Social Awareness: How much? How Soon? Too Much?

I've been reading through old posts of mine on the topics of social justice and taking action. I grew up going to protests and being politically active. My parents talked to me about the world, or at least that's what I remember. When I was in first grade, my friend and I woke up early one Saturday and hand made as many flyers as we could with a six-year-old's attention span. Then we put 8.5 x 11 "Ronald Reagan Sucks" leaflets in all the mailboxes on our block. As an adult, I would refer to this as "canvassing for Mondale."

When I reached 5th grade, I really was canvassing. I spent two years working on the GE boycott with I.N.F.A.C.T. I spent two years setting up an ironing board, selling buttons, collecting signatures. I even flew out to a GE shareholders meeting in Milwaukee for a direct action. I spoke to the city council about making Oakland a nuclear free zone. I joined an environmental group that held a lot of meetings and a couple retreats and ended up hosting an arts event for kids in San Francisco, but I'm not sure we did anything for the environment.

By the time I got to high school, I was burnt out on political movements. I became a typical Gen X cynic. I marched against the first Iraq war and Prop 187, but if I'm being honest, I was just happy to be ditching class. Rodney King, OJ, I stayed home. I voted. I kept myself abreast of what was going on in the world, but I didn't get involved outside of going to a couple protests against police brutality in 2002 where I got hit by a rubber bullet and faced down police that charged the crowd on horseback. I'll admit, that felt pretty badass.

When we had kids we half made a decision to not shield them from the world or our lives. The other half is that I think we just can't help ourselves. T and I are not the quiet, reserved, stoic type of people. We talk a lot. Like, a lot. People used to remark that our kids were "so verbal." Well yeah, mom and dad never shut up so they hear a lot of words, and a great many of those words are about politics.
I've always struggled with finding the line between making sure my kids know about the world and about our lives so they won't be surprised by things that happen, and telling them more than their developing minds are ready to process. I don't know what the bigger trauma could be, the shock of having things happen without warning, or the anxiety of knowing too many possibilities.

Lou, 2015

We took the kids to Obama's second inauguration in 2013. We thought it was an important moment. Buddy was four, Lou was two. Neither of them remember it. The next year, we went to Ferguson. Buddy was five, Lou was three. They don't remember that either. In 2015, it was the Million Moms March in D.C. Each of these included conversations about why we were going, the precipitating events and the desired outcomes. We talked about race. We talked about policing. I taught them the things I had been taught about how to survive encounters with law enforcement, even after I realized that their inherited genetic whiteness would make these lessons moot.

Then came the 2016 election and the beginning of years of having to explain new uncomfortable things to the kids about racism and sexism and homophobia and hate crimes. There were marches for women and pride and detention centers. During this, maybe bolstered by it and our discussions of marriage equality, Lou came out as transgender. If this is the one benefit of over sharing with the kids, it'll all be worth it.

Now it's 2020 and we're in the middle of a pandemic and a period of civil unrest. T is back to taking to the streets every night to protest. Lou is back to making protest signs. Xe has a strong sense of right and wrong and all xe wants in the world is for people to be fair. Xe thirsts for justice, which makes sense as xir survival depends on a just and fair world. So we've talked about George Floyd. Just like we talked about Tamir Rice and Sandra Bland and Trayvon Martin and Philando Castille and so many others. Lou was excited to be able to ride in the Oakland Car Caravan protest. Everything seemed fine until that night. After the kids were in bed, T commented that maybe we've told them too much. She said that Lou and Yo now hated the police and were afraid of them and were afraid for us. They were afraid the police would kill us. They were worried about T going out to protest. Not long after, Lou emerged from xir bedroom unable to sleep, wracked with anxiety over police brutality. A few weeks later, a Black Lives Matter protest passed by the busy cross street near our house. The kids wanted to go down to the corner to hold signs and show support. As the main body of the march drew closer, police officers positioned themselves to block cross traffic ahead of the marchers. They were keeping the marchers safe. When Lou saw the police blocking our street on either side of the route, xe turned pale and started to retreat back to our house. Xe was convinced the police were there to hurt people. 

I'm wary of most police officers, but I can't bring myself to hate the police as a whole. I spent the spring of 2017 trying to become a police officer. While I acknowledge the systemic problems of policing as a whole, though I have been a victim of police violence, I just can't hate everyone who wears the uniform. This inability to hate doesn't stop me from being wary of any individual officer. I still do all the things I was taught growing up to make sure I get through police encounters alive. I support Black Lives Matter and I'm terrified of the Thin Blue Line crowd. I also don't want my kids, who by the privilege of their complexions will never need to fear a routine stop, to hate the police or fear them to point where they won't ask for help when they need it. I do want them to understand when to call the police and when to just leave things be. I want them to understand everything that calling the police really means and everything that could result. I don't want them to come to me at 25, seeing an unjust world and telling me, "Daddy, did you even know this stuff happens?" And I would have answer, "Yes." Because if I know then why wouldn't I tell them. If not to keep them safe, then to raise conscious, aware white looking secretly Latino-Asian allies?

