I’ve been jogging semi-regularly for a couple of years. I run with the pace and grace of a Clydesdale. After decades of sketchy self-care with numerous starts and stops I realized that a sitting back passive approach to exercise does not help. Being exercise neutral is actually negative. Not being pro-active makes one regress. So I do a little weight training, a little yoga, and a little running. If I don’t will my self forward physically against time and wear, I’ll atrophy and decay.
There is no standing still, there’s no neutral, no status quo, only regression and failure await.
Last week I woke the realization that the same forces of neutrality and apathy also work against the well being of my society. The cause of this epiphany was a black friend’s distress and fright surrounding the events in Georgia regarding Ahmaud Arbery, the young black man murdered while jogging. My friend explained passionately that it could have easily have been him. He pleaded with me to understand. Although we’ve had this same conversation a dozen times over the years, I just started to get it.
My friend could be murdered for “jogging while black” with no questions asked. Then the legal system would work to rationalize his death, sweep him under the carpet like dirt.
This was a resonating moment for me as I realized how hard I was struggling to understand my friend. I’ve run through many neighborhoods throughout my life. I’ve passed open homes and garages, running cars, women and children on the sidewalks, men driving near. I’ve never felt in any danger beyond tripping and falling or getting caught in the rain.
I’ve never fear being hunted down, cornered and killed like a nuisance animal.
I further realized people don’t cross the street when they see me coming, they don’t check and lock their car doors. Women don’t switch their purse to one side, men don’t puff their chests.
Sometimes I run while out of town on business. New and strange neighborhoods, nobody asks if I belong there. Police don’t ask if I’m lost. They don’t ask what I’m looking for. They don’t frisk me. No one notices, I’m not invisible, I’m white.
This systemic ignoring of killings of black men is not new, its been going on my whole life. I’m embarrassed that I never really felt moved to action when it happened in New York, Florida, or Cleveland or dozens of other places. I never felt it applied me. I felt no need to change. It wasn’t my fault. What could I do. I wasn’t there. I didn’t pull the trigger.
I’m now realizing that my Laissez-faire, neutrality, my passive inaction is part of the problem. Just like sitting on the couch watching sports does damage to my health, mentally sitting on the bench oblivious to injustice damages my society. I need to get in the game and play offense with my friend. While I may not be worst person in the country, I have been a tacit participant in its failings. I’ve heard the slurs, read the memes, I’ve heard the jokes, I’ve seen the injustice, I haven’t done enough to help fellow man, to help my society improve.
While I cannot don a cape and do anything heroic, I will to do better. I will try not to be a silent accomplice to injustice. I’ll try to share my insight and be voice against oppression online and in real life.
Saturday, I started running with Ahmaud. I ran 5.08 miles for his birthday. For a little over an hour I ran and I thought. I thought and I ran. I noticed how people just smiled and waved as I went by, slowly. I ran past expensive homes and people in pickup trucks. I feared nothing but my own inaction.
If we want a better country we need to start by being better citizens.
Every time I lace up my shoes, I’ll run with Ahmaud……and Anthony.