'I see you, and I hear you,' and it is time for me to speak out for my friends | Opinion

• Michael McSurdy is CEO of Family & Children’s Service.

“I can’t breathe.”  I can’t imagine. 

I recently met with a shaken and scared staff at Family & Children’s Service.  We are a diverse agency, and this was a diverse group.  Following the recent killing of George Floyd and all the other incidents of abuse, discrimination, profiling and terror, my staff was shaken. 

One person spoke up, an African American mother of an adult son.  She fears for her child’s life as he ventures bravely to the grocery store.  Another woman spoke of her husband not wearing a mask because he fears people will respond with aggression if they are approached by a Black man in a mask, though he is there to make a delivery.

‘I see you, and I hear you.’

As we talked and people cried, two things hung heavy.  My staff needed acknowledgement.  The mom of the young adult son was so appreciative of being told, “I see you, and I hear you.”  This was significant.

The second thing that dominated was a request that I speak on the group’s behalf.  That I write these words and I share them publicly.  I had to speak.  I had to write.  My team stressed that this is a White problem, not a Black problem.  

It is a problem that White people are killing Black people.  My seeing all this as my Black friends’ story and experience is my problem—a White problem— I wrongly deny it is my story.  And it is a problem that as a White man I struggle to speak about--the harsh, unjust and assaultive world my Black friends experience and which my White silence protects. 

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Often when White people speak up, it is penned we speak from White guilt.  I speak from White responsibility.  It is my responsibility to speak because I can.  It is my responsibility to speak because I have a position.  It is my responsibility to speak because I will not be assaulted.  It is my responsibility to speak because I am White. 

Claiming this responsibility, I still struggle with what to say.  But I come back to what the mother of the young Black son said was most helpful.  “I see you, and I hear you.”  I wish I had been the one to say these words.  I was not.  But I do now.

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A white problem

I hear the cries; I hear the sadness; I hear the anger that chokes in my staff’s throats.  I see the tears and fear washing across their faces.  And I see they want to be heard as they beg for my voice to echo theirs.  If I hear you and see you, I cannot stay silent.  Silence is the White privilege my friends cannot afford me to exercise.

So, I speak.  I say we have some White problems and have for a long time.  It was a White problem as we uprooted Africans to be slaves.  It was a White problem when we lynched our Black brothers, denied Blacks the vote and denied Black children shared and equal education.  It is a White problem when our Black brothers and sisters are disproportionally living in poverty, lacking health care, and being incarcerated.  It is a White problem because the system we have built is disproportionately controlled by White people.  And it is White problem when White people literally choke the life from Black people. 

I assert these were and are White problems because they were and are ours to solve.  We have the power; we have the voice.         

I can breathe, and I can speak.   I can hear you, and I can see you.  I hope others can and will too.

Michael McSurdy is CEO of Family & Children’s Service.