It occurred to me today that I have only recently become acquainted with fear, while others have always known it.
On Friday, I got back from my run memorializing the birthday of Maud Arbery with a 2.23 mile run. I don’t usually run on Fridays, but I didn’t figure a 2.23 mile run was going to be that big of a deal on an off-day.
I wonder if Maud thought his run on February 23rd was going to be a big deal.
I was so proud of myself, posting the hashtag on Twitter and then commenting on my own post with the screenshot of my mileage, thinking of myself as a social activist, as if I’d actually done anything that substantial.
During the run, thinking about Maud pretty much the entire time, I remembered LeBron James and his post on social media from last week, mentioning that black men are hunted whenever they leave their homes.
I can’t even imagine what that would be like. No one noticed me during my run on Friday, no one looked at me suspiciously or decided to follow me while keeping a watchful eye. No one grabbed their guns to come after me to ask me some questions about what I was doing.
I came across a police officer, during my run on Friday. He was turning a corner in his squad car, a corner that I was approaching. I thought to myself of the stories that I’ve heard where people have been unduly harassed by police officers, for whatever reason. I thought to myself that I’ve never had any reason to not trust the police in my neighborhood.
One of Maud’s killers was a retired police officer.
I was also thinking about my daughters and their questions about why I was running on an off-day, trying to explain to them how someone could be murdered in February, but no one gets arrested until May. Trying to explain why racism still exists in the world.
Trying to explain, and mostly failing.
The word ‘asymptomatic’ has been bothering me a lot lately. In fact, it’s got me down-right scared. I don’t know who out there in the world has COVID-19 because of the word ‘asymptomatic’. I don’t know if it’s safe to give my neighbor a ride to the grocery store while his car is in the shop. I don’t know if it’s safe for my son to hang-out with his girlfriend that he hasn’t seen in person in a couple of months. I’m afraid that some ‘asymptomatic’ human is going to infect me and then I’m going to infect one of my kids, or my wife, and then what?!?!
I think about my fear, and then I think about Maud’s fear and LeBron’s fear, and it makes me wish for a world where there is less to be afraid. It also makes me a little bit ashamed to be so little acquainted with fear. My white privilege has me pretty spoiled, it seems.
And, as the story continues to unfold, and people politicize Maud’s death, and people yell at each other about race, no one at all seems interested in listening –> they only seem to be interested in being heard.
It Occurred To Me Today 