I'm not ok.

I attend every call on my calendar but I’m not ok. I sit through and even half-heartedly engage in the idle banter and chit chat that feels completely tone deaf, but I’m not ok. I listen to the stories and episodes of your much less affected lives, and I’m happy for you but still I'm not ok. I contribute to the team, business, and bottom line even while my attention span is intermittently arrested by recurring images of people who look like me being murdered by the very people paid to serve and protect. So, although I may act like it, I’m not ok.

I smile when you smile, but I’m not ok. I don’t talk to you about the painful all-night tearful conversations, counseling sessions, and debates I’m having with my family and friends. I don’t reveal the grave concerns I have for the future and what it holds for my children and grandchildren because of the color of their skin. I don’t hint at my loss of appetite or nervous energy in my hands when I type. I don’t tell you. I don’t show you. I don’t talk to you about any of it so it’s fair if you think I’m ok… but I’m not.

It’s not your fault. On some level I wanted you to believe I’m ok, but really I’m not. I wanted you to see me as somehow above the fray, but I’m not. I wanted you to see me as part of the solution and not part of the problem but honestly, I’m not. I’m not part of the solution because I only wanted you to see my work representative strong, stoic, intelligent, creative, caring, humorous, engaging, of great character, and somehow unaffected. But the real me is deeply affected. And I'm not ok.

What I am, is tired of navigating the sensibilities and inherent bias of the closely associated yet completely unaffected. I’m tired of trying to convince someone of something to which they are intrinsically opposed to being convinced. I’m tired of the perpetual apologist posture required to even articulate my own experience. I’m tired of the same conversations over and over again. I’m tired of fighting for equal footing in a place that thinks I should be happy if people simply learn how to ‘tolerate’ me. I’m tired of being around people who expect me to be ok, even when I’m not. I am tired of campaigning for others to treat me with the same dignity and respect with which I treat them. I am tired and I am not ok.

I am a husband. I am a father. I am a son, a brother, cousin, uncle, and a friend. I am a veteran. I am your neighbor. I am your coworker. And hopefully I am your friend. I am the guy who will stop to help you push your car out of the street, give you my umbrella in the rain, help your lost child find you, open your door, help carry your load, pray for your family, and stand for what is right. I am Emmett Till. I am Trayvon Martin. I am Sandra Bland. I am Ahmaud Arbery. I am Breonna Taylor. I am George Floyd. I am… and I am not a hashtag. You can see what’s going on. And even if you remain unaffected you must know I am a man. I am human. And I am not ok.

But ultimately, this is not about me is it? And it’s not about some immutable human trait or indeterminate target like racism. It’s about you. And it’s about whether or not you are affected. There are people you know, and possibly even care about, who are also not ok. Your friends are confused about who’s on their side and who’s not. Your neighbors are dealing with a reality fundamentally different than your own. Check on them. They need allies in this fight.

But, to be sure, the most heavily guarded battlefield is not in the streets. It’s in the boardroom, breakroom, and the corner offices. The real fights are in the classroom, in the pews of your place of worship, in the bank, on the courts, in the courts, in your circle of friends, and everywhere the unaffected might gather and feel comfortable discussing the finer points of their own perceptions. It’s in these echo chambers where we need you to be present, be brave, and be an ally; to be affected.

We need champions like you to engage these ‘little’ fights because they are the most strategic and least accessible. Listen for bias and call it out. Look for demeaning attitudes, policies, and postures and challenge them, if not correct them. And if you can’t create better at least demand ‘ok' because far too many of us are not.

Even now in this charged climate I presume there are many of you who might have a problem with my using this forum for this communication. My work representative hesitated and thought better of it, but today I am most authentically and unapologetically me... and for the sake of my family, my friends, my neighbors, my coworkers, my country, and myself, I'm not ok.