78 years later

Corie's grandad, Jewel Meeks (far bottom right), with his crew in Detroit in 1944.

 I’m attempting to find words to capture the fear and anger and heartbreak and frustration over the murders of ten people in Buffalo, amidst other mass shootings this weekend contributing to the 200+ tally so far this year.

 I’ve shared my grandparents’ story before. Jewel and Clara Meeks. They literally fled Mississippi in the 1940s to escape the Jim Crow reality that my grandfather, pictured here, would face lynching for defending himself as he had in an altercation with a white man.

  I’m reflecting on my daughter’s calls home this year to tell me her dorm has been locked down again due to racially-motivated bomb threats at her HBCU campus. Digest that word: bomb. And plural. My child, born in 2001.

 The lives lost, this time in Buffalo, were parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles and sisters and brothers – they were everyday people. In the faces of the victims in the Buffalo grocery store this weekend, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Vaughn, Mrs. Mary, Miss Philpot, Mr. Holt, Grandma, Granddad – my childhood elders on Helen Street – those images of wise kind faces. I also saw my mother, remembering her part-time job in recent years in the grocery section of a discount club, giving away food samples to passing customers. 

 They were living their lives – just like my daughter and mother today and my granddad 78 years ago.

 The closeness of the fear felt by so many right now is real and understandable. Wondering if a trip to the grocery store or church, or a jog, or a normal, everyday activity, may be that moment where race is the reason that you live or die. 

 Today. Just like 78 years ago in my family.

 Profoundly sad too, in a discussion this week, a colleague pointed out that we have a grim playbook for this now. We can dust off templates for how to talk about people being murdered out of race-baited hate.

 It has to stop. We cannot operate on autopilot, at work or as a society, accepting that this will happen again. #BeTheChange means speaking up to stop this from happening – and the build-up to it happening. I’m going to continue to do my part there. My team and our colleagues will continue to lift our voices, support education efforts, and spread the message of inclusion, diversity, and equity. Will you?