Mourning With Those Who Mourn
Share
Meet my friend John Diaz. And his sweet daughter Amara. At first glance, John may not strike you as Black. His mother is African American, and on his other side, his father is Puerto Rican, which explains his Latino appearance.
From the moment I met John, I was struck by his intelligence, articulateness, seriousness, depth of thinking, and earnestness. It took a little longer for me to discover his very quirky and goofy sense of humor. I’m literally lol’ing just typing that out, thinking about how he could be discussing something with great gravity one moment and the next, be under-the-radar putting on oven mitts and using them as puppets thinking no one is seeing him. I enjoy and am quite fond of John [said with deep affection and a big grin on my face].
When we first met, John was completing his master’s in Political Science at USC. Up to that point, he already had volunteering experience in a boys’ home under his belt, and since then, he’s worked in various positions, always with the aim of serving others and improving the policies and structures that disadvantage certain groups of people. His focus and desire to do the hard work to engender real change in the unjust systems of our society impresses me to no end and is further demonstrated by his currently working for WestEd (a company that works to improve learning and human development in education and underserved communities through research, policy guidance, and more), and volunteering on the BLMLA’s policy team.
It’s a great privilege for me to call him my friend, to even have the kind of friendship where we could sit down and have the following honest conversation because as he said himself, “You can really only open that part of yourself up to certain people in a raw, clear way without coming off as threatening.” And he has so graciously allowed me to share this snapshot of some of the processing he has done in the wake of the events of 2020. I’m sure there is so much more he could have shared, so much more he has processed since this conversation, but it’s a privilege to have access to even this small glimpse.
I hope you can honor his story as I do, respect the vulnerability he displays, and, frankly, I hope your heart breaks at least a little as you allow yourself to imagine what it might be like to be in John’s—and other Black folks’—shoes.
[This interview was conducted in September of last year, so some of the details are out of date (like the Biden-Harris election status. The officers involved in the death of Breonna Taylor have actually since gone to court and the case concluded rather disappointingly, as I would add, and unsurprisingly, as John would probably add). It has also been edited for clarity.]
* * * * * *
Not Taking Anything for Granted as a Half-Black Individual: “I Can't Expect Everyone Else to Sympathize With My Identity.”
“Throughout this whole process one thing I've been continually learning to acknowledge, embrace, not using an excuse, not use as a way to be insecure, is being half-Black and being non-presenting as a Black person. There's a lot of privilege that comes with that. There's a lot of privilege that comes with having straight hair, there's a lot of privilege that comes with having lighter skin, there's a lot of privilege that comes with being educated and not sounding like a lot of my family members, not being from the South like most of my family. We're just very different in a lot of superficial ways, my family and I, but I grew up in that same culture and that same value system and that same family system, so I guess that's one thing that I've continually been trying to think about is processing my own privilege as someone who is Black, but also at the same time has access to a lot of things that dark-skinned, very, very clearly presenting Black people don't. I think in good ways and in bad ways.
“On the one hand that gives me the opportunity to really see people's racism first hand sometimes. Anti-Black ideas being brought forward when there are no ‘Black’ people, right, and then you going, ‘Hey, actually, there is a Black in the room, and, like, this is why what you just said is problematic.’ So I think that's one thing that's really been on the top of my mind a lot is as I've had to really just be more open and raw and share with my friends and family members and colleagues that are Black over the past year, I've had to really, really face that who I am is who I am, but I can't expect everyone else to sympathize with my identity, even in the Black community. I can't fully expect people to understand right away. There’s some qualifying that has to go on and some barriers that have to be broken down in those conversations, so I think that's part of the struggle of being biracial, part of the struggle of being the Black person in general regardless of whether or not you are very much presenting.”
Systemic Racism: “This System Is Not Built for Us”
“This year in particular, I'll say the big theme of it is I'm not at all surprised at anything that's happened at all. Like, I can't stress that enough—how unsurprised I am. I think the surprise for me is the way that non-Black people have reacted to what's happened.
