Still appalled

I used to think it was a few bad apples in the barrel. Remove them, wash the rest, and all would be well.

I should have known better. This past week has convinced me that the rot goes deep, that it stinks right down to the bottom of the barrel.

It's not that I haven't been unaware of the racism endemic in society; after all, it has impacted my family since long before I was born, in one form or another, not necessarily dependent on the colour of our skins. We've always been a multi-racial family. My grandparents were Irish immigrants; worse: Catholic married to Protestant, and therefore disowned by both sets of parents, and looked down on by the people of their new country. (And in spite of that, my beloved grandma was furious when I dared to marry a Mexican.)

There were the DPs we sheltered, Eastern European refugees from WWII; I got my eye blacked for standing up for one of them at school. There were the First Nations people, neighbours, friends, even on occasion roommates; their kids were sent off to residential school, as the adults had been in their day. I heard their stories and saw the effects. I lived for a time in the US: there, my parents were denied entrance to restaurants because they travelled with a black co-worker. I was involved directly in helping the Mexican immigrants (some legal, some not, but still brought in by employers looking for cheap labour to harvest the crops and do the dirty jobs). My son was beaten for being a *n-lover".

In Mexico, I was not quite good enough; a foreigner, unable to comprehend issues of morality and culture. At least, so I was told by friends of the family.

Back in Canada, I and my kids were "starving Mexicans". And then grew up to see their own battles as they married outside of their colour range.

So yes, I knew. But these were all more or less micro-agressions. I was horrified to see stories of the murder by cop of blacks in the US, the attacks on refugees and so-called "illegals". I still have nightmares over the kids in cages; how can anyone sleep while this goes on?

But I still thought it was still the work of a minority of awful people.

Two things changed that: the slow murder of a young man already in handcuffs, on the ground, pleading for his life for going on 9 minutes, and the cops involved going home free. If it weren't for the outcry, they'd still be going to work as if nothing had happened.

Then the photos and videos of this week's protests. Lines of police in riot gear; hundreds of them, thousands of them, armed with tear gas and pepper spray and rubber bullets and sticks. And shields which they also used as weapons. Against old people, children, people sitting on the street, hands in the air. Against journalists and medics. Against anyone the wrong colour, or anyone helping them, against anyone nearby, people going home from work at the "wrong time", as if jobs always end at 5 PM. Against anyone trying to take photos. But especially against anyone black.

And the attacks have been vicious. Shots to the head with rubber bullets. Repeated bashing with heavy rods. Pepper spray from inches away (even on small children). Ramming people with cars. Tear gas thrown at people sitting quietly on the ground. It hasn't been a matter of containing the unrest, but rather inflaming it.

But what got to me was the sheer numbers. Black armies of police advancing shoulder to shoulder, row upon row. In city after city. Night after night. Politicians, dozens of them, justifying this, encouraging this. Hundreds (that I've seen, but that's only a tiny fraction) of people on social media calling for more violence against the protesters, against the blacks and "thugs" and "traitors", as if wanting your kids to grow up without being murdered made you a thug.

This is not a case of a few bad apples.

One other thing: my red-headed granddaughter, whose son presents as black, wrote about how all this affects her family. (Also see this.) A phrase she used struck home; her cute little boy will grow up to be a black man. A black man. A black man. With all the connotations that phrase holds, all the negative stereotypes, all the fear, and all the danger. And yet, he is no different in any way than any other of my family members, "red and yellow, black and white", to quote the children's Sunday School chorus; we are all one family.

But he will be a black man. In this world. And I'm afraid.

What are we going to do about it?