I don’t have any words for the recent events of two more Black men murdered at the hands of police officers, and the murders of police officers in Dallas. I’m quiet, but I’m screaming on the inside. Devastated and angry. Feeling helpless, but wanting to do something.
But not just something. Something that matters. Being sad and angry and feeling helpless isn’t enough. Watching the news only devastates me further because I can’t do anything about what’s happening in the world.
But I can do something locally to make a difference. Here’s a PRI interview with Ijeoma Oluo. Here’s a Vox article highlighting her suggestions in tweets: 5 questions every citizen should ask about police accountability. Thank you.
Thank you also to my mom, Kathleen Rubin, for writing this letter and giving me the idea to post this article. It pulls together resources and quotes, and offers specific actions you can take to make a difference.
This is what you can do.
I’ve seen the photos in Dallas. I just watched the video Diamond Reynolds took in Minnesota following a police officer murdering her boyfriend during a routine traffic stop.
I’m in tears. Not just because I have friends who are Black. Or because I have Black family friends who helped raise me. I’m in tears because it is wrong.
Most of my adult life (and a significant part from before) has been about trying to make a difference in the world. To make it a better place. I nearly burned out all of my light in the process. Sometimes it feels like you’ve got one finger held up to Niagara Falls. I asked myself, though, if I didn’t do it, why should anyone else do it?
Mostly, I felt alone in what I was doing. Alone in how deeply I felt and how painful it was to be “in the trenches” on the streets and watching the worst humanity does to itself. It broke me in a way. Made me need to take stock of how I was going about trying to make a difference in the world. Made me question whether meaningful change was even possible.
With the two Black men killed by police, and then the Dallas police officers killed, it brings up the questions that arise from those wounds of feeling I didn’t make a damn difference. And I didn’t even grow up with the backdrop of having lived through the 60’s thinking and feeling like things could really be different.
But at the end of every day–no matter how frustrated or alone I felt–I could always go home. I didn’t have to worry I’d get shot by people who are supposed to protect me. At the end of the day, I didn’t have to live in constant fear because of the color of my skin.
When I was 20-21 years old I lived in Cuba for about 6 months. I worked with a group of women in the media (print, tv, radio), artists, and intellectuals.
There was a magic I experienced that inspired me. A strength in coming together to change the image of women in Cuba, by writing a new narrative–by creating stronger, more appropriate images of women in telenovelas, newspaper articles and radio shows. Not just women, but women of color began to play protagonist roles on TV, oral histories of women slaves were documented and told, research done, art created with this new awareness.
I saw and felt infused with the power of what it took to make radical change. These women had participated in the Cuban Revolution–risking their lives to make change. Many of them went into the hills as pre-teen and teen girls and taught farmers and people in rural areas to read and write in one of the most ambitious and effective literacy campaigns to this day.
This is was the model of what I wanted to be and what I wanted to. Contribute to something positive in the world. I hope that this site could serve as a way to bring people together who care like I do, and who want to bring their strengths of sensitivity and quiet to make powerful change.
Thank you for being here.
This is what you can do.
photo: CNN
Eva Rubin, MPH/LCSW
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