I Got Your Back!

 

I am awake, I am alive and this morning as my mind reels over the latest projectile thrown at an indigneous woman in this city, I cannot help but ask, “Do you have our back?”
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The exercise was simple enough. Mom would make us stand back-to-back. “This is what partnership is” she would say as she made us each look around the room. “You can see much but what you cannot see is directly in front of your partner. He can see it. And what he cannot see is obvious to you, for it is directly in front of you. THIS is what it means to have each other’s back – to see see what the other can’t, to warn them, and conversely, to believe what they tell you they see that you cannot.”
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So do you have our back? When the racist joke is uttered, and there are no BIPOC in the room, do you shut it down? Do you eliminate the threat we am not there to see?
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And when we tell you this venue is not safe for indigenous or that person is racist against us, do you believe what we see even as you can’t?
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The questions are valid. For in this city, it seems far too many are turning a blind eye, refusing to see when yet another is assaulted or insulted. Too many blame us, the victim, rather than calling out a behaviour that should never be allowed.
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“When will this racism end?” they ask.
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When we stop tolerating it. When we ALL call it out. When together we decide NOT IN OUR CITY.
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The journey continues. This is me, praying you have our backs because those attacks we don’t see coming … are killing us.
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I love you. HUGSSSSSSSSSSS
Sandi