“Growing up the son of a police officer who was exposed to gang violence as a kid—my dad lived a lot of that before he became a cop—I feel like I have an interesting angle to look at all this from, right? I grew up in my life is as a result of a police officer being very good at their job. A lot of the privilege that I have academically, economically is a result of being raised by a police officer. The way that I look at discipline, the way that I look at ethics is framed by the fact that I was raised by a police officer.
“At the same time, though, as I've grown into sort of my own person, I have to juxtapose the fact that even though not all cops are bad—some of them are really great people—my focus, then, can't really be on the person doing the crime, inherently, because I am related to a cop who never did any of the things that have happened in the news, never did them to a person of any color, can openly criticize those things as they happen and say this cop should be fired. My dad can openly say those kinds of things about pretty much every murder that's happened, so it's tough on the one hand, I think, because people always want to do that, they always want to talk about, ‘Well, this person needs to go to jail, this person needs to be put in prison, this person needs to be fired,’ but one thing that has maybe helped me is that I've always had to think about it from a systems level. The system is the problem. The system is the thing that's cultivating these problems. We have a racist system, not necessarily just racist police officers. We have a system where the law skews in a direction that's disadvantageous for Black people, and that's just how it's always been. I think that's pretty much been the way I grew up because I never expect the police to be on my side, I never expect teachers to be on my side. If anyone has any sort of power in any context, I do not expect them to be on my side.
“I mean you can think about it even in just media representation. When we think about diversity and things like movies, that means the supporting actor is Black or Latino or Asian, which is basically very explicitly saying, ‘Diversity to me means that you're in the room with me, but I’m white, and I still have to be the center of attention.’ And that's the way that our laws were written in this country—we are white, we are the center of attention, and as we’ve progressed as a country and grown, it's, ‘Oh, we need women in the room with us, we need people of color in the room with us,’ but they're still not going to be the ones who have the power, and so I think even to this day, as far as we’ve progressed as a country, regardless of who's president, regardless of who's governor or mayor or whatever, regardless of who's the police officer, the system is built on a…[hesitates]…racist set of beliefs and thinking, and I don't mean to use that word racist lightly, but I just think it captures it really well.
“And so all that to say Black people have always been murdered by the police. Black kids have always been given less money, less attention, and less instruction in schools. I mean these things are proven scientifically now. It's not just stories just because the laws have changed, and it's no longer legal to be racist, it's no longer legal to discriminate. Those things are still in the legacy of our country, they're still in the lifeblood of our government systems, and, legally, we haven't really been free from these things for much more than maybe thirty years in a lot of cases, so as I see pretty much every murder, and I won't point to a specific one, but every single one, it's clearly the result of a system that's been built to seek out and search and destroy anything that is against the sort of white norm. No-knock warrants, certain kinds of restraints or holds, certain kinds of laws that give police officers unqualified immunity, an officer’s Bill of Rights, things that prevent police officers from being prosecuted. It's like, well, why wouldn't you want a police officer to be prosecuted, why wouldn't you want a police officer to be held accountable for certain things? Don't we assume that we all live under the same morality, and no one is above the law?
“But as we can see in cases like George Floyd's case, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, the time that it takes for people to be arrested, not just police officers, but just murderers of Black people, the time that it takes for them to even be arrested or disciplined or viewed as anything other than just an innocent, and kind and good people, it could take weeks, it could take months. I mean Breonna Taylor's killers I think are still doing their thing,* which goes to show that there is never an assumption that all of us are equal and that all of us are deserving of the same kind of regard and the same assumption of innocence. There's an assumption that Breonna Taylor was up to something, there's an assumption that her boyfriend did something wrong. Her boyfriend was arrested on attempted murder charges when the cops that actually killed Breonna weren’t even arrested. There's a very clear assumption of what's going on. There's one group that's more likely to be guilty than the other.
