I’m not sure if this is the place for this but I don’t share on social media and needed somewhere to process all that is happening through writing.
The weekend has been filled with events in almost every state of the US that are showing that the systemic oppression of people of color is still running rampant. I know that I am in no position to say that I understand their struggle but I do stand with all those that are fighting for justice. I fully understand that I am very fortunate and privileged to experience the opportunities and respect that for some archaic reasons are not given to each and every person in this country. This is still something that I have no words for.
That being said, two of my grandparents survived the Holocaust. And that is a lens through which I try to more personally relate to all that is happening in current events. My grandfather was put on a train by his brother and father and sent to Kazakhstan in order to escape prosecution with the large possibility that they would never see each other again. My grandmother, rightfully proud to be Jewish just as many of the Americans prosecuted and brutalized today are rightfully proud to be black, was put on a bus by the SS with her sisters and parents. To be taken to a concentration camp. At the end of the bus ride, she and her sisters were split from their parents and told they would meet them later. She never saw her parents again. She was 13. As a young girl, she worked in labor camps, starved over and over, and was even sentenced to the gas chamber multiple times. One time, one of her older sisters took her place. Another time, one of her best friends did the same. Today she is 91, she has immigrated to the United States, she has lost her husband to cancer, she has beaten cancer herself, she is a grandmother to 4 boys, and a great-grandmother to 2 girls and 2 more boys.
Its very hard for my grandmother to talk about this but she knows as one of the last living survivors it is her responsibility to do just that. She gives talks weekly at the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles. I’ve heard her speak many times and it never gets easier to listen to her story. Over the past few years, we have talked about the current state of the world and it often ends with the same statement… History is repeating itself.
It’s been hard for me to process that this type of injustice and brutality is still happening in our country. I recently came across a picture of a document that sits in the US Holocaust Museum.
It is so disheartening that these same tactics are so blatantly being used today to undermine the inclusiveness that this country was supposedly founded on. It almost seems like this document is being used as some sort of sick playbook.
Yesterday, I also had a realization that there is an odd thematic connection of breath between events that have happened over the course of the last few months.
- The Amazon rain forest, considered to be the lungs of the planet, is on fire.
- COVID-19 is a respiratory disease.
- George Floyd literally said “I can’t breathe” as he was brutally murdered.
What does this connection mean? I’m not sure I have an answer to that question. Personally, I have experienced a considerable amount of healing through breathing exercises so maybe that’s relevant. I truly don’t know.
Lastly, in the beginning of 2020, prior to the horrendous events that have transpired over the last few days, many people said that 2020 is the year that we just have to forget or maybe even to cancel but I saw an image the other day that seemed to provide the exact perspective that we all need to rally behind.
All this is to say that the separatist ideology that is being perpetrated by the media needs to stop so that we may collectively move toward an inclusive perspective of interbeing. Black Lives Matter and we all need to come together to both protest and vote and each and every level so that we can create the change necessary to protect innocent lives.