What ‘human rights’ don’t look like
by Elouise
Recently a friend sent me the following list. I haven’t been able to get it off my mind. It was compiled by Dr. Valerie Bryant, a Black therapist in Brooklyn, NY. In the list she names black citizens threatened or killed in recent years while engaging in the behaviors she names.
Think of Dr. Bryant’s list as a roll call clarifying the difference between living black or brown, and living white in the USA. It’s also an invitation to reflection about ourselves, and the meaning of human rights.
…As a white person when you go out in the street, you don’t have to think twice of being murdered by a police officer or citizen acting like a police officer.
Or as a white person,
I can go birding (#ChristianCooper).
I can go jogging (#AmaudArbery).
I can relax in the comfort of my own home (#BothemSean and
#AtatianaJefferson).
I can ask for help after being in a car crash (#JonathanFerrell and
#RenishaMcBride).
I can have a cellphone (#StephonClark).
I can leave a party to get to safety (#JordanEdwards).
I can play loud music (#JordanDavis).
I can sell CD’s (#AltonSterling).
I can sleep (#AiyanaJones)
I can walk from the corner store (#MikeBrown).
I can play cops and robbers (#TamirRice).
I can go to church (#Charleston9).
I can walk home with Skittles (#TrayvonMartin).
I can hold a hair brush while leaving my own bachelor party (#SeanBell).
I can party on New Years (#OscarGrant).
I can get a normal traffic ticket (#SandraBland).
I can lawfully carry a weapon (#PhilandoCastile).
I can break down on a public road with car problems (#CoreyJones).
I can shop at Walmart (#JohnCrawford) .
I can have a disabled vehicle (#TerrenceCrutcher).
I can read a book in my own car (#KeithScott).
I can be a 10yr old walking with our grandfather (#CliffordGlover).
I can decorate for a party (#ClaudeReese).
I can ask a cop a question (#RandyEvans).
I can cash a check in peace (#YvonneSmallwood).
I can take out my wallet (#AmadouDiallo).
I can run (#WalterScott).
I can breathe (#EricGarner).
I can live (#FreddieGray).
I can be arrested without the fear of being murdered. (#GeorgeFloyd)***These are NOT human rights if only white people have them.*
With compassionate rage
Valerie Bryant, PhD
Fort Greene Bklyn 11205
How would my world change if I woke up with different colored skin than I now have? Can I remember how I was taught to think or talk about skin color?
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 21 June 2020
Image found at stlpublicradio.com
Telling the Truth 
I remember that we never talked about skin color. There was no need. My world was orchestrated (without my knowledge) in a way that made no space for anyone not like me. I had to leave that world for my eyes to be opened.
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Hi, Marilyn. Thanks for commenting about your ‘orchestrated’ childhood and your later eye-opening venture into another world. I wonder what your family and friends thought and felt about your decision, and how it shapes your life today. Have you ever written about this? It strikes me as important.
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I’ve never written about it because I assume it was the common experience of many of us white suburbanites.
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You may be correct, given where you grew up. It wasn’t a common experience for my rural friends in the deep South (1950s and 60s). I would love to read/hear your story. 🙂
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Thanks Elouise. I looked at some random names and wondered why ……………………..?
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Thanks for looking at some names. I wish I had an easy answer to your question.
Some of the problem comes from our scattered approach to policing. Every police district in the USA makes its own rules and hires (city of Philadelphia, each suburban township, Camden across the river from Phila.). If an officer is terminated for just cause, he or she is free to work in another police district. That’s only one piece of the problem.
Other reasons have to do with our long history of treating black people as secondary citizens without ‘normal’ human rights. And then there’s knee-jerk anger/fear/suspicion, etc. that too often ends in tragedy. And one more thing that’s on the front burner right now: the absolute right of police officers to break and enter a residence at will and know that they’ll be protected. Especially by our incredibly powerful police union. To this I would add local zip-code zoning of the USA, state-wide gerrymandering, and other ways of marking boundaries for political/economic reasons.
This didn’t happen overnight. It’s gone on from the beginning of our self-proclaimed nation. What’s different today is that younger white people are joining people of color to protest, and to highlight how and why this knee-jerk treatment of black lives must end. Currently we don’t have political leadership or the will to engage this except from the bottom up. Hence the demonstrations.
There’s also the reluctance of many churches to get involved in what they see as ‘politics.’ Which many take to mean ‘partisanship.’ Though it isn’t, this is a common response from many white churches. Especially those who advertise themselves as evangelical.
Need I add pray for us? These are unsettling times. Not just because of Covid-19 gone rampant. Thanks again, John.
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