Describe what you learned and how this experience made you feel……..

Today I stood on the corner of Pacific Coast Highway in Laguna Beach, holding a sign I’d scribbled on.

“No Justice No Peace. No Racist Police!” a group of us yelled, in righteous anger.

A young black man stood next to me. He was one of eight. The other fifty or so people were white. He was one of those people that looks young but is probably in his early twenties, like say…..Tamir Rice or Trayvon Martin. If you don’t know who those kids are, Google them.

He didn’t look like a threat. But as those names will remind us, the appearance of a threat isn’t a factor. He could still be killed by police. Tomorrow.

A man in a beat-up Subaru drove by us. He was a white guy.  He looked right at this young man next to me and said,

“Go back to Africa.”

I stood stunned. The young man next to me was stunned. But he quickly regained his composure and continued chanting.

“What’s his name?”

“George Floyd!”

“What did he say?”

“I can’t breathe!”

I was not as quick to catch my breath. He must’ve been used to these racist sentiments being hurled at him.

I was embarrassed to be white. I was mortified that an American would say this to another American. A black American whose ancestors were stolen from their homes in Africa, placed on a torturous ship to our country and then split up and sold as slaves. A new horrific life they didn’t ask for. Whipped, Mistreated, Demoralized, Lynched. All in our country.

I was so ashamed. But most of all, my heart was broken- seared in two by a deep, fiery rage of grief and hopelessness.

How dare this racist man hurl such an insult at a young kid who just wants the chance to live. Live, with the possibility of maybe succeeding. Maybe being given half the opportunities and privilege that me and almost all of my white family and friends have been given to make it. He knows that’s asking a lot. So he’ll stick with being able to live for now.

He’ll stick with being allowed to walk down the street in a hoodie and not be shot by a gun-toting, racist vigilante who feels threatened by his very existence in this world.

Or maybe seeing another day of life without a racist, smug-ass cop kneeling on his neck with a look of dominion and power as he chokes out his black victim’s last breath.

But I guess that’s too much to ask for some people.

I learned today that racism is still very active, alive and pulsating through our communities. And when you are silent, you are the same as that racist old man.