![]() He fought for his life, for his blackness, but white rage stole it from him. The black experience with COVID-19 has revealed inequalities that have been there all along-in health care, power, wealth, education, income, and incarceration.Īrbery ran. We have witnessed once again the public display of what Eddie Glaude calls the “value gap”: the belief that black lives are less valuable than others. Arbery’s name joins a long list of black victims who never should have been killed, challenged, or even suspected, people who have done nothing wrong. ![]() In recent weeks, armed activists have stormed the streets to protest, protected by their whiteness, while innocent and unarmed black people are attacked for living their lives. But the truth is that no matter how many Bible verses I quote, how many great books I read and post, how morally excellent I am, what degree I hold, or any other trait that is “successful,” none of that can shield me from the tragedy of being black. Not long before I was accosted during my run last summer, I had written in a journal how I wished that when I stepped out into the world, the people around me would see me as fundamentally Christian. I couldn’t help but wonder: Why do they hate us so much? The crime and tragedy of being black It’s a trauma that black Americans are forced to face, the tragic conditions of oppression, the audacity of whiteness. Those wounds run deep even as I run today for my future, for my people, and even for my life. We see it in how they police our movements, criminalize our humanity, and avoid racial reckoning while enjoying the fruit that came from rotten trees-trees from which my ancestors hung lifeless. No, this society has been taught anti-blackness. Or that they’re the kind of thing that can only happen in the South. Many believe that cases like the attack on Ahmaud Arbery are isolated. My wife is legit afraid of getting that call: Your husband is dead. Where is the joy and freedom of getting out on the road, of training my body, when I have to wonder if one day I won’t make it to the end? I’ve been running all my life, and in some ways now, I have to run to keep it. I’ve run half marathons and completed an Ironman. I was a college athlete now I run and bike. He stole something from me in his cruelty. ![]() I cried because I felt what many of those who looked like me have felt: the violence of an unloving world. On the walk home, I stopped, bowed my head, and cried. This rage forces me to be angry about our reality and have the faith to believe that better is possible.īut on that day last year, my rage that turned into deep sadness. This is what black men have to deal with, while others can enjoy their runs. I couldn’t even call the cops because they might’ve mistaken me for the aggressor. Right there in Southern California, the ghost of Jim Crow’s “What are you doing here, n-r?” showed up.īut ultimately, I felt powerless. Policed by a man standing on his front porch. ![]() I wanted to fight for my dignity in the face of being documented by a stranger and being told I didn’t belong here. I said, “It’s a good morning out here, isn’t it?” as if me being respectable was going to shield me in this situation or get him to finally see me as a human. I looked in the distance, and there was this white man on his porch taking photos of me. I couldn’t wait to check my pace on my fitness tracker. During the run, I wasn’t worried about anything, and I felt good. I brought my identification like my wife tells me to every time I leave. I guess I forgot the lessons, the safety agenda my parents taught me. You learn real young not to run too early in the morning or too late at night. There was hardly anybody out at that time. I was on my morning run as the sun was rising in the blue California skies.
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