Yesterday, a black man called George Floyd ‘died’ in Police custody, in Minnesota. A white Police officer, named as Derek Chauvin, knelt on his neck (Sorry? Knelt on his neck?) and continued to do so when Mr Floyd protested his inability to breath. His crime? Mr Floyd was ‘detained’ under suspicion of using a counterfeit note in a shop.
It reminds me of the 2,104 Palestinian men, women and children who ‘died’ during Israel’s 2014 war in Gaza, the so-called. “Operation Protective Edge.”
Shall we tell it like it is?
George Floyd was killed by a white Police officer.
2, 104 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli Defence Forces.
The job of a writer in large part, is to empathise with people who she isn’t. How can she possibly create rounded and credible characters if she can’t imagine what it must be like to be in somebody else’s skin.
So, as a writer, I try to imagine what it must be like to be in the skin of a black man, a Muslim woman, a Palestinian.
For an instant, I touch the pain.
No matter what my achievements; my educational accomplishments; the loving father I strive to be; my work in the community; my kindness, intellect…my overcoming, certain Police officers, certain (white) people will see only one thing; a suspect, a target, a n*****.
Fair game, to be fair.
To be honest, I don’t want to stay in his skin, her skin, their skin, for long because the dissonance between who I know myself to be and who the wider white society thinks me to be fucks with my head. Frankly.
And as a white man, that’s my luxury. I can slip out of that skin just as easily as I can slip off a coat.
George Floyd couldn’t.
And for that, he paid with his life.
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