What I must do to honor George Floyd
I am a 65 year-old White man, husband to a Black woman. We have three daughters. I am also a lawyer. I am outraged, depressed, concerned and ashamed.
The murder of George Floyd has caused a swell of emotions that should never have taken this long to surface. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. What we witnessed is as undeniable as it is all too commonplace.
I was 13 years old in 1968. I remember that summer well. America was coming apart at the seams. I prayed we would not return to it. But return to it we have and return to it we will continue to do if we persist in our failure to confront head-on racism and the inequities it gives rise to. We have enabled the sores of racism to fester. Festering sores never heal.
We need a reckoning. I do not mean a violent confrontation. We need White people to acknowledge the persistence of racism in America and to refuse to accept it. To acknowledge that we are continuing to experience our failure as a nation to adequately address the wreckage wrought by slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and educational and economic disparity. We need White people to do something about it in their personal lives. Every day. Even when the media moves away from George Floyd and we might otherwise again be tempted to revert to platitudes and expressions of sorrow.
We must fight for policy change that outlaws lynching in all its forms, invests in education for Black children, and insists on racial and gender diversity in every business and educational institution, including at the most senior levels. If we do not deliver on these civil rights, we will never demonstrate to Black Americans that Black lives really do matter and that they are part of America’s future.
We have deceived ourselves into believing — because we want to believe — that we have moved past racism into a post-racist society. While real progress has been achieved in the five decades since 1968, we have all too often hidden behind symbols of progress that mask the length of the road still to be traveled. We see what we want to see. When it involves our fellow Americans, it is our duty to see what we do not want to see. It is our duty to educate ourselves, understand and work to change the way our Black fellow Americans experience life in America.
White people must stop insisting that Black people bend their understanding to the way White people experience the world and start bending their own understanding to the way Black people experience the world.
If we open our eyes by getting personally involved, it will be impossible for good people to accept the inequities and to avoid their personal obligations to work for change. We hear so often that it is the silence and inaction of complicit good people that enables the damage of racism. Personal involvement is the antidote.
We must also resist the paralysis that can set in from the emotions of outrage and despair. Having lived through the sixties and seventies, it is beyond depressing to witness some of the same scenes of my youth. But caving to depression does not solve any of the problems it is our duty to resolve.
As one of my daughters shared with me, these are the eloquent words of poet Cleo Wade:
Do Not Be Afraid to Say
I Know
I Can’t Do Everything
But
I Can Do
Something
As a lawyer here is what I can and will do:
1. Fight harder to open pathways into the legal profession for more Black Americans. Legal Innovators, the company I co-founded with Bryan Parker, is trying to accomplish this but we will dig deeper and do more. We will focus on even younger Black students to start the process of engagement sooner. And we will reach out to our peers in the legal profession and ask them to do the same.
2. Take on another pro bono project with one of the many organizations dedicated to social justice. In economically challenging times, monetary donations often dip. I will make up for it by contributing my professional skills.
3. Educate myself on what type of legislation, oversight and educational efforts can address the persistent problem of police violence towards unarmed Black people.
As a citizen, here is what I can and will do:
1. Reach out to each Black friend, family member and colleague to express support and action.
Platitudes are not enough but letting the people I care about know they are not alone is a start. In those conversations, I must listen to the suggestions that are being made for the actions I can take. I must confront the inevitable racism that has crept into my thinking from the times into which I was born and correct for it.
2. Volunteer in an activity that brings me in touch with the most disadvantaged members of our society. It is far too easy to write a check. I must travel beyond my comfort zone and explore the experiences I have been privileged not to experience myself.
3. Work with my family to bring our different perspectives into the open so that we can share with others real, meaningful dialogue in a safe space.
Jonathan Greenblatt, was an International Disputes partner of Shearman & Sterling LLP for 30 years. He retired to launch with his co-founder and CEO, Bryan Parker, Legal Innovators, Inc., where he is the Chairman. Legal Innovators focuses on legal staffing, training, and rational pricing with a heavy emphasis on diversity and opening new pathways into law for young minority attorneys.
