“What Are You Willing To Do?”

— Lucinda Garthwaite, ILI Director

We are not just hurt. We are angry. We are mad. This shouldn’t have happened. We do our best to be good citizens, to be good people. We believe in God. We trust in him. We treat people with decency. And we love even our enemies.

You expect us to keep doing this over and over again, forgive and forget . . . What are we supposed to do with all this anger and all this pain? . . . This is not just some story to drive the news cycle. This is our mother, this is our lives … Help us change this, this can’t keep happening. I say to you, what are you willing to do?

-- Garnell W. Whitfield, former Buffalo, NY fire commissioner, and one of Ruth Whitfield’s four children. Mrs. Whitfield was murdered with 10 others by a self-proclaimed white nationalist last Saturday in Buffalo. *
 
 
I have been awake for days, but I need each and every one of you to know that you have a personal choice to make. What will YOUR PERSONAL response to White supremacy be?? . . . Turn your thoughts & prayers into action into change. You can save the lip service for another family….
 
This is the type of the moment where you find yourself at a moral crossroad. You can choose to turn pain into purpose and vibrate higher in love or you can turn a corner and meet these people in depths of hell and go tit for tat. I am paralyzed at that crossroad right now and the only thing holding me up is a phrase my grandmother wrote to me in a letter “we fall down, but we get up. 

-- Simone Crawley, Founder & CEO at Crawley Cultural Consulting, and one of Mrs. Whitfield’s granddaughters.

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It’s unusual for me to begin these posts with long quotes, but I believe these are voices in particular need of lifting up. They represent the collective grief, rage, and requirements of this moment – one of a trail of moments hundreds of years long.

Ruth Whitfield’s children and grandchildren say, “You expect us to keep doing this over and over again.” They say, “Save the lip service for another family.” With tears running down their faces, they say, “What are you willing to do?”

““There are so many things we can do...”

Those are the words of historian Kathleen Belew, echoed by the other guests interviewed by journalist Jenn White on the radio program, “1A” this week.  Buffalo Pastor George Nicholas, Buffalo resident and Urban scholar Henry Louis Taylor, Sociologist Adolphus Belk, and Belew listed more possibilities for action than I could keep track of in my notes.

They outlined actions for politicians, church leaders, and local civic leaders. They spoke of necessary action in housing, zoning, food and health policy.  They called for critical examination of connections between white nationalism and efforts to suppress teaching history and civics.   They pointed out the eerie similarity between the “manifestos” of white nationalist mass murderers, and emerging mainstream political rhetoric, and called out critical work of ensuring the vote, and informing the voters.

That implies, of course, that individuals will make the decision to vote, and to inform their vote with those critical connections. It implies that in areas where voter suppression is particularly strong, that individuals will show up to counter that suppression with rides, that individual employers will make it possible for their employees to vote without losing pay or jobs.  It implies that individuals will hold political and civic leaders accountable for publicly decrying white nationalist ideology, and for taking action to disarm white nationalists.

It implies individual answers to the question, “What are you willing to do?” 

To change the course of history will require a historic stepping up. That will require that each person engage in a creative and courageous assessment of skills, talents, relationships, and time. That will require resilience, and in some cases no small amount of courage and creativity -- and will.

In the particular case of white nationalism, said Dr. Beck on that “1A” broadcast, “We need more white folks to get involved. People of color cannot solve this on their own. If they could, it would have happened a very long time ago.”

I’ll reframe the question here, “What am I willing to do?”  That question speaks to my own will, what I want to do, not just what I can. It occurred to me this week that if I make a practice of asking myself that question daily, I’ll take more risks, learn more, and what I can do will expand.  I’ll be holding myself accountable to stepping up. 

Ruth Whitfield’s granddaughter Simone Crawley wrote, “Every one of you knows that you have a personal choice to make.”  

Yes, I do. I’ll start with the choice to take up her family’s challenge daily, “What are you willing to do?” 

For links to the sources referenced here, please see the May 20, 2022 Issue of Intersections: The ILI Newsletter.