Silence is Violence

Mango trench
Zara tank (similar)
Zara jeans (similar)
Rouje boots (similar)
Friday by JW Pei handbag (similar)
Zara sunglasses (similar)
Linjer ring (c/o) (similar)
Mejuri ring (similar)
Daisy London earrings (c/o)
Location: The Manitoba Legislature – Winnipeg, Manitoba

(Recently, I’ve lamented having little to say for myself. This is a reminder that I should be careful what I wish for – I just might get it.)

I am outraged by the senseless and needless death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police. I felt the same outrage when Philando Castile succumbed to the actions of the same police force in 2016. Minneapolis is close to home for me. I’ve visited more times than I can count, most recently less than a year ago. That does not make these two deaths somehow worse than the countless others that we’ve read about in the news. Death by police, a force whose job is to servce and protect, is always heartbreaking, particularly given that happens not just disproportionately but almost exclusively to people of colour.

Minneapolis is close to home for me, but it is not home. There is a palpable tension in the air when you cross the forty-ninth parallel. The United States feels different than Canada, like it is spring-loaded, ready to explode at any moment. But while it may feel different, the country just south of our own is not so different as we like to tell ourselves. American police forces are not unique in their propensity to kill and maim people of colour. The kind of violence that ended the lives of George Floyd and Philando Castile, among others, occurs within our own borders all too often.

In April 2020, the Winnipeg Police shot and killed three Indigenous people. One of them was a sixteen-year-old girl named Eishia Hudson. Where were we when that happened? Why did we not raise our voices in outrage? Our silence – my own silence – was, effectively, tacit agreement with the actions of the police.

“When you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
– Desmond Tutu

Silence is a form of violence. I believe we all have a responsibility to speak up about what happened to George Floyd, and to Philando Castile, and to every single person whose skin colour ultimately lead them to a situation that ended with their premature demise. But I also acknowledge that it is infinitely easier for us to speak up about events that take place elsewhere, because in those scenarios, speaking up is all that is required of us. We do not have to look inward and reflect on how our actions may be contributing to the continuation of police violence. We do not have to do the hard, uncomfortable work that leads to substantive change.

Change is work, and work is hard, and when we benefit from a deeply flawed system, the impetus to change minimal. That does not make our choice not to change acceptable or excusable.

With privilege comes responsibility. I am an immensely privileged person who has not consistently upheld my responsibility to those around me who do not benefit from the same privilege. I cannot rightfully speak up about George Floyd while quietly disregarding Eishia Hudson. The fact that I failed to raise my voice at the time was exactly that – a personal failure. She was a daughter and sister, a friend and community member, just as George was a son and brother, friend and community member. They were living, breathing human beings, my equals in every way. They, and countless others like them, whose only crime was the colour of their skin, the result of an accident of birth and nothing more, deserved better. The people of colour around me, who continue to live with the threat of violence against them, deserve better.

We all deserve better. Black lives matter. Indigenous lives matter. And until we begin to collectively act as though they do, no lives matter – because they are our equals. When we devalue our equals, we devalue ourselves. When we do not speak up, we offer our silent agreement to oppressors.

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
– Angela Davis

In the past week, as I’ve reflected on the life of George Floyd, I’ve realised how profoundly sorry I am. Sorry that I have not said more, and done more, to act against the systemic and endemic racism that pervades every part of our society. If silence is indeed a form of violence, and I believe it is, then I have acted as an oppressor on countless occasions. I have an obligation to do better, and I intend to honour it.

Shop the Post