about you …
———
‘Reflecting’
————— 1/1 —————
I don’t really know where I fit in, exactly.
I need to start by apologizing to the Black community.
Before I continue, I want to specify something. Just because I am apologizing does not mean that I am owed forgiveness from any Black person. As a white person, all I can do is be honest, offer my heartfelt remorse to those I have wronged, and work day in and day out to continue doing right by the Black community.
After I do that, I can only hope those folks who I have wronged can find the grace to offer me forgiveness in return. I accept that there may be some who can’t yet — or may never — offer that forgiveness. Those are the consequences of my words and actions.
Recommencing, I am very sorry.
I have used both N-words before — the one ending with ‘—a’ and the one ending with ‘—er' — though at very different points in my life. For that, I openly offer my straightforward and sincere apologies — without excuse — to every Black person in the world.
I am ashamed of my ignorant past. When I think of how I used to carry myself, I grow hot with humiliation.
This is not easy. Still, I want to bring up specific examples from my past when I committed transgressions against the Black community. Because of these sins — and there is no way around it — I played a part in perpetuating this racist system all Americans exist within.
At this juncture, some Black readers may be rolling their eyes. Some may have already exited out of this window. Though I only wish to elaborate on my indiscretions to convey openness and vulnerability, there may be some who just don’t want to hear that. As I stated, that is the price I must pay for my actions — which is why I led with an apology upfront.
In journalism school, students learn, as one of the founding principles in this field, never to include themselves in the story. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve heard — I didn’t go to college.
But what about when you play a role in the outcome of the story? As in, like, every single day? As Dr. Flynn pointed out, we are all a part of this system of race — in addition to this larger, human story.
So, if I were to leave myself and my experiences out of this written story, it would be doing a disservice to the Black folks I have trespassed against and the white folks who could learn something from my mistakes.
From this point on in part four, nearly everything I write is directed — pointedly — at white readers. I am citing examples from my past and unpacking the when and why behind my offenses. Most imperative, I am publishing my blueprint for how you can — and why you need to — do this same thing.
———
When I was ten years old, I saw a Ku Klux Klan uniform for the first time.
In 2006, when I was nine years old, I moved from Macomb, Michigan, to Summerfield, North Carolina — a rural suburb of Greensboro. I spent my first nine years in a mostly-white area of southeast Michigan, so I experienced a bit of culture shock about many different things in Summerfield.
Flash forward one year, and I had more or less found my footing — at least socially. I had a few friends who lived on my street. I was playing basketball — my first love — in an organized league. My mom was still putting a smacking salami sandwich in my lunchbox every day. Things were good.
One of the friends who lived on my street — and who will remain unnamed — also played in a basketball league with me. Most days, we would get home from school, drop our bookbags, and play one-on-one on either of our driveway hoops for the next two or three hours. Beyond that routine, which resulted from physical proximity — the foundation of most childhood friendships — I do not think we could have been more different as individuals.
He wore camo. I wore NBA jerseys.
He wore blue jeans in the summer. I wore basketball shorts in the winter.
He wore workboots year-round. I wore tennis shoes year-round.
He liked country music. I liked rap.
Most days, he liked going fishing. I didn’t give a fuck what day it was — I hated worms.
That is what’s funny about kids — or, maybe, that is what’s funny about sports. We had all those differences, yet we still got along — because we both liked basketball.
One day in May, after the bus dropped me off, I ran into my house and changed my clothes before making the usual half-mile saunter to his house. I remember it was extremely humid that day.
As I walked, I straddled the tire-scuffed yellow line of the two-lane asphalt road. It was so hot that my forehead itched, which I quickly realized was the welling of sweat beads navigating through my hair en route to drip down my face.
Crossing the threshold of my friend's property, I began trodding up his cracked cement driveway. The cacophony of cicadas and scent of sweet onion from the pasture by my house became overtaken by a coarse blend of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Marlboro Red smoke billowing from the one-stall garage. Before I could reach the threshold, he popped out from his front walk.
On his face, he wore a grin that I had never seen him try on before. “‘You gotta see this! I know you ain’t never seen nothin’ like this!’” he exclaimed, rushing toward me.
Confused, I didn’t know what to expect — he made no mention of anything at school that day, but his excitement told me something unique was afoot. “‘My uncle came by! I bet you can’t guess what he brought,’” he continued in a frenzy. Before I could even make a guess, a scrawny man — roughly in his 30s — who wasn’t his dad, came out from the garage.
“‘What are you two little wild motherfuckers up to, huh?’” his uncle greeted us.
“‘You brought it, didn’t ya!?’” my friend responded.
“‘Aww shit, yeah, buddy. It’s in here, y’all wanna check it out?’”
Still perplexed, I didn’t have time to conjure — even to myself — what ‘it’ was before I entered the garage and looked up. Once there, I found myself face-to-face with an authentic Ku Klux Klan uniform, which his uncle claimed was from the 1800s.
I remember how creamy — not white — it was in color. I remember his uncle explaining that it belonged to his great-grandfather, or maybe his great uncle, an influential figure from that era of the Klan. I remember the weight of the faded, fraying fabric. It was so heavy that I actually asked, in a seriousness only associated with childhood naivety, ‘How could anyone wear this in the summer?’