It took some convincing, but Lou was persuaded to stay on the corner with us. I wanted xir to understand a couple things. First, that the police were not there to hurt people. Second, that there are things are worth standing up for, even when there's danger. I admit, that's a hard line to figure out. Whether to stand in the face of oppressive force, how much and for how long is dependent on so many factors I couldn't begin to try to explain them. I don't want T or the kids to stubbornly allow themselves to be beaten or gassed or worse. I also want them to start developing a sense for when to stay and when to leave. I want them to recognize danger rather than presume it (or on the other side, presume safety when it isn't real). I want them to be brave without being foolish. I want them to be cautious without being afraid. I want them to understand the world so they're not surprised by it. 

The thing I'm still not sure of is how much, how soon?

Black Lives Matter Needs to be More than a Slogan

I struggle. Not like people "in the struggle" struggle, I struggle with how to turn my ideals into action. I have a Black Lives Matter sign in my yard. I have one in my office. I have a BLM t-shirt. I've been to some rallies and marches. I offered to help them with ASL interpreting.

I believe that Black Lives Matter.

But how do I show it? How do I live it? What do I show my kids?

It can feel overwhelming at times. I feel helpless. I can't stop the police from shooting people. I try to observe police actions to the extent possible, but I don't know what I'd do if something went south. I hope that I would film it and verbally protest. I worry that I would try to intervene and get hurt.

That's an extreme and unlikely scenario. How can I show that Black Lives Matter to me on a day-to-day basis? Because I believe that an important aspect of change is how we carry it through on an individual, person-to-person basis. Yes, history remembers the big moments, the grand gestures, but the impact of those history book moments is in how we behave towards each other on a personal level.

This is where this gets hard to write because I don't want to seem self aggrandizing. Coming up next are two acts of common decency that should be unremarkable. I am writing about them because they were difficult for me, not in the doing, but in wanting to do them. Let's be clear, this isn't, "I'm a hero." This is, "Why was this unusual?"

"What the hell are you talking about Berto?"

I'm, getting there, but first, a slight detour.

There's an episode of Mad Men called, The Hobo Code. (No, I am not comparing African Americans to hobos. Please bear with me.) In the episode, Don Draper remembers a hobo coming to his house when he was kid during The Depression. The guy stays for a day or so and teaches young Don to decipher symbols hobos use to communicate information about their surroundings. Don's adoptive father cheats the hobo, who carves the symbol for "dishonest man" in their fence post before he leaves.

A few months ago there was a knock at the door. We get a fair number of young solicitors, usually young men selling newspaper subscriptions to raise money for college. My long standing habit has been to say, "no." Then a young man came by who told me he was a Berkeley High student. He was planning on going to Berkeley City College. He was Latino. He was me. I bought 20 weeks of the Sunday Chronicle, though I wasn't sure it would actually come. It did.

A few weeks later there was again, a knock at the door. Outside were two young African American men. They told me they were from out of state, part of program selling magazine subscriptions for a young entrepreneur's program. The shorter one talked about his dream of opening a BBQ joint. We talked for a long time about their future goals. They asked me about my path through education and career. The thing that struck me was that they thanked me for opening the door and talking to them. I offhandedly referred to the BLM sign in my yard. "Yeah," they remarked, "a lot of folks around here got those signs, but they won't open the door when they see us." I was shocked, then I wasn't. "But this is Berkeley" I thought, until I didn't. I was sad that my wonderful, progressive, mostly white neighbors had refused to talk to these young men. I bought two years of Family Handyman.

It never came.

I don't know if it was scam, or if they were just young guys who forgot to file the paper work. According to The Atlantic, if it was a scam, it may not be their fault. I do feel a little stupid for buying the magazine. The next time someone came with a similar story and a similar pitch, I turned them away. I felt bad about doing that, but I don't have the money to be able to trust everyone. Still, when I look back the thing I remember most was that whatever their intent, these two young men noticed that not everyone with a BLM sign was willing to open their door to talk to an actual live Black person. Whatever the outcome, I'm glad I at least did that.