“So that's sort of the big framing. I think it's just that I've learned to accept from the jump that this system is not built for us, and we should never expect it to treat us equally because we have a long way to go before that is at all what our system reflects.”
*One officer, Brett Hankison, was fired on June 23, 2020 for violating procedure (more than three months after Taylor’s death) and was later indicted on September 23rd for wanton endangerment due to his bullets entering the home next door.[1] A second officer, Myles Cosgrove, was recently fired on January 5, 2021.[2] Neither they nor the other third officer involved in the shooting (Jonathan Mattingly) were charged in Taylor’s death.
The Acutely Personal Consequences of Systemic Racism for John: “That Could Happen to Me and There's Not Very Much I Can Do About It.”
“As I’ve processed it with my friends, the feelings that I have on the inside have shifted. There was a time in my life where I had gotten pulled over, followed into my house, questioned a lot about my citizenship in this country by police officers, by border patrol officers, had guns drawn on me. I never committed a crime, mind you, never been arrested for anything, never committed a felony. I think I got one ticket once for being on my cell phone while driving. I was like 21. That's the only offense I've ever committed, but I have been pulled over a lot, and I have been questioned a lot. I have been told that there are warrants out for people with my name, and if I'm that person that I should just turn myself in because now's the time to do it. I've been told things like that by police officers, and so at that point in my life when that first started happening, when I first became an adult, and it was obvious that I wasn't a child but maybe just a threat, at first I was really angry. I was really, really angry. That was I think 2015. That whole year I remember feeling so angry at the cops, so angry at society, so angry that I didn't belong, and I was still going through my master's program at the time, and I was very angry that no one was sticking up for me, that I was so by myself and everything, but I think over time, and especially now, that anger has progressed into, I think, more of a fear, for lack of a better word, and not necessarily a fear that I'm going to get stopped by the cops, but just a fear and awareness more than anything. Ta-Nehisi Coates articulates it really well. Awareness that my life doesn't really belong to me in a lot of ways. My life can be taken from me without consequence by the police at any time or any reason. I could be shot through this window right now and killed, and it's very unlikely that anyone would be arrested for it…with my daughter in the other room, with my wife in the other room. We saw that happen to Jacob Blake not too long ago. His three kids were in the car, and he was shot in the back.
“That could happen to me, and there's not very much I can do about it. There’s not very much my family and friends can do about it, and those cops would probably continue to roam the streets, and so that fear I think is because of that awareness, and that awareness is heightened every time I see something like this happen in the news.
“You know that I am a big runner. You know I ran in college, and I run down the streets all the time. I saw Ahmaud Arbery was murdered while he was running on the street, and just to see his gait in the way he ran, the way his body moved on that video tape, and to see him falling on the ground, it made me think about all the times that I was running and a car almost hit me; or all the times that I was running and I was thinking that it's getting a little late, or I don't recognize this neighborhood, or am I safe around here; or I run by a car and I hear someone lock the door; or I run by someone who is white and they look at me like I'm going to attack them; all the weird memories I have of being on runs and despite all the joy that that’s brought to my life of being a runner, also the weird feelings and the insecurities and the uncomfortable moments that I've had while being on runs, and to see this person murdered while running, it's just heightened my awareness overall, I think, of how close it is to me, how possible it is for me to be the next one, and how no matter how badly I want it to, that's always going to be something I have to live with, and the fear more than ever now is that I have so much to lose in both my wife and my daughter, and I just wish that I had more control over that, knowing how many Black men in particular have been killed without taking any aggressive action. It's like it really could be me just sitting on my computer, and it can happen just like that.”
Hopeless but Nonetheless Working toward Change: “The Best Thing I Can Do Is Become More and More and More Aware…That I Could Lose It All at Any Moment and More Aware That the Work I Do Today Is the Most Important Work Because I Don't Know How Much More I'll Get to Do.”
