“Hands up. Don’t shoot. Hands up. Don’t shoot. Hands up. Don’t shoot.”
I stood in a crowd of people in a city park echoing this line on Saturday afternoon. Among the crowd could be seen old and young and people of all different shades of color. Children with signs that said, “Black lives matter,” and “I want to grow up in a just world” sat on the ground in the front of the crowd with their parents. Onlookers and bystanders looked at the crowd with amusement and curiosity. Crowded around a small podium across the street from the federal courthouse, people disturbed and angered by the events in Ferguson, Mo., gathered in solidarity with the troubled St. Louis suburb.
I felt compelled to go to the rally feeling the indignation, confusion and sadness my counterparts at the gathering also shared. We listened to impassioned speeches by politicians and laypeople alike echoing the sentiment of “enough.” We’re tired of gathering because of events like the shooting of Michael Brown that continue to happen, said one speaker. Another said it is time we create a new America continuing with the vision of Dr. King’s “I have a Dream” speech. White, black, man, woman, transgender persons stood up and all said the same thing: Enough is enough.
And here I was, a white, middle-class, young woman, who — although having experienced sexism and victimization in other ways —has never been harassed because of the color of my skin. Here I was standing in solidarity with a family who lost a son, a community that is being brutalized by police, and a people that has a long history of oppression and discrimination. Here I was, holding a sign: “Dark skin is not dangerous” and “Peace in our streets.”
As I stood there slightly uncomfortable, feeling out of place or at least out of my element, I was taken back to a summer when my understanding of solidarity was completely altered. The facilitator for the evening’s discussion deconstructed our perhaps naïve and academic understanding of the word, but unfortunately did not help to reconstruct it. I left the evening