Showing up Black
Showing up Black
When I reflect on what’s been going on for the last few months, I am overwhelmed. Seeing not only my own life upended, but the whole world at a standstill was at one point, too much for me to bear. To keep myself grounded and things in perspective, I kept telling myself, “Gary, you are part of the privileged class. You have not lost your job, you’re able to continue working from the comfort of your own home, and by the way, you have an actual home to live in.” I wasn’t allowing myself to openly feel grief. Things were changing in both my personal and professional lives, and I had to deal with these things in solitude since I am quarantined alone.
Despite what I was feeling, I had to show up to work every day ready to be productive, ready to be a “bright light” in my work circles, and ready to perform, both literally and figuratively. I went from being only a bit rattled by the pandemic to then seeing that Black people were dying at disproportionate rates, and even seeing some of my friends and loved ones falling ill to COVID-19. Then, day-by-day, my social media feeds were becoming filled with posts of people who were losing family members due to the virus. Yet and still, I would show up to work with a smile.
Surprisingly for me, one of the most challenging things over the last several weeks has been the conversations that happen at various meetings regarding how we feel about everything going on in the world, and how we are taking care of ourselves. I had been able to breeze through most of those conversations by just saying, “I’m fine,” or not speaking at all, but the subject of self-care would always be a slight trigger because I knew I was struggling, and my main coping mechanism was to simply avoid the conversations altogether.
So, where am I going with this?
As a Black man in the US, this burden of dealing with grief and “showing up” has become much more difficult over the last two weeks. I’ve watched people who look like me be hunted and gunned down while simply going for a jog. I’ve heard about a young Black woman being murdered in her own home. I watched a Black man threatened while bird watching in Central Park, and then, as if things weren’t heavy enough, I saw a Black man mercilessly choked on camera while pleading for breath and calling out for his mother in his last seconds of life. That broke me. Having all of these events happen so close to one another reminded me of the time a few years ago when Philando Castile and Alton Sterling were killed within days of one another and I reluctantly requested a day off from my former job just to deal with my feelings. Not without guilt, however.
Since being quarantined, I have been relieved at the fact that I don’t have to commute to my NYC office for now, simply because I dread walking through groups of NYPD officers in Grand Central Terminal every morning. Even as an “educated, non-threatening Black man,” as some would describe me, there is a fear that comes over me while walking past the NYPD officers, so much that I always instinctively mute the music playing in my ears simply to be sure that I hear if one of them says anything to me. God forbid I don’t respond to them calling me, resulting in an escalation that would possibly turn me into the next hashtag. These are the routine and very subtle thoughts that go through my head each time I’m close to a police officer. I don’t have the luxury of feeling safe with them.
This weekend was...exhausting. While both observing and participating in protests and demonstrations in New York, I was reminded that things really haven’t changed in my lifetime. Not only is there a toxic relationship between police officers and Black people, the leadership in this country doesn’t seem to care about our well-being at all. I marched in the streets of Brooklyn with people of all colors and backgrounds, chanting, uplifting one another, and cheering, only feeling fear when I passed by officers in riot gear with their batons in hand. When I finished marching and returned to my apartment on Saturday evening, my first thoughts were, “Nothing is going to change. We will grow tired again, and all of this will fade away until the next wave of racially-motivated killings occurs.”
And here I am, on Monday morning, reporting live from within the four walls of my apartment, wondering how I can be a productive associate of the bank, and if I will be able to shake off the weight of the weekend for 8+ hours before recharging, only to do it all over again each day for the rest of the week.
There’s really no resolution or profound ending to this blog post — just speaking aloud, providing context, and saying what many Black people in Corporate America will struggle to articulate for various reasons. We are burdened. We are tired. We are not okay...but we are here.