Stones of hope: The pandemic within the pandemic

All my life I have watched racism and police brutality toward African-Americans broadcast on television nightly news.

As a child in the early '60s I remember seeing dogs, fire hoses and policemen with clubs attack black adults and teens who protested for the right to vote and end segregation. I didn't know I was catching a glimpse of the Civil Rights movement on our old floor model Zenith TV.

I still didn't understand even when it directly impacted a shopping outing with my mom to the Woolworth store in the next town. Our intended purchases included a pair of brown barrettes with my name etched in gold letters. What a treasure!

My joy was short lived. Whatever the store cashier said to my mom evidently wasn't acceptable and 50-plus years later I can still hear her say "We won't be buying from here today" and she walked me out of the store. I was upset about leaving those barrettes on that counter and pouted all the way home. I didn't know my mom was taking a stand for both of us.

Unfortunately over the years there have been many more opportunities to experience racism first hand. I have survived by learning to mask my feelings whenever I was prejudged and marginalized in certain neighborhoods, stores, schools and especially corporate America. After becoming a mother of a black male, I knew that it was my obligation to teach him about racism as soon as he could comprehend that he would be treated different not only because of the color of his skin but also because of his maleness.

It is a necessity that African-American parents have "The Talk" with their male children to prepare them to interact in a society that slants toward the perceived rights of the privileged - the American citizens who are not people of color.

One day when my son was 11 years old and we were walking in our neighborhood, he took off in a sprint because he loved to run. When I caught up to him, I told him that he could not run alone in our townhouse area because if something bad happened he could be blamed. He expended all that energy in supervised track and field meets.

When he got his driver's license at 16, we told him how to act if he was stopped by the police: no sudden movement and only polite speech. He advised that when he drove through certain neighborhoods, he listened to classical music on the radio, just in case. When my son became an adult, I worried about his well-being a little less; however, I have never been lulled into a false sense of security that his physical presence would not be considered a threat to a select community.

The images and scenarios in early 2020 now added to the previous decades of black oppression are a reminder that we cannot mask and contain a recurring pandemic of racism; like the coronavirus, it is transferred and infects at will.

Within the last four months, Ms. Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in her apartment in a No Knock fatal police search; Mr. Ahmaud Arbery jogged in a white neighborhood and was shot by a father and son who assumed he was a robber; Mr. Chris Cooper was bird-watching in New York's Central Park when he was subjected to a 2020 Emmett Till moment after a white woman exercised her "privilege" to call 911 with a false report that she and her dog were being attacked by an African-American man.

And then there was that familiar fateful cry "I can't breathe" uttered by George Floyd as he begged for his life with a knee on his neck. The white policeman who callously extinguished Mr. Floyd's life stared straight ahead with his hands in his pockets. What was most haunting to mothers of all races was hearing Mr. Floyd call out for his mama in his final minutes.

I can't stop crying from anger, frustration and an aching heart.

I also weep for a culture where the merits of honest policemen are too often overshadowed by their peers who make the news due to violent acts. I weep for looters who think it is valid to vandalize and steal under the guise of protest in direct opposition to peaceful marchers who walk in unity for the fallen and a call for change. I weep for our "privileged" sisterhood and brotherhood who may be ridiculed for walking alongside in honor of black lives. I weep for the "privileged" who remain silent and look the other way. And finally, I weep for the children of color who may continue to grow up in masked systemic inequality if we don't bend the curve of racism.

I pray these same children will grow up and bear witness to a society that has moved beyond the pandemic of "privilege" vs. "other."

I pray that we, their elders will also live to experience it.

• Carolyn Wilson of Villa Park is a former newspaper columnist and author of "Downsized UP: Trusting God Through Your Layoff."