I have been stopped on the street and asked for assistance hundreds of times in my life. Most of the time I am genuinely too busy to stop. Sometimes my Spidey-Sense tingles and I make up an excuse. Sometimes I try to help. In the third case it ends up being a scam just often enough to make me wary of helping people. My default is, "no."

I was arriving home from a rugby tournament last weekend, I stopped on the sidewalk to chat with my next door neighbor, when a man pulled up on a bike. He was African American, he looked working class, or even below working class. Like a guy who struggles to hold a job that pays enough to cover rent and food. You might read that and think I'm a dick for making that snap judgement, but I know that look because he reminded me instantly, of my dad.

"Hey man, do you live here?" My front door was open, blocked by a dog gate, because the summer breeze is the reason we never needed A/C. "Can you help me? I just got off work and I need to heat these up." He held out two frozen chimichangas, that clearly hadn't been frozen in some time. He saw my hesitation, and my neighbor turned away. "Please man, I just worked a double shift and I haven't eaten. The microwave in the break room busted."

"Maybe you should try 7-11." I offered with a smile.

"I tried man, they won't let me because they say I'm not buying anything." He could see me trying to turn all this over in my mind. He never mentioned it, but he was stopped right in front of my BLM yard sign. "I won't come in, I just need these cooked. Please."

"What do I want carved on my fence post?"

That was the thought that finally tipped the scales for me. I took the food and headed inside. My kids were happy to see me. I said my hellos as I made a bee-line for the microwave. "What'cha making?" asked Buddy. I explained to him what I was doing and he scampered to the door. He came back. He asked me again what I was doing, and why. "We have to help people, Bud. It can backfire on you sometimes, but you have to do your best to assess a situation and see if you can help. I can help with this, so I'm doing it."

I was uncomfortable. I didn't want to go to deep into it. I was worried that he'd get the wrong idea and end up trusting too much. But I also wanted them to see, needed them to see, that we are duty bound to help the people we can help. Even when it takes us out of our comfort zone, even if we perceive some risk, we need to be able to assess the situation for what it is, rather than what we fear it might be. That's what we're asking of law enforcement. That's what we have to demonstrate to our children so that they can grow up with less prejudice.

The microwave beeped. I flashed back to the Star Wars Canteen bit, "You'll need a tray because the food is hot." I grabbed a paper plate, then a napkin, then a plastic fork. I brought it all out to the man on the bike. "Thanks man." he said, and then quickly rode away. I felt guilty about how satisfied I was to have helped.

Again, I'm not a hero. I'm not doing anything beyond what we should all be doing for each other. What makes this interaction in any way remarkable is that we're not doing these things for each other. At least, not enough. It's a sad statement that these small acts of decency, things that should be commonplace, stick out to me. I know it's a hard world. I know we're used to being wary, and we've earned that. Still, maybe you'll read this and take the risk to be just a little more kind, a little more helpful. Not just to African Americans, to everyone, of course.

But maybe a little more to African Americans who, as a society we clearly hold an irrational fear towards.  Maybe a little more because we can recognize and adjust for our inherent and unexamined bias. Maybe a little more because making sure Black Lives Matter on a small scale doesn't mean other lives don't matter, but it acknowledges whose lives are most at risk right now.

Why I Went to Ferguson

It's now the end of March, 2015 and the DOJ has released their reports on the shooting of Michael Brown and their investigation of the Ferguson Police Department. The reports are mixed if you're a proponent of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. I'll admit, I haven't read the reports themselves, and I probably won't. I have read about them and the conclusions seem to be that while the department was rife with racism and rights violations, the shooting of Michael Brown was likely not the injustice we believed it was. Whether the DOJ report sways you or not is up to you. I personally believe in the DOJ investigation, in part because I supported the call for them to investigate and I feel like I have to stand by the result. That may seem weird given that I did not stand by the findings of the grand jury who examined the case. But I have more faith in a Federal investigation into this kind of crime. I also still believe that Darren Wilson is guilty of something, even if I don't know what that is, and I firmly believe that there could have been, and should have been options available to him in subduing a suspect under these circumstances. Though our understanding of the facts in the Brown case may have changed, that doesn't change the importance of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, which has become about more than just Michael Brown.

Even with that exhaustive introduction, I'm not actually here today to discuss the merits of the DOJ reports or the case itself. I know that while I have outrage and consternation, I don't have any insight into that aspect of the case. Instead I'd like to go back to August of 2014, when I went to Ferguson.

