Finding Words For July 7

Thursday, July 7 was one of the hardest days I’ve had in a long time. I woke up to a video of another Black man carelessly gunned down at the hands of police for the second day in a row. On July 6 it was Alton Sterling. On July 7 it was Philando Castile.

These aren’t new types of tragedies, but for some reason July 7 felt a little bit different. It hurt a little bit more deeply. The entire day was an internal emotional roller coaster. I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness, anger, hopelessness, helplessness, and guilt.

I felt sadness for the victims…their spouses…children…family…friends…communities…for all those who witnessed these deaths in person…

I felt anger towards the blatantly hateful, inflammatory, dismissive, and ignorant comments I came across on social media and news sites. At the people in the comments section losing sight of the issues at hand and adding fuel to the fire. At how easily the world kept turning for some people even though it had just come to a jerking stop (again) for others. Business as usual.

I was overcome with hopelessness at the realization of the scope of the change necessary to address the complex issues at hand: A mass overhaul in the fundamental thoughts firmly ingrained and reinforced over hundreds of years in the minds of millions of people; a re-stitching of the seams that form the seat of the historied fabric of this country. This is a problem with roots so deep that addressing it the right way, the permanent way, threatens the political, social, and economic stability of this great nation. Today, my hope for effective and thorough change dwindled in the face of this tall and growing order.

Helplessness quickly followed. My ancestors and my parents sacrificed their bodies and their sanity and their dreams to afford me one of the finest educations that money can buy. Still, I can’t help but feel that it is failing me and my people when it matters most. I have no solutions. I have no answers. How exactly does one go about cashing in her education to buy back some much needed freedom for those suffering around her at times like this?

I felt an immense sense of guilt because my preoccupation with the reality of how Black lives are so easily discarded in this country was keeping me from doing my day-to-day job at Jopwell – a job to further another urgent cause in our minority community.

Guilt because, as one of my good friends put it: “My erudite education allows me to tune in and out freely to this type of noise with no real effect on my life. If I go to an Alton Sterling protest or not, the anchors that hold together my day-to-day will remain unchanged. I won’t miss a meal, my paycheck will still come on the 15th and 30th of every month, and all my faculties will remain intact.”

Guilt because, having grown up in South Jamaica Queens, New York, part of the reason I remained steadfast in my studies my entire life was to ensure that “things like this” would never happen to me. Education was always my defense mechanism and simultaneously my ticket and right to freedom. But July 7 has been a sobering reminder that no degree, school seal, alumni network, or amount of enunciation and code-switching expertise can protect me and my loved ones from corporal, spiritual, or mental assault – even if we only ever feel it through witnessing the destruction of others.

Guilt because I just want to freely enjoy my upcoming mini-vacation (and everyday life in general), live in my purpose, and accomplish my goals without the constant reminders of the overwhelming weight of centuries worth of racial injustices and their daily manifestations looming over my shoulders.

I spent hours after work scrolling through my Instagram timeline and Facebook feed, wading through the collective noise and deafening silence like a masochist simultaneously finding comfort in and reeling from each and every person’s expression of pain, frustration, and confusion.

One post in particular caught my attention and briefly settled my soul. A college friend encouraged his followers to #UseYourPlatform.

Well, my name is Anastacia Gordon, I write, I work in Marketing at Jopwell, and this is my platform.

To all of you with similar thoughts and experiences who are reading this, perhaps also unsure of how to best contribute to furthering this cause, I challenge you to also #UseYourPlatform to galvanize change. To all my friends who have already found a way to #UseYourPlatform, thank you. Every bit helps.

“A system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do.” – Jesse Williams