What I remember even more is, for about two hours, I went between sitting in his garage, throwing a football around, and shooting driveway hoops with two grown men. Those grown men spent that time teaching racist jokes to my friend and me, encouraging us to use racial slurs — insofar as to how to ‘correctly’ use them — and giggling at the sight and sound of two children growing autonomous in their prejudiced tendencies.
But, without question, what I remember most is being an active participant. I remember thinking it really was funny. I remember feeling like I was getting away with something each time I used the ‘hard R’ in that driveway. I remember substituting names of Black kids from school into jokes to try and impress the two men.
I also recall being keen enough not to inform my parents about what happened that afternoon. In retrospect, I wasn’t even sure why I thought the jokes, the words, and the prejudices were funny — or what any of it genuinely meant — but I knew that my parents had not raised me to act how I did. Later that night, when I was by myself in my room, I finally started to feel the pull of my conscience.
My favorite sport was basketball. Most of my favorite players were Black. I thought about if they would think those jokes were funny. I knew what slavery was, and I felt bad for slaves. Making those jokes, laughing at them — it all felt dirty. And I started feeling dirty.
I never saw that friend’s uncle again, and as time passed, I spent less and less time with that friend until I moved back to Michigan when I was thirteen.
That said, I didn’t correct my behavior completely. I still found myself in settings in North Carolina — around certain friends and trying to be ‘cool,’ — where I used the ‘—er’ iteration of the N-word on a few occasions.
And it always made me feel dirty.
Once again, I apologize.
———
———
I felt uncomfortable … I felt mad … I felt embarrassed.
In August 2007, a few months after being introduced to palpable fibers of hatred — of which no child should ever have exposure — I was inside an empty Palace of Auburn Hills. Over the moon with excitement, I hustled down the lower bowl staircase toward the court that my favorite team, the Detroit Pistons, played on. It was the first day of a five-day basketball camp hosted by Pistons assistant coaches and staff.
Once I reached the floor, the beholden look in my eyes locked with a reciprocating gaze of someone on the court. When I processed whose eyes I had engaged, I became seized by a sudden, subtle swell of shame. I felt discomfort, distress, and, simultaneously, rising anger at myself. It wasn’t until the past few years that I realized why I felt those emotions.
Striding onto the hardwood, I was in a staring contest with Stephen Jackson.
At the time, Jackson was a forward with the Golden State Warriors, playing an integral role in their upset of the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks in the previous season’s playoffs. I was taken aback by his company because there hadn’t been plans or announcements of any NBA players attending this camp — let alone one who played for a team located across the country and had never played for the Pistons.
In any case, I didn’t get too lost in the why behind his appearance. Moreso, I was grappling with how his presence placed me an arms-length away from one of those players I thought about in my room the night I saw the KKK uniform. Though, being just a ten-year-old, I didn’t mention anything to him.
Over the next five days, I had multiple pleasant interactions with Jackson. He and I would end up cracking jokes together, getting shots up on a side basket, or just going a little more in-depth with one another on a drill. On the final day of the camp — Competition Day — Jackson brought me the most thrilling experience of my young life.
On Competition Day, the roughly 250 campers each chose one of a selection of contests to compete in. I selected the ‘Hot Shot Competition,’ which was relatively simple in concept. Two players competed in each round, shooting on opposite baskets from one another.
When the challenge began, a timer counted down from sixty seconds. Players would shoot from both elbows of the free-throw line, alternating between the two with each shot. The player who made the most baskets in those sixty seconds advanced to the next round.
I ended up winning the entire ‘Hot Shot’ tournament. After the buzzer rang in the championship round, Jackson sprinted across the court, lifting me in the air like Simba as we paraded around the arena and let out celebratory roars.
As camp dismissed for the last time, Jackson let the remaining crowd of campers die down before pulling me aside. He put his very expensive watch on my wrist and had me pose for pictures in it. Then, he signed my trophy and my camp jersey before writing down his email address and phone number, telling me he wanted to keep in touch and get me to a game sometime.
My mom, bewildered, asked Jackson why he connected so much with me. He replied that he loved uplifting young hoopers, and sometimes at camps, he just feels a link with certain kids. In those moments, he told her, he thought it was his responsibility to extend himself further.
Because I lived in an area of North Carolina that wasn’t necessarily close to NBA action, we never could materialize that meet-up in subsequent years. Regardless, Jackson didn’t have to undertake an extra effort to befriend any children at that camp. As I reflected on this memory, I looked further into why Jackson actually was there that week.
He wasn’t part of any touring series to volunteer at youth camps — or anything of that nature — during that year. After some digging, I discovered he was there due to an Oakland County court order for his role in the infamous ‘Malice at The Palace’ brawl between the Pacers and Pistons in 2004.
Initially, Jackson’s probation term expired well before that camp. However, the court sentenced him to extended community service hours after a judge ruled he violated his probation by defending his friends in a 2006 parking lot altercation.
So, Jackson really had no reason to be seeking ten-year-old hooper friends. And, to that point, he certainly didn’t have to pursue my friendship, a little white kid who — I am now admitting to the world — absolutely did not deserve that extension of love and mentorship.
As I type this, my mind gravitates to Mary Liuzzo-Lilleboe’s parting message: ‘That’s what Black culture is — pure, pure love.’
Last year, Minneapolis police officers murdered George Floyd on May 25.
On May 29, one of Floyd’s lifelong friends delivered an impassioned speech on the floor of Minneapolis City Hall. That friend called for justice in Floyd’s death and action — across the country — to rise up against systemic racism and police brutality. His declamation served as one of the initial sparks to a fuse that lit off nationwide protests all summer.
