What is Unfinished is Reborn: Unblocking the Arteries of Racial Hatred, Rage and Despair in America
It’s 2020, we are in the midst of a pandemic, 40 million Americans are unemployed, 100k+ have died from the Coronavirus and folks are desperate to feed themselves. This in and of itself is emotionally and psychically taxing enough. And still, the police have managed to kill an unarmed Black man — George Floyd. We are sick with a social disease called racism which is clogging our arteries. We are heart-sick.
We feel the grief. We see the fury and fires burning in protest across America. We don’t know what Mr. Floyd was trying to buy with that $20 dollars. We don’t know what condition he was in financially. But we know folks are very angry and becoming increasingly afraid and desperate. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we also have the precondition of being Black in this country — which can lead to our death at the hands of the police.
So, what happens to a Black person (on the inside) when a Covid-19 is ravaging the Black community in addition to white supremacy, hatred and injustice? How do Black folks stand with our backs straight in the midst of these tumultuous, gusty winds? How do any of us — mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, stand when we also see the whiplash of Donald Trump inciting expressions of white nationalism, extremism, and vociferous hate throughout the White House, the media and across the nation through tweets, public rants, policies, laws, and executive decisions?
Racial distress is a reality and how we relate to racial distress is a habit-song.
The gross constellation of this most recent act of hatred and racial violence towards a Black man — George Floyd — is the latest illustration of what is fundamentally unfinished business between Blacks and whites in the United States.
The fires burning in several U.S. cities in response to George Floyd’s murder are the unequivocal result of all the unheard cries for justice that have come before and been ignored. It’s the generational bewailing of pushing against — pushing against — pushing against the indescribable weight of the past and white ignorance and ill. Systemic and structural racial harm and injury are a matter of — white privilege.
So the question isn’t how do we put out this particular fire, stop this one period of rioting, but what constitutes enough is enough? Does “enough is enough” mean we are setting in motion policies to dismantle the structural racism embedded in the culture of law enforcement, killing people with racist practices like “chokeholding?”
Everyone knows there is a long history of police killing black men. The cumulative impact of trauma and distress is not something that Black folks set out to express. It piles up inside us like trash and, when it’s jolted by white ignorance and injury, it crashes all over the place. This loss of control is fraught with terror and anxiety and embarrassment. It also distorts and intensifies racial distress. This is why I cannot understand why white folks get so confused and flabbergasted when Black folks take their pain to the streets. I am in no way saying that I condone violence, looting, stealing, I’m saying I understand where it is coming from.
Trauma takes up residence in the neighborhood of present day racial distress — it’s where it finds expression and also seeks release.
Any intelligent person can see that there is an acute contrast between how law enforcement handled the protest in Michigan versus what we’ve seen in Minneapolis. I’ve been tussling with it — with how the police in Michigan showed such restraint.
I saw a photo of a white man with a gun on his side, refusing to be put in cuffs and yelling with his face inches away from the policeman —and yet the policeman was so gentle with him. State lawmakers were so scared of these white men with guns that the democratic process was actually shut down as the state closed the capitol building. Isn’t this the very definition of terrorism? Yet the white men suffered no consequences.
Now let’s revisit the mass murderer Dylan Roof, who shot up and killed nine Black folks in South Carolina worshipping in Church. The police handled him with such kid gloves and escorted him safely into custody. Black mothers everywhere long for such respectful treatment of their sons.
This isn’t new. It’s as though some folks are granted the right of citizenship (whites) and some folks are expected simply to submit and obey (Blacks).
What is unfinished from the past is reborn in the present.
As a Marital Therapist, I say to couples, “When an issue comes knocking more than two times in your life and it comes with a certain amount of intensity, it is because it has long tentacles that reach way back into the childhood (unconscious) agenda and it’s showing up today so that it can be acknowledged, dealt with and eventually healed. This is a process, not an event.
What is unfinished from the past is reborn in the present.
These racially fueled killings and violence continue to come knocking in present day life with such robust intensity because we haven’t dealt with racism at its root — individually or at the group level.
Social change requires us to dive below our old habit-songs, automatic knee-jerk responses, defenses— underneath the words themselves — to examine our conditioning. The interconnected framework of reality points us towards ultimate reality. Relational reality is the poignant elixir that makes ultimate reality possible — and we cannot know ultimate reality outside of our own bodily experiences.
