Imagine if you came across a mother crying frantically. The cry of her pain is so great that you feel it deeply in your soul. She has just lost her son. Her grandchildren have just lost a father. And the community has just lost yet another member to violence.
As time goes on, she will need comfort, empathy and most of all healing. What she will not need is dismissal, ignorance and smug indifference. This should not even be a debate. But far too often it is in our city.
You see, instead of putting a hand on the shoulder of the weeping mother and offering her care, too often we offer her a question.
We judgmentally look her over and ask: Do you mind telling me who did this to your son?
Depending on her answer, most of us will either do everything in our power to make sure she is taken care of. Or, if her answer is not to our liking, we’ll say, “that’s too bad,” go on our way and never think about her or her son again.
It is only in the scenario where her son was harmed by the hands of a police officer that most people would typically demand first-class coping resources, post all day on social media about how much she deserves justice and storm City Hall advocating she receive restitution.
However, if her son was harmed at the hands of a robber, someone belonging to a gang, or someone dealing with a personal crisis, most would shrug. In fact, not only would most dismiss her pain but they would immediately go on a tirade about how her son could have avoided this situation had streetlights surrounding him been brighter, or the minimum wage been higher or if there were just more community-based solutions.
Meanwhile, as these same people drone on and on about things that don’t provide the urgent response this mother needs to cope with her crisis, they would leave her alone, isolated, broken and traumatized. They would cruelly do this because her pain doesn’t fit a popular narrative. It would be unworthy of their concern.
There should be no difference in empathy. But here we are.
If all that sounds absurd and inhumane, it is. Unfortunately, it’s only a slight exaggeration of what’s taken place in Seattle over the last few years.
Last year, Seattle witnessed the largest number of homicides in more than 30 years. More than 70 people were murdered. Fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, nieces, nephews, friends, neighbors, business owners, teachers, coaches, mentors were all victims of wicked violence.
This violence disproportionately impacted Black families, leaving them in agony with fractured hearts.
Many times these families mourn in isolation. For some reason they don’t receive the massive support of people who loudly shout that Black Lives Matter and display signs of the phrase in their windows. Sadly, that support only seems to come when a Black life is lost to police violence. Shouts turn to silence when a Black person has died due to violence committed by anyone else. There are no tears for these folks.
I have to ask. Is the pain of those families any less because the bullet that killed their loved one came from a gun belonging to someone who didn’t have a badge?
No, is the obvious answer. Yet every day I see families crushed beyond solace by the death of a loved one. Their pain goes overlooked because their family members were victims of everyday violence.
Why does this matter? Are they not worthy of our support? Are they not worthy of our compassion?
Ever since George Floyd’s death in 2020, I’ve seen people perform compassion for Black people without actually acting compassionately toward Black people.
Believe me, Black people don’t need anymore performances. We need genuine care, attention and empathy.
Supporting the healing of Black people shouldn’t be dependent on who caused them harm in the first place.
Yes, I understand that police accountability remains a hot-button issue for people, and rightly so. It’s an issue I’ve spent more than 30 years of my life addressing after my sons Tunde and Omari were both assaulted by police officers for speaking out against police harassment. But I also know addressing that issue does not cancel the clear need to help the families of those impacted by violence heal.
The two may be related but they are not the same, and we can’t pretend they are.
If we do not help all families impacted by all violence then we will continue to leave families hurting. And, in doing so, we perpetuate a cycle of violence in Black communities that has gone unaddressed for decades.
This is why the need for healing within our communities is so important. We need and deserve a safe, supportive place for traumatized families to cope with community violence. Healing is a necessary and much-needed response to the violence and trauma that we face and needs to be a part of the conversation.
It all takes time. It takes resources. But most of all it takes people caring enough to stop and prioritize someone’s well-being over how they were hurt.
So what will you do? How do you plan to respond to that crying mother? Do you want to help or will you walk away because the way her son died doesn’t interest you?
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