That friend spent some of his childhood growing up with Floyd in Texas, where they referred to one another as brothers and as teammates. Most commonly, though, they referred to one another — due to their similar physical traits — as twins.
That childhood friend of George Floyd was Stephen Jackson.
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Stephen Jackson with George Floyd’s daughter, Gianna
———
I sat there, and I felt my heart and soul completely wither within my body.
Last year, I was arrested on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, in what I am determined to maintain as my final abuse of racial privilege. I found myself in a jail cell — yet again — for unpaid fines and unfulfilled terms of probation dating back three years.
After being sentenced and booked into General Housing, I laid on the frigid steel bedframe and reverse-contemplated the previous decade of my life. I deliberated on my actions and experiences from age thirteen up through what had just transpired not even twenty minutes before I walked into that cell.
Once I moved from North Carolina back to Michigan in 2010, I spent the formative years of my adolescence with a distinct disregard for pain felt by others. As often happens within white, middle-class children, I fostered a woe-is-me attitude in my teenage years concerning my placement in the world.
When I advanced from middle school to high school, the fact that I was a ‘late bloomer’ meant, to me, that nobody could have had it worse than me. No matter what someone else may have been going through, there was no way you could tell me that it compared to my pain — to feeling so physically far behind my peers.
I didn’t care or think critically about the broad fist of injustice that swung on minorities daily — one which lands blows on children the same as it does adults. Nor did I consider how, in the grand scheme, my lived experience realistically ranked as one of the best for any human in history.
From the ages of thirteen to sixteen, my contempt for my circumstances luckily only manifested in the form of in-school and at-home punishment. Before having a job, I collected detentions, suspensions, groundings, and consistent lectures on my attitude — from school administrators and my parents — on a bi-weekly pay scale.
Then, I got my license — accompanied by the obligatory car that I certainly did not deserve at sixteen. These new variables shifted my self-sabotaging efforts into a higher gear, no pun. The license and the vehicle, coupled with landing a job that kept me out past midnight on weekends, fueled a nascent, never-look-back mindset — so I didn’t. Instead, I opted only to look forward or look away.
Most often, I chose the latter. It was in those instances that I started to lose sight of what road I was even on.
Three months after I turned seventeen, I tried to drive home from a party while blackout drunk. The two friends who were with me convinced me to pull over and get out of the driver’s seat. Once I was home safely, I stayed in my car — in my driveway — pirouetting with drunken paranoia over my parents catching me in this state.
So, I decided to take a drive for some fresh air at two in the morning. All I remember is the jolt of my car hitting a mound of snow while driving down the private street I lived on. I left the car where it was and walked home.
The following day, Michigan State Police officers towed my vehicle, then came to my house to investigate a DUI. Because I blew under the legal limit, and there was no proof that I was driving, I got a ticket for a misdemeanor minor in possession of alcohol. A judge sentenced me to only a year of probation.
While serving that probation, I failed multiple urine tests for drugs and alcohol, earning me three more appearances in court. I was let off with two warnings before the judge extended my probation after the third court date. I did not serve any time in jail.
In the final month of that probation, I violated once more — just after I graduated high school. The assurance of going to jail added to the other unbearable burdens in my life (parents getting divorced, untreated anxiety, typical white people shit, etc.). So much so, in fact, that I decided I didn’t want to live anymore.
I left home in July 2015 to attend a four-day country music festival at Michigan International Speedway, where I planned on killing myself the final night.
When that final night came around, I felt serene about my decision to die. After spending the daytime hours drinking to the point of numbness, I decided on my method of suicide. I was going to stab myself in the heart with a serrated chef’s knife I had stolen off of someone’s grill earlier that evening.
Around midnight, I tweeted my ‘final goodbyes’ before breaking my phone and separating from everyone in my group.
I walked around the racetrack and its surrounding campgrounds for two hours — the knife in my pocket — mingling with strangers. Around three in the morning, I felt that I was ready. Earlier, I had spotted a random, secluded truck. I decided that I would sit down, rest against its right rear tire, and plunge the knife into my chest.
As I walked toward the truck, two guys in straw hats offered me a beer in passing. I remember thinking, ‘One last beer couldn’t hurt,’ so I accepted and engaged in a brief conversation. Shortly into the discussion, I told the two strangers it felt strange to know this was my last beer. Perturbed, they asked me what the fuck I was talking about.
Inside my inebriated conscience, liquor and misery met in a torturous tango. Emotion began to flow from my quivering lips. I broke down crying, pulled the knife from my pocket, and confided that I planned to kill myself after we parted ways. One of their girlfriends called the police, so I decided to leave. I sprinted — knife in hand — from their truck.
About a quarter-mile down the trail, a police car flicked its lights and pulled in front of me. The officer exited his vehicle and asked what was going on. Knife still in hand, I rushed toward the officer multiple times — screaming at him to let me do what I needed to do. Backing away from me, he tried to communicate to me why what I was about to do was not the answer.
Growing volatile with hysteria and hostility, I begged the officer to kill me. He told me he wouldn’t do that, to which I responded by bartering with him about what I could do to force his hand. He asked why I was so upset. Through my drunken devastation, I couldn’t articulate anything coherent beyond my visceral need to no longer have a pulse.
