Black Lives Matter

Over the last few weeks, I’m sure we’ve all seen the mass protests of police brutality and anti-Black racism sparked by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minnesota, as well as the murders of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. The news has been dominated by a more honest discussion of systemic anti-Black racism than we’ve had in years, despite there having been many public cases of this for years. Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray... the list goes on. In Canada, we have D’Andre Campbell, Andrew Loku, Jermaine Carby, and Dafonte Miller, Regis Korchinski-Pacquet to name a few. Meanwhile, I’ve gotten group emails from my mother about COVID-19, but have not seen anything about the Black Lives Matter movement nor about any of the recent cases of police brutality. There have been a few family poker games played without mentioning a single name on this list, nor discussing police brutality or anti-Black racism at all. While I’ve seen some social media posts, and have had limited discussions with a few people, I think this should be a family-wide conversation. I probably should have said something in one of these poker games as I have been there for all of it, but given that I still get complaints about my initiative to use Skype instead of Zoom due to Zoom’s horrible security record, ‘dodgy’ tactics, and classist actions, I don’t feel like I’m taken seriously when I voice my concerns. 

We need to talk about these issues as a family, and I believe that it is time for the younger generation of this family to start that conversation. We have long been silent, as a family unit, on issues of human rights like the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, and now anti-Black racism. This is bothersome to me for two reasons: firstly, we fail to use our privilege (as a family that across the board is well educated) to fight for the rights of marginalized communities. Secondly, we have lacked the active and open communication required to create a safe place in which everyone in the family feels confident that they will be supported no matter who they are and what they are going through. There is a (false) presumption that we are all cis-gendered, straight, and mentally healthy, a presumption that we have yet to address. We may all believe that we are accepting of people who don’t fit into that description, but because we haven’t openly expressed this as a family, we haven’t provided a safe place for people to feel comfortable being open about who they are if they don’t fit the expectation. For example, Meirra identifies as bisexual. I know that we have always operated under the assumption that she is straight, as she’s in a relationship with a man, but she hasn’t felt comfortable to share this truth with all of the family since it is something she has feared would not be well received. I am mentally ill. Each time I respond to “when are you graduating?”, I uncomfortably skirt around why I haven’t and why I don’t exactly know when that might be. I’m doing exactly that right now by being intentionally vague because I don’t feel comfortable elaborating right now, but we can cover that later. 

We are a family of mostly Indian and half-Indian ancestry, with some white people married in. Indian-Americans are the wealthiest minority group in America by a fairly large margin, and we are overall a well educated and on the whole a privileged bunch. While there is racism we have experienced and even some forms of systemic racism that we may experience, we don’t experience the same severe systemic racism that Black and Indigenous communities in North America face. As a privileged family, issues like these that affect so many lives must be discussed. 

So today I’m going to quickly start this discussion. There are two “sides” here. One is that you don’t believe that all people deserve basic human rights and that white or Indian folks are inherently superior to other races. I’m going to assume that none of us believe that, and that we think all people deserve basic human rights, equal opportunity, and a high standard of living. If you accept that, then I think what is happening in the world right now is important. So over the next week or two, we’re going to have a conversation in which I will explain why Black lives matter, and why we have to use our privilege to stand up for their rights. We will publish our first installation of this conversation in the next few days, but until then there is a little work I’d like you all to do. I want us to have this conversation together, and in that spirit, I would be elated to hear from every one of you in response to these letters. Write to us at patelfamily.staff@gmail.com, and send us your thoughts and opinions on these issues. With your consent, we will publish your letters in our next posts, but either way, I’d very much like to hear from each of you. We are open to learning and listening and we hope you are too. We’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings, your questions and concerns, and anything in between. This morning I woke up and saw a terrific article from the Toronto Star that I’d like you all to read to start the conversation, and I’d like your thoughts on it. I’d also like to know if you would like us to ask questions for you all to consider to spur feedback as part of our letters. I hope you all stay safe and healthy. I am eager to continue this discussion going forward.

Written by Ben, edited by Meirra.