More from Victor. Here’s something he wrote and shared on Facebook yesterday.
I was not raised on the “mean streets” of New York, LA, Chicago, or even Charlotte. I was raised on dirt roads in Plymouth, N.C. I didn’t grow up running from street gangs or having to fight my way home from school. I grew up working in tobacco fields and playing outside with my siblings. I didn’t come home to an empty house, or have to wonder if there would be food on the table. I was raised by two loving parents, one a preacher and the other a school secretary. Still, I know the experience of being a Black man in America. I know what it feels like to try to make yourself small, both literally and figuratively, in order not to make others uncomfortable. I know what it’s like to feel my heartbeat quicken when I look in my rear view mirror and see a police car. Even though I know I’ve done nothing wrong, for a fleeting moment, I fear that this could be the day that I have that fatal encounter; the one I’ve seen play out time and time again for people who look like me.
When I watched George Floyd, gasping for breath with a knee crushing the life from his body, my eyes welled with tears. I don’t know George Floyd, but at the same time, I am George Floyd. I am the Black man who dies tragically, as America gives herself permission to avert her eyes. Of course “he must have done something wrong”, “he should have complied” or, the offender gets a pass because, “we can’t put ourselves in the officers shoes”. True, I can’t put myself in the officer’s shoes, but I can put myself in George Floyd’s shoes. I can see myself clinging to life, begging to breathe, and asking myself “why”. “Why is this happening again?” Every time I see the senseless death of a Black man, I lose a small piece of myself that I can’t get back. A piece of my humanity is taken away and I fear I will someday reach that place where I have nothing left to give; no more hope. Hope that one day racism will end.
For all who know, and care about me I would ask you, rather than George Floyd, envision Victor Armstrong lying on the pavement, gasping for breath, and whimpering, “I can’t breathe”, as an officer casually maintains his submission hold, while 3 other officers stand, or kneel, compliantly by. Hopefully, you would weep for me. For those who don’t know me, picture an African American male you know and respect, “one of the good ones”. Put that man in George Floyd’s place. Does it look different to you now? You don’t have to know George Floyd or his family to feel, empathy. You don’t have to be Black to feel compassion and to grow weary of inhumanity and intolerance.
We need to feel this moment; feel the weight of it. Though you want to avert your gaze, instead, look into the abyss that is racism. Look into the abyss that is intolerance. Look into the abyss that is complacency and indifference, that allows the wound of bigotry to fester. We only move past this together. Whether Black, White, Latinex, Native American, Democrat and Republican, we have to decide that we have seen enough.
Where there is anger and pain, we must counteract with hope, kindness, and unity. Pain and suffering are a force, but there is a greater universal force, and it is love. Love of yourself and of each other, is the force that moves us beyond this moment. It is the fuel that gives us the motivation to say, enough! It is the force that gives us the strength to act, and to demand better for our fellow man. I believe that in the end, love wins. I have to believe that, otherwise, what’s the point? #Enough