After another minute or so, I dropped the knife and collapsed, sobbing and screaming into the dirt. The officer approached me from the side and gently scooped me up, placing me in the back of his squad car with protective zip ties around my wrists. He took me to a local hospital, where he breathalyzed me. I blew a .32. The next thing I remember is seeing my mom standing over my hospital bed — two days later.
I didn’t receive any charges, whether for alcohol possession, threatening an officer, or even additional violations from my existing probation. Nor did I end up having to serve any jail time I owed for that first sentence. Instead, my probation officer terminated the remainder, thinking it wouldn't do me any good in light of my recent mental health crisis.
Three weeks later — and only five days after my release from a mental health facility — I skipped community service to swim and drink with friends. After some typical teenage drama arose, a group of people wanted to go to a nearby neighborhood and confront who they perceived to be the cause of the drama. Because I knew where that person lived, I volunteered to drive.
Once there, someone called the police about the brewing brouhaha. As multiple squad cars pulled in, I navigated a truck — full of drunk teenagers and open liquor — out of the subdivision. Following a brief pursuit, a sheriff pulled us over, and I received a DUI. When the time came for my court date, the judge dropped my DUI charge to reckless driving, and I was sentenced only to another year of probation.
Eight months into that probation, I went to Augusta, Georgia, to visit my grandparents during the weekend of golf’s famous The Masters Tournament. Some of my dad’s work friends were in town to attend, and we took my dad’s truck to a rental house where some of them were hosting a party. Late that night, after consuming multiple drinks, I decided I didn’t want to sleep there, so I found my dad’s truck keys.
I only made it a few miles before a Georgia State Trooper pulled me over.
While handcuffed in the back of another cop car, the officer who arrested me asked if there was any way he could help me out. I told him I didn’t want to add a towing bill to this new burden I brought on my parents and asked if my mom could pick up the truck to save a few hundred dollars. He reactivated my phone — which he had seized from my possession — and held it to my ear as I told my mom about my latest fuck-up.
Because I was from out of state, the court in Georgia only sentenced me to a year of probation, which I could fulfill via calling the court once a month for a check-in.
Ten months after that — on Valentine’s Day in 2017 — I went out to the bar with friends in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. After returning safely to my apartment with some friends to relax, it was past midnight when a few of us decided to relocate to another friend’s apartment. Opting to drive separately, I stopped at McDonald’s for a Coke before making my way to the new destination.
Not one mile from the McDonald’s parking lot, I was pulled over for speeding. At this point, I knew the drill. The officer asked if I had been drinking, I told him yes. He ran my license and saw my priors, so we skipped the sobriety tests and headed straight to the jail.
Two months later, for the first time in my life, my license was suspended — for two years — and I was sentenced to jail time, only receiving five days of a maximum 93-day sentence. Within a month of my release from jail, I failed a drug test and received eighteen more days. Upon leaving the jail after the second stint, I moved out of Mt. Pleasant and began working at a hockey retailer in Ann Arbor.
Because of my license suspension, I didn’t really follow up with the court about what, if anything, I still owed. Now approaching 21 years of age — yes, all of this took place before I could legally drink — I began getting my priorities somewhat in order. Over the next two years, I laid low, maintained employment, moved to East Lansing to pursue better things, and found a passion for writing.
When the time came to have my license reinstated, I wasn’t in a particular rush — due to the fear that I might have still had a few untied loose ends with the court in Mt. Pleasant. Concurrently, I started to catch a few minor breaks with my writing, which began when I started contributing to a small Detroit Pistons blog. My first few blog posts had generated somewhat glowing feedback on social media from basketball fans, other aspiring writers, and even some established journalists.
At the time, my primary source of income came from the liquor store I worked at in East Lansing. The night before Thanksgiving in 2019, a Twisted Tea merchandiser was in the store for a pop-up sample promotion. By chance, I wore a Detroit Pistons jacket that evening, which got us talking about basketball. At a certain point, I mentioned that I contributed to a basketball blog.
Intrigued, the merchandiser pulled up a couple of my articles and perused through them before telling me that his grandfather owned a small newspaper and was in the market for a freelance sportswriter. He couldn’t guarantee I would make any money, but he gave me his grandfather’s info.
The following week, I met with his grandfather, and he offered me the chance to provide freelance work, even arranging for me to receive a press pass. I picked up my press pass the day after Christmas. I planned to reach out with event coverage inquiries once I returned from a four-day trip to Los Angeles in mid-January I had planned with my best friend.
A week before our flight, it dawned on me that the Los Angeles Lakers had two players on their roster from Flint, Michigan. I found an email for Lakers Press Relations through a PDF of an old media guide on the internet. I sent a cold-call type email to the address inquiring about media credentials for a game during my stay in January. Days passed with no answer. Thankfully, I hadn’t gotten my hopes up.
As I was doing last-minute packing — less than eight hours before my flight — I received an email from Los Angeles Lakers PR. The email informed me of the approval of my credential request, offering full game coverage, locker room, and court access. Less than 48 hours later, on January 15, 2020, I covered my first-ever live event — a Los Angeles Lakers vs. Orlando Magic game at the STAPLES Center.
Upon returning from the trip — on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day — I arrived in Michigan with a new sense of purpose in life.
While back in my apartment that evening, I was still on cloud nine, listening to loud music late into the night. Shortly after midnight, two police officers knocked on my door after a neighbor called the police. After ensuring that I would keep it down for the rest of the night, the officers prepared to head out — they just needed to see my ID to document the situation.
