58k Likes, 1,008 Comments - Nikkolas Smith (@nikkolas_smith) on Instagram: "Today I will not draw joy... Today I draw Pain. Today I sketch Injustice. Today I paint a..."
To be honest, if I was caught up in my regular daily routine, I wouldn’t have spent as much time as I did reading about this event. As a human, I see all kinds of injustices I wish I could help solve. From homelessness and hunger, to rape and racism, and everything in between. But I am only one person, and I can only do so much; I can only be responsible for my own actions.
For years I’ve struggled with my own mental health journey; diagnosed with PTSD, suffering from anxiety attacks, healing from a lifetime of trauma while struggling to find the tools to do so. When you struggle to get through the day without a breakdown, worthy worldly injustices tend to fall at the bottom of the priority list when it comes to mental space.
My own childhood trauma led me down a path that included much sexual harassment and abuse, and so it’s been easy to cling to that as my ‘cause’. I feel comfortable advocating for women’s rights because I know that world. I’ve lived it. I’ve donated to women’s shelters, fundraised for free the children, picked up litter on the side of the road; being a philanthropist has been on my vision board since I was a kid.
What I’ve never felt particularly comfortable advocating for, are the rights of people of colour. I don’t know that world. I haven’t lived it.
I didn’t know what feminism was all about until I took a women’s studies class at university. It was an elective in my last semester. Just something to get me the credits I needed to get the hell outta there. Up until then, I never felt comfortable calling myself a feminist because I thought I hadn’t earned it. “Feminists,” in my mind, had been women like the Suffragettes and Gloria Steinem. They’d been to war for women. What had I done?
Even writing this I feel nervous. Who am I to call myself an ally? What power do I have to make a difference for people of colour besides going to the theatre to see Crazy Rich Asians and Black Panther? Or promoting my friends content when she makes a short film about black girl hair? Sending thoughts and prayers to the families, friends, and communities affected by societal racism - what good does that do? Though it might be coming from a genuine place I can’t help but feel like I’ll be seen as just another white person, jumping on the hashtag bandwagon. It feels genuine and empty all at once.
So I usually stay out of it.
But it’s quarantine, and I have absolutely no excuse not to educate myself. So I started reading articles about Ahmaud Arbery. With every article I read, I just had more and more questions. 911 calls? A stolen firearm from Travis’ truck on January 1st? The McMichaels ties to law enforcement? Who was filming the video and how did it get on the internet? Citizen’s arrest? Self defence?
The contents of these articles seem more like reaction videos than actually reporting on the event itself. Trumps reaction, Biden’s reaction, the hashtags, the celebrities, the vigils, the description of the video… All I wanted to know was, how did two white men, shoot and kill an unarmed black man and get away with it? I’ve spent this entire day reading articles, and I still have so many questions.
I wish I could say I was heart broken the moment I saw the headline, but to be honest, it’s hard for me to be emotionally invested every time I see death in the news. I’d never experience a moment of joy if I let my heart break for the collective suffering of others. It may sound cold-hearted but I can’t be the only one who moves through life this way. Nonetheless I kept clicking and reading, looking for answers like I was piecing together a timeline for a documentary.
The thing that simultaneously broke my heart and boiled my blood was reading the letter written by District Attorney George E. Barnhill. If I’ve learned anything from my own experience reporting my own harassment and assault to the police, it’s that there seem to be more bad cops than good. But reading this, and seeing how blatantly he dismisses and misconstrues the evidence, broke my heart into a thousand pieces. Reading, in his own words, a justification of the actions of those two men, makes me want to vomit, and cry, and scream. It’s infuriating and violating to know that the people our tax dollars pay to protect us are in fact doing the opposite.
Barnhill needs to be fucking fired, and I want to be a part of making it happen. He needs to be held accountable just as much as the McMichaels do. Thankfully, I’m not the only one who feels that way. I signed the petition on Change.org here, and I urge you to do so as well.
Does signing a petition and writing this article on my blog make me feel more comfortable calling myself an ally? Not really, but I guess it’s a step in the right direction; I just wish there was more I could do.