“A lot of times when I've talked about these things with white audiences, because there's been some times in a professional context where I've had to sort of voice my feelings, I don't really go into it with the level of detail that I am with you now. I essentially just say, ‘I feel very aware that I have a lot to lose, and I have a lot that I'm risking by just being alive.’ There's a lot of like, ‘Oh, well, we should talk about hope. We can hope for the things that are changing. These protests are accomplishing a lot. Joe Biden might be elected. It's all going to change.’ That’s the context of a group of people who have just now become aware that this is happening, and so to them, it's a new phenomenon, and it's something that very much can and will change because it just started. It’s sort of like the pandemic. It just started, and it's going to end eventually, and it's weird because I sort of have to take them back to that moment of, ‘But, no, I don't actually have hope because I've always felt this way, and it's always been inside of me. My mom taught me to think this way, my dad taught me to think this way, my brothers reinforced this thinking and my friends tell me the same thing.’ It's so weird to, every time I talk to one of my Black friends or my family, to be like, ‘Hey, be careful, stay safe,’ and we know why we're saying that to each other. I have to tell Michael, a close friend of mine, a lot, like, ‘Hey, man, be careful. Don't do anything that you know could cause problems. Don't wear your hood at night, don't go in this neighborhood at night,’ or ‘Hey, man, I just heard that this is happening. Be careful about this.’
“So I guess to sum it all up, I really, at this point, I think I've become accustomed to feeling pretty hopeless, but also pretty resolved to the idea that this is going to keep happening, and the best thing I can do is become more and more and more aware of what's going on around me and more aware that I could lose it all at any moment and more aware that the work I do today is the most important work because I don't know how much more I'll get to do. As a policy analyst, the change is happening before my eyes in certain contexts, and it makes me think, ‘I can't waste a day of this work. I’ve got to do my best. I owe it to these kids, I owe it to the next generation of kids that look like me or share my bloodline or share my culture,’ because I have to think that there will be a day where people like me don't have to feel hopeless, don't have to feel like it's going to keep going, don't have to expect it to keep coming, and I have to say in all my conversations with many, many colleagues, friends, family members who are Black, it's really similar. I mean that vibe is really similar of we're still in mourning, we're still processing it, we're still very much trying to understand what's going on. There is no hopefulness or Biden-Harris 2020 kind of spin to that message. It's just like, yeah, sometimes these things don't have a positive conclusion, and I think that's just because we know it's not over, and it's not going to be over for a long time.
“That's honestly I think one of the reasons why I’ve just opted out of talking about race with most—all white people [laughs] because it's like this is my lived experience. When we leave those conversations you leave thinking, ‘Oh, man, we're going to change racism. We're going to defeat it,’ and I go back to my life thinking like, ‘Man, I just had to reflect on how little hope I have in the future, and I didn't get any empathy. All I got was “inspiration.”’ It's like, my life isn’t an Academy Award-winning movie about my experience. My life is my life. Like, I have to go to bed, and I have to wake up tomorrow and look at myself in the mirror and think, ‘Today could be the day.’
“I don't know where that really leaves me, but I guess if I could sum it all up it's every day I feel more aware a little more concerned and a little more, I guess, resolved to the idea that it can happen to me and it can happen at any moment, and it's wild, it's wild, but I think it's better to think along those lines than to pretend that it's not happening.”
* * * * * *
By the end of our conversation, I was weeping. I wept over the reality that my friend could unexpectedly be killed through no fault of his own simply because of his appearance, as well as at the thought of how heavily the burden of that reality must sit on his shoulders. It's just not fair. It's. Just. Not. Right. And it is scary.
Please, if you still question whether systemic racism is real, hear my friend's story and the risk he takes every day just by being alive, doing everyday activities that those who are not Black take for granted. Imagine what it would be like to live under the constant fear and awareness that you or someone you love dearly—your father, your brother, your closest friend—could be eliminated due to factors and predispositions completely outside your control. And maybe take a moment to mourn.
John and Amara’s portrait is on sale for $90, and all proceeds will be donated to BLMLA, John’s organization of choice.