When they ran my ID, they discovered there was a warrant for my arrest in Mt. Pleasant. The officers handcuffed me and transported me to jail, about an hour north on Route 127. I arrived at the jail around two in the morning before being booked and placed in a holding cell overnight. The following morning, I would have a video arraignment and sentencing.
With me in the holding cell, there was only one other person — a Black man named Brian. He was only two or three years my senior, and throughout the night, we chatted about a lot of things. If you’ve ever been to jail, you might know how those conversations usually start: ‘What’d they get you for?’
Brian wasn’t from the area, but two years earlier, he was pulled over in Mt. Pleasant with marijuana in his car and arrested for the first time in his life. The court charged him with OWI and possession of marijuana under one ounce, which carried a maximum sentence of 93 days in jail — in addition to a license suspension.
He served twenty days after his initial sentencing before returning to his hometown. Because of his license suspension, Brian focused on holding steady employment and staying on a good path. He had a fiancée and child he needed to provide for, he told me. He had been doing well and looking into getting his license back.
That night, he had been riding in the passenger seat of a friend’s car in Saginaw when a police car pulled them over in a traffic stop. Officers claimed to smell marijuana in the vehicle and requested both of their IDs. Even though there was no marijuana in the car, officers saw a warrant for Brian’s arrest in Mt. Pleasant. They transported him to the jail and booked him in about an hour before me. Once I explained how I wound up in the cell with him, we shared a laugh due to the many parallels in our situations.
Ahead of our sentencing in the morning, we postulated how many days we would end up getting. We each had a maximum of 93 days stemming from our charges. We had each served roughly twenty of those 93 days. If the judge had a bad morning, we knew where we would likely spend our next two months. Around 9:30 am, I wished Brian luck as a corrections officer escorted him from the holding cell to his arraignment.
About fifteen minutes later, he returned to the cell with a huge smile, radiating positive energy.
“ONLY 44 BABYYY!” he exclaimed, walking back into the holding cell to await transfer. Worried the judge would max him out because of how long it had been since his original sentence, Brian exuded relief as he paced around the cell.
“‘With good time, I’ll be out by March,’” he said. “‘I’ll be able to do video calls with my girl for the month, and I’ll be out before my son’s birthday. Dog, I was certain she was gonna max me out.’
“‘I can do 44, man. 44 ain’t shit.’”
Though I was delighted to see his relief, my selfish instincts began to riddle me with anxiety. If I was about to spend a month and a half in jail, I could kiss the newspaper opportunity goodbye. How would I ever get to cover an NBA game again? I can’t afford to sit down for a month. Fuck. A couple of minutes later, an officer came to escort me to my sentencing.
I walked in and met my court-appointed attorney. He asked if there was anything the judge should know about me concerning a case for leniency. I told him about my writing, my employment, staying out of trouble — all the standard polishings of a dirty penny. As I listed those things, I knew it wouldn’t matter. Brian has a child, and the judge had just given him 44 days. She’s not going to give a fuck about my writing.
My sentencing began with a few exchanges between the judge and the attorney to help the judge make her initial assessment. The judge asked if there was anything I wanted to say. I told her that I was sorry for my actions and that I was truly committed to being a better citizen — and I felt that lately, I had been. She responded with an admonishment of my past conduct before asking if I had anything further to add. My heart racing, I said no.
“‘Alright, then, Michael, the court sentences you to four days in county jail with the requirement that you check in with a probation officer immediately upon your release,’” the judge ordered.
The relief I would've normally expected to feel for such a light sentence never arrived. As soon as I heard ‘four days,’ it was as if a fuse had shorted in my brain. My heart sank. All I could picture was Brian’s baby boy, and I didn’t even know what he looked like.
Four fucking days?
I walked, numbly, back to the holding cell, petrified of informing Brian that my sentence was one-eleventh that of his. I turned the corner to enter the cell, and Brian was gone — already transferred. I sat in silence until mine, and when I got to my cell in General Housing, I placed my things at the foot of my bunk, laid back, and started to reflect.
Years of guilt, shame, and accountability I should have felt long earlier arrived in a tsunami of thought. This tidal wave of indignity decimated the shores of my mind, creeping further and further into my conscience.
None of that leniency handed to me throughout my unrepentant teenage years — probation sentences in place of jail, every stern warning, every extension of sympathy — would ever go to a Black child. It’s that simple.
And yet, I took each handout and ran, looking back with a beguiled grin and zero intention of correcting my ways. I admit it — I played the system because I knew I could. Naively, I thought I gamed these institutions because of my charm. I wasn’t gaming shit.
The system is gaming minorities. And that collective sense of subtle superiority embedded in white folks grows with every break caught — because we’re cultured to think that we actually earned it.
I finally started to see clearly — that was just one more example of how the system divides working-class citizens along a line drawn in the sands of race.
My heart and my soul felt as if they were in a trash compactor. After wallowing in my wrongdoings, I started asking myself questions — challenging ones.
About my worldview.
About why it took me so long to see this injustice.
About how I could have possibly not seen it.
I spent those four days — or 96 hours — in constant, cautious introspection about myself, this world, and my responsibilities to this world moving forward.
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———
A hard thing for white people to understand is the systemic aspect of racism — and how there really are institutions set up against certain people.
If you head north on the I-45 freeway and drive about 70 miles from where George Floyd and Stephen Jackson grew up — the Third Ward neighborhood of Houston — you reach a town called Huntsville.
Most Americans have probably never heard of it. One year ago, I hadn’t either.
In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, my investment in understanding the functions of systemic racism was more than emotional. It became divine. The inhumanity of a grown man — with his windpipe crushed underneath the knee of another — begging for his deceased mother with his final, occluded breaths engulfed me in an indignified inferno.
I felt compelled to pore over any resource, document, or information that might fill me in on the history of how racism shapes almost every aspect of life in the United States. It was during this time that I came to learn of Huntsville, Texas.
During World War II, as America began to win more overseas battles against the Axis alliance, the military needed somewhere to house enemies who had been taken captive. To accommodate, the U.S. Army started building Prisoner of War (POW) camps on U.S. soil. One of the first POW camps erected in the United States — and the first POW camp in Texas — was Camp Huntsville.
Devised to house 3,000 prisoners, the construction of Camp Huntsville finished in September of 1942. The camp welcomed its first prisoners — Nazi soldiers from the German Afrikan Korps stationed in North Africa — in April of 1943. Due to increasing public knowledge of the ongoing holocaust, the German Nazi party had garnered a reputation worldwide as the human embodiment of evil.
When those German soldiers arrived in Huntsville, residents flocked to the camp to get a glimpse of these barbarians they had heard about on the evening news. In actuality, the people, conditions, and treatment at Camp Huntsville took nearly everyone by surprise — perhaps no one more than the Nazis.
Local Texans were astounded by the physical mediocrity and comfortable living conditions of their new German neighbors. Many residents quickly viewed the Nazis in a favorable light, often gathering outside the camp's fence to socialize with them during their leisure hours.
Meanwhile, the Nazi soldiers grew astonished as they saw firsthand that American morality only extended to specific demographics.
Comprised of over 400 buildings — and located on more than 800 acres — Camp Huntsville offered many luxuries to the Nazi prisoners. Among them were paid field labor and three hot meals daily. Often, German and American soldiers partook in one another's company during meals in the cafeteria, which sometimes served traditional German dishes — with beer.
Additionally, the camp provided POWs daily participation in orchestral and choir groups, access to a wide range of outdoor recreational activities such as soccer, baseball, horseshoes, woodworking, and lastly — a favorite of many SS prisoners — sunbathing decks. At the end of each evening, the Germans would retire in newly-built, comfortable barracks equipped with sturdy sleeping quarters.
These living conditions pleasantly shocked many Nazi prisoners. Still, they found themselves most stupefied by who the U.S. Army excluded from enjoying those same perks at Camp Huntsville: its Black soldiers.
Instead of running pick-up soccer games, lying for hours under the sun, eating familiar comfort foods, and sleeping in sturdy bunks, camp policies relegated Black soldiers stationed in Huntsville to a much bleaker day-to-day experience.
Black soldiers woke up each morning in the least hospitable housing conditions on the property. For meals, because they weren't allowed to eat with the white servicemen and Nazis, they cooked with limited resources in the Blacks-only cafeteria. When walking across the property to work, Black servicemen often had to politely nod as Pullman cars passed by, transporting Germans to the same worksite they trudged toward on foot.
Speaking of that work, they were most often sequestered in the cotton fields alongside the Germans — earning the same $1.50 daily wage. However, the daily quotas for expected work output were three times higher for Black soldiers than German prisoners. When the Black soldiers weren't in the fields, their work centered on the most repulsive duties at the camp, such as transporting human waste from latrines or massaging anti-lice foam onto Nazi scalps.
In time, the Nazis — known globally for being overtly racist — grew sympathetic for the trials and treatment of Black soldiers. Many members of the SS regime formed friendships with their Black counterparts, some of which continued long after the war. Years later, many Germans spoke publicly about how much of a bombshell it was to see the level of hypocrisy on display at Camp Huntsville.
To the Nazis, it was incomprehensible that the U.S. Army implemented an education program for the Germans centered on adopting democratic ideals, given the treatment of Blacks in America. They found it nearly unfathomable to be force-fed an education on protecting the right to vote and citizen inclusion while, simultaneously, certain Americans were literally cleaning up their shit — just because they were Black.
Read that paragraph again.
To summarize this spotlight on Camp Huntsville: less than a hundred years ago, the United States military curried blatant favor to actual Nazis over Black Americans — on American soil.
Going one step further, Black Americans found themselves treated with more dignity and humanity by real Nazis than the country that they wore a uniform to defend — while in that country.
How do we continue to do this?
How do we, as white Americans, continue to look away? To deny that there is anything wrong?
How must this feel? To receive this treatment? To know your parents received this treatment? And your grandparents? And their parents? And their parents? And their parents? And their parents?
Do you even realize that I’m not being hyperbolic in how I posed those questions?
Fuck.
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Nazi POWs from the German North Afrika Korps
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It’s probably going to feel damn near impossible to feel like you can even start to help.
Once I committed to submerging in the appalling realities of America's past and present, I jumped into the deep end with no floaties. For a couple of days, I sparred with sadness, anger, and guilt while reading into the history of the United States.
But, reading about Camp Huntsville was the first time I lost all containment of my emotions. I sat, for almost twenty minutes, weeping in front of my laptop on a sunny May afternoon — less than 72 hours after George Floyd took his last breath.
It's toilsome to articulate how I felt — and still do — because I don't think there is a word that captures the cohesion of rage and sorrow dilating within me. Mostly, I felt utterly helpless. The history I had unsheathed only seemed to grow more and more insurmountable.
How could I even help? What could I really do that might make even a minuscule difference?
Then, I saw Stephen Jackson, from Minneapolis City Hall, subpoena Americans — of all backgrounds — to the concrete courtrooms of city streets across our country. This prominent figure from my childhood needed people to defend the honor of his friend — his people. I remembered the discomfort, distress, and anger I felt when I first locked eyes with him thirteen years earlier.
Transfixed by his call to action, I felt conviction not to let Jackson down, not to let Floyd down. I continued sponging whatever information I could on historic inequities. In June, I participated in a few marches across Michigan.
Soon after, Jackson announced on Instagram that he would be in Flint to lead a march and distribute water to residents still suffering from the Flint Water Crisis. Without even a wink of thought, I knew I would not miss the opportunity to go and extend my support back to Jackson how he had done for me.
On July 17, one week after getting my license reinstated for the first time in three years, I drove to Flint. I arrived early at the Evergreen Regency Townhomes, where the event was centered. I felt — for the first time in a long time — like I was right where I needed to be.
A crowd of Flint residents eagerly waited for Jackson and former Detroit Pistons forward Rasheed Wallace to arrive and kick things off. As Wallace's Dodge Ram pulled in and parked in the spot next to my car, excited children and adults, alike, converged on the two NBA veterans.
Earlier, on the drive into Flint, I reminded myself that none of that upcoming day was about me. That day and that event was for Flint residents, the Black community, and George Floyd. My purpose for being there was to enhance and assist, however possible, in uplifting those three subjects.
I stood back from the crowd, watching as little kids bounced up and down, hugging Jackson's calf. I watched as men and women approached him, sobbing, thanking him for everything he was doing. I watched some teens snap a selfie with him.
As one of the very few white people there, I saw nothing but love. I felt nothing but love. It made sense — I surrounded myself with Black culture.
A few minutes before the event began, Jackson stood to himself at the tailgate of Wallace's truck. I approached him, and as if he already knew who I was, he opened his arms for a hug.
We embraced, and the first thing I said to him was how sorry I was for what happened to his friend, George. He told me he appreciated my condolences and my coming to Flint to help out. Not wanting to be intrusive or make anything about me, I asked if he had a moment — because he and I go back.
Through a smirk, he replied, "'Of course, my boy.'"
Maintaining a safe distance, I lowered my mask. I began telling Jackson that thirteen years before, he and I had connected at a Pistons camp. Before I could get half of my following sentence out, his eyebrows shot up.
"'Yoo! Nuh uh — MY BOY!!'" he shouted. "‘No doubt I remember you! How you been dog!? Your moms doing alright? What's been good?'"
At that moment, our reciprocating energy placed us in a brief time capsule. As we caught up, the energy between us channeled every interaction we had at the basketball camp in 2007. I conveyed how much of an impact he had had on my life — and my appreciation for it.
Keeping it brief — and keeping the real reason I was there in mind — I let him know I was only there to help. Anything he needed or anything he wanted me to do for the event, I had his back. Both of us dressed in a broad smile, we embraced again and walked over to start the event.
Throughout the next four hours or so, I felt blessed to help the movement distribute water to over a thousand families. Additionally, we passed out baby food, diapers, toilet paper, and other essential items that so many Flint families didn't have access to due to the pandemic.
For a half-hour chunk of that time, Jackson and I loaded my Ford Escape to the brim with water and supplies. We drove around — I navigated, he passed out supplies on the move from the tailgate — to cover as much ground as possible.
While that aspect of the day brought joy and nostalgia to my soul, I spent most of the day learning — through interactions with the townhome residents.
One boy, who was fifteen, sprinted after my car at one point because he had only gotten one of the two 24-packs of water we were giving out to each family. I had him hop in, and we went to grab more. On the brief drive across the complex, he said he thought his family would miss out again.
I asked what he meant.
"'Man, last time people came through for one of these water hand-outs, my momma wasn't home, and I didn't realize 'til people were leaving. We only had one pack of water for the next month — we usually get at least four,'" he said.
This exchange remains vivid in my mind.
Riding around the complex, I realized that the boy in my passenger seat had more resolve than I have ever had. Without embellishing, I can safely say that — in his average week — he has to sacrifice more than I have had to sacrifice throughout my entire life.
Not once in my life have I ever thought about not having water to get through the month. Certainly not when I was fifteen. And, for readers confused about why they couldn't just go to a grocery store for more — that isn't an option. Bottled water is, to this day, consistently scarce in Flint.
Beyond that, the average income in Flint is disproportionately lower for Black families. Many parts of the city still do not have clean tap water. More specifically, the areas with the highest concentration of Black residents. Unfortunately, this is not what state and federal officials peddle to the public.
Aside from issues of systemic injustice playing a role in that boy's life, our interaction taught me something else — but about my past.
I started part four with an acknowledgment that I had used both variations of the N-word. I haven't yet addressed how I continuously disrespected the Black community in my late-teens by adopting the '—a' version into my everyday vernacular. I would use the word around white friends and Black friends who didn't take exception to it.