We are made of habit and our relationships are conditioned and formed by habit. As such, we need to understand how we have been conditioned to relate to each other before we can know real freedom and wisdom. It’s similar to the process of getting sober and healing from addiction. One must follow the tentacles that reach back into one’s history to understand the deeper underlying causes and conditions that led one to drink and use drugs addictively. This is how I know that with awareness, change is possible.
I’ll also say this: Black folks are genetically, intravenously afraid of the police — myself included. These days, I feel such deep angst for the Black men, women and children in my family and for my own heart, which needs more than I can give it at times. The senseless and incessant suffering passed on has to be understood, dignified and reorganized.
When harm of such magnitude is inflicted, and in many cases deliberately, it makes trauma more difficult to overcome psychologically — snowballing into a communicable social disease that affects the well-being of all of humanity. We all have the unforgettable markings of trauma, perennial wounding and the grace of survival.
What is unfinished from the past is reborn in the present.
Let’s examine the most recent event, the killing of George Floyd by a policeman, Derek Chauvin. The police officer’s knee on the neck of Mr. Floyd is well-documented. Events that are also well-documented are the lynchings of Blacks, which were often festive family occasions for the white people performing the killing.
Stay with me here.
As I examined the photos of Derek Chauvin. I looked at his face. He had his hands in pocket. His knee in George Floyd’s neck. His sunglasses still securely on his head. I make the assumption (because the behavior is so intense) that this type of behavior has long tentacles that reach back into not only, Derek Chauvin’s history, but also American History.
So I examined some old photos of whites gathering after a lynching a Black man. I looked and reflected on the faces of the white men spectators watching the life being drained out of a Black man. Many of these men (and some women) are smiling, some even wearing their Sunday best — they look proud —pointing their fingers at the body hanging from the tree, with what appears to be a sense of accomplishment on their faces — altogether standing around one, dead, unrecognizable face, of a Black body — hanging in front of them.
In both instances I wondered whether or not these folks had children. I wondered how those children were feeling. What was happening in their hearts and minds? Although they were not directly involved in the actions, they witnessed a horror that was deemed normal. Were they frightened? Did they have questions? Were they opposed? What was required of them to fit into that moment? What would have happened if they had objected, resisted attending? What price did they pay emotionally and spiritually to maintain a sense of belonging? How did they behave to ensure love and acceptance? How did they adjust their hearts to live with such human hatred? What human price over the generations was to be paid for such denial, dissociation, rage, and amnesia? What unfinished business was passed down to the next generation?
Begin to inquire. What are you aware of? What is obvious? Take your time.
We might also imagine what was in the minds and hearts of George Floyd’s family and other Black families (historically too, because the pain comes with such sharp intensity), as they helplessly witnessed such hateful acts, most likely from a distance, or who may have dreaded that such evil could happen when their son, daughter, father, or child didn’t return home at the end of the day?
What stopped them from going insane or erupting in a rampage? What behavior was required to survive? How did they adjust their hearts to exist with such human hatred? What did they do with their feelings? I’m sure they had some. Did it affect their ability to be intimate, alive, curious, and empathetic? What kind of adults did the children become? What did they teach their children about race or the value of a life? What human price over the generations was paid for such suppression? What unfinished business was passed down to the next generation?How do you think this and other historic crimes of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s live in your heart and mind today?
A discerning heart recognizes that this reflection is not about blaming, denying, suppressing or solving a problem as much as it is to open to what is revealed and shift our relationship away from struggle toward healing and freedom.
I believe it is essential and life-giving to understand the blood-stained soil of U.S. history and recognize how white supremacy has systemically and intentionally resisted human equality in favor of power and greed and how this cultural swamp has impacted us all.
Begin to inquire. What are you aware of? What is obvious? Take your time.
One only needs to think of what happened to Ahmaud Aubery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd— to recognize that these traumas are not just a thing of the past.
What is unfinished in the past is transformed and re-authored in the present.
Old trauma, once a wound, is now a scar; yet when brushed against, reminds us of what we must never forget — the suffering that broke our hearts and woke us up.
“There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now.” James Baldwin