I'll be honest, even after the decision was made I didn't know why I was going.  Well, I knew why I was going. I was going because my wife had decided that the only thing she wanted for her birthday was for us to go to Ferguson, to march, as a family. In a way I understood. We had been sitting watching things unfold with a feeling of total helplessness. Posting on Facebook to an audience that was largely already on our side wasn't very satisfying. We wanted to help, but I didn't know what going to Ferguson would accomplish. There were already people there, what good, what difference, would the four of us make? But I am notoriously bad at giving gifts, so when my wife proposed this trip I agreed without hesitation. I wish I could say I made the decision for a more noble reason, but initially it was really just so I could give my wife something she really wanted for her birthday. So we decided to make the seventeen hour drive to Ferguson on a Friday night (so the kids could sleep the whole way and feel less of an impact) and come back Sunday night.

In the days leading up to the trip, and on the drive we talked about our goals for being there. My biggest fear was that we would end up as "Disaster Tourists." My wife's feeling was that she wanted to go for several reasons. She wanted to show that non-Black people care about these issues. She wanted to be a white face in the crowd in order to show that this is an American issue, not just an African American issue. She didn't mean that in the tone deaf manner of the misguided "All Lives Matter" people. She wanted to show that people of different races, and from different places, care about what's happening in a small suburb of St. Louis that most of us had never heard of before. She also wanted to show the kids that activism is important. We had been talking with them about Ferguson for a couple weeks at that point, and she wanted them to see that you can get involved in world events, rather than just sitting back and watching them unfold. I agreed with these reasons, but I was still uneasy.

I didn't actually do any marching in Ferguson. I dropped off my wife and daughter at the march and went off to secure our motel and get some sleep, as I'd done the bulk of the over night driving. Later on I drove to pick them up at the same McDonald's where police had harassed journalists in the early days of the protests. Driving down W. Florissant Ave. past the burned out gas station and the boarded up BBQ place that had a Clerks-like "We're open" spray painted on the outside was surreal. The thing I noticed though, was that at that time Ferguson had the most polite drivers and pedestrians I'd ever seen. Whatever was happening in that community had either created, or maintained, incredible civility towards each other. The McDonald's parking lot was packed, but no one was frustrated. People waved other drivers ahead, merged efficiently, and allowed pedestrians to pass. The pedestrians checked and made eye contact and acknowledged the drivers. It was astounding. The sense of community was palpable.

I started to figure out why I was there as I started to interact with people. The 900 mile trip meant we needed an oil change while we were there. While sitting in the car at the Valvoline on W. Florissant the attendant asked us why we in town. She was clearly surprised by the answer that we were there to protest. "Why?" she asked. At that moment, in that conversation, it was clear that we were there to do more than just show up and observe and be seen. We were there to meet people and talk to them, and to show that the media attention had an actionable result. The woman at the Valvoline and many others we met seemed both surprised and appreciative of the idea that the protesters could inspire a family to not only agree with their message, but to come down to hear it first hand. We were there to represent people from other parts of the country. We were there to show the community that they were not alone, that their message was being heard.

We went to church at St. Stephen's the next morning. The priest, as we expected, discussed the on-going situation in his sermon. The parish welcomed us and wanted to hear our story. They asked if anyone was celebrating a birthday, and I outed my wife who was given a cross on string as a gift. We saw what the church had been doing in the weeks since the Michael Brown shooting. They had an overwhelming pantry of donated food and clothing. The parishioners told us they had been serving many hundreds more people since the protests began than they did during calmer times. They were also re-donating food to larger shelters and congregations. People had come to them saying that there were older people in the Canfield area who were in need of food and toiletries but couldn't go out for them because they were either afraid, or because the stores were closed. The church was trying to find out how to identify these people and get them supplies, while also being unobtrusive.



Talking to parishioners helped to understand another reason for me to have made the trip. I was there so that people could tell me their views, and I could bring them back to my community. The view of the people I talked with was that they were with the protesters, and against the rioters who they saw as being an outside element. They wanted people to know that their community was generally peaceful, but that they were all fatigued by the kind of injustice later revealed in the DOJ report. They wanted people to know that they were a normal community going through a tough time, and pulling together, and supporting each other.

That's what I witnessed. That's what I brought back with me. That's what I told people in conversations about Ferguson. The people of Ferguson are ordinary people, just like people in any other city in America. All they want is to be able to get up and go to work and live their lives without being harassed, or beaten, or shot. They are people who decided they'd had enough and rose up and said so.

Regardless of how their community is portrayed, or reported on, they just want the message to come through that they're us. So that's why I was there, to internalize the experience, and the message. To try, in a small way to remind the rest of us that the people of Ferguson are just that, people. Regular people, who were put into an unusual circumstance, who helped shift the national focus and the national conversation, but who want us to know that they're really just us.