In my idiocy, I figured that if even one of my Black friends was okay with me using it, that meant I had a free pass to spend as currency in any setting. For more than three years, probably, that word was a semi-regular fixture in my daily vocabulary. In doing that, I helped to widen the gap of racial privilege in the United States.
I want to expose my foolishness here and say that — once again — I am incredibly sorry.
It's just so selfish. Not only did I take ownership of a word that I have no cultural ties to, but I didn't even stop to give a thought to the origins and history of it. Because, when you are white and, especially, middle-class, you have insulation and distraction from those concerns.
It's an entirely different fucking world. Possessing racial and economic privilege unearths a terrifying level of cognitive dissonance.
That's why activism so often becomes a vacation for middle-class white people. There is always an expiration date on participation in social causes because we can walk away and not have to see it — or suffer the consequences — every day after our departure.
It is effortless to feel good about yourself for going to a low-income area for a weekend, handing out some cans of soup, and taking a few pictures.
When the weekend is over, you don't have to think about when each family will run out of soup — they do. You don't follow anyone you encountered on social media, so they're not going to see you exploiting them online. Plus, your friends will commend your giving heart.
Financially well-off white people possess the most potential energy for boredom in the United States' social landscape. When that energy becomes kinetic, it destroys lives, communities, and movements.
Think about when your parent let you pick a new toy from the store as a child. You pick it up off the shelf, mesmerized. You take it home, keep it close by, play with it, show it to some friends — maybe some of them get one too! — but eventually, and often quickly, you get bored, and you want a new toy.
This is how middle-class white people in America view social issues that affect minority groups.
This is why middle-class white people hold the most influence on the arc of progress within these movements for social change.
Historically, we always end up getting bored and wanting another toy.
If only we realized that there are enough of us to buy every toy in the store.
Think about what could happen if all of us picked a different toy — and then we invited over each and every kid who can't afford to buy any toys.
Who loses in that scenario?
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Stephen Jackson distributing water and supplies in Flint, Michigan
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I just want to be remembered as a good man, honestly.
Not just as a good white man — I want to be remembered as a good man.
I’m not — by any means — suggesting that I aspire to see our current society adopt a ‘colorblind’ mentality. Rather, I wish to be alive when Dr. King’s dream finally gets realized. In that March 25, 1965, speech, King broadcast his vision for a racially and socially equitable society on the steps of the state capitol building in Montgomery.
With crystal clarity, he dispelled any notion that the goal for Black Americans is to topple the white citizens of this nation on their way to a better life. He understood that a better life was only possible if it meant uplifting the entire population — that is why people in power ceaselessly tried to silence him.
“Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man but to win his friendship and understanding,” King espoused. “We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man.
“That will be the day of man as man.”
In this story collection, repeatedly stressed is the notion that there is so much about the consequences of systemic racism that white people can never understand. Something that white people can gain a complete and sincere understanding of, though, are these words from Dr. King.
It can be tricky. The concrete fact that white people can't fully understand so many aspects of this problem prevents many of them from ever trying. Because, as humans, we often feel that we can’t help someone until we thoroughly understand their problems. Because of that instinct, the easiest route — especially in this fight against institutional inequality — is to avoid ever joining in.
‘If I can’t ever understand, how can I ever help?’
To understand anything, one must start by learning about it. Whether we realize it or not, humans almost always approach problem-solving through a three-step formula. First, engaging with a problem to learn about it, then learning about the problem to understand it, and finally understanding the problem to help solve it.
Even though white Americans can not understand every part of the problem of systemic racism, we can still use this formula — albeit with a minor tweak — and have a meaningful impact on solving the problem.
The fact is, to help fight systemic racism, white people can not learn to understand.
Nevertheless, white people can l.e.a.r.n. to understand — to help fight systemic racism.
And we must.
We must listen, empathize, and reflect, not to understand — but to help fight systemic racism.
Going back to where this started, I think I have the answer to the question that Conklin and I both had about our role in all of this — where do I fit in, exactly?
I fit in right where I am, but I only started fitting in once I started paying attention.
Everything in my life lined me up for this — to create this outlet, to author this story, and to combine my passions: people and writing.
You can fit in where you are, too. You just have to start paying attention — your path will pave itself. Once you’re on that path, start asking difficult questions. You’ll grow closer to where you want to go.
As soon as you realize you are only racing yourself, you can’t lose.
If we seek answers, those answers present themselves — in every situation.
Especially when it feels like there is nothing to gain from it …
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‘Eat the meat, throw away the bone’
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You know, I wasn’t a 4.0 student that went to Harvard or one of those prestigious universities and then got hired by a big media company. I was an ignorant teenager who didn’t pursue a college education and then battled mental health issues and faced adversity — whether it was going to jail or losing my license when I got a DUI and those things. I went back to jail after my first NBA game, my first ever sports coverage of any kind. I mean, everything that happened — going back before college to high school, when I decided to choose privilege over people initially — lined me up for this.
What I mean by that — ‘Eat the meat, throw away the bone.’ — is every person and situation in this world has something of value you can take, you know? Whether it’s just one thing, the littlest of things, you can take that and disregard the rest. Then, some people might have a shit ton of information they can give you, and there’s less to throw away, but you’ll never know without giving it a chance.
It’s something you can think back on when someone’s trying to help you, and you might think, ‘Man, this a bunch of bullshit.’ But maybe they just told you one little good thing in all that ‘bullshit,’ and it could still help you a little bit.
But if we don’t listen, that can’t happen.
