27 May 2020: BLACK LIVES MATTER + Larry Kramer

Other than the fact that my flowers are putting on an incredible show, I have nothing good to express or share.

a calla lily from a bulb my mom brought me from her yard

I am so very sad that one of my heroes, Larry Kramer, has just died. I saw The Normal Heart on Broadway some years ago (does my Playbill really say 2011?) and still think about it to this day. Kramer was, in addition to a playwright, a forceful AIDS activist who founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first organization to serve HIV-positive individuals. Larry’s anger was so righteous, and he used it for so much good.

I am so deeply enraged that just weeks after angry, armed-to-the-teeth white people stormed the capitol in Michigan and marched into a Raleigh, NC, Subway for sandwiches, none of which met with any punishment, a 46-year-old black man in Minneapolis, George Floyd, died after a policeman knelt on his neck for 8 minutes as he repeatedly said, “Please, I can’t breathe.” Police had been called as Floyd appeared to be trying to use forged documents at Cup Foods, a bodega-like store, and when they arrived, they found him sitting in a car nearby. They say he appeared to be intoxicated. If you watch the video, Floyd just looks tired and confused. He does not resist. Once on the ground, the policemen, four -why four?- treat him like trash. They are condescending and awful and don’t respond to bystanders asking them to get off of Floyd and help him. After several minutes, Floyd stops moving. The policeman only takes his knee off Floyd’s neck when the ambulance arrives. The police killed a man for nothing. I am thankful they have all been fired, but I hope they go to jail for life.

Meanwhile, there are riots in Minneapolis. I would absolutely be rioting if I were there. The police, colleagues of those who killed Floyd, having been firing into the crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets, harming protesters who simply want some fucking justice. Their anger is also righteous, and yet in trying to use it for good, they are stymied and shot, minimized and subdued.

Did anything, ANYTHING, like this happen to the furious protesters storming the goddamn capitol building in Lansing? Storming a sandwich joint in Raleigh? No. Because those protesters were white.

Meanwhile, perhaps you also saw the hideous news from Central Park where a black man, Christian Cooper, calmly asked a white woman, Amy Cooper, to leash her dog (the law), and she immediately freaks out, aggressively confronts him, and then calls the police wailing about a black man threatening her and her dog. She knows she is being recorded, and still she lies. It is grotesque to watch the way she tells 911 a completely inaccurate version of what’s really happening. Her privilege is on full display, but Mr. Cooper never would have been believed had he not, wisely, been recording the interaction. He could so easily have ended up like George Floyd or Eric Garner or Philando Castile or on and on and on. Amy has been fired from her job and her dog -that she was clearly choking during the entire video- has been taken from her, and she has spent the past few days crying that her life has been ruined. Let the punishment fit the crime, sister. Christian Cooper’s grace since has been something to behold. This is a terrific article.

And this happened today, in Texas. If you still think there isn’t systemic racism throughout America and most certainly in the criminal and justice systems, you have your head up your ass.

In 2016, my friend, Freddie, wrote this. I asked him if I could share it again, and he kindly agreed despite telling me he’d forgotten he wrote it. That itself is such a heartbreaking realization, as if these feelings are so common and thorough they could be expressed and again subsumed.

I'm a sin eater
Not by choice
By default
When you're the only black person in a white space
that's what happens
My job is to assuage white guilt
Tell them it's OK,
Tell them I know they're a good person
But I can't do it anymore
I'm choking on the sin
It’s too much
I can't breathe
And I never wanted this job in the first place I
just wanted a nice job so I can buy my family a nice
house in a nice neighborhood
Didn't know I couldn't have one without having the other
I'm weighing now if it's worth it
I can't take the stares any longer
The sorry's
The How are you doing today
I want to work and go home
But I'm a Sin eater
So every white person in the office has to tell me their pain
How much they hurt
How sick they are
And then they can go home feeling better about themselves
But where does that leave me?

Wear your masks, be kind, vote, and stand up for decency and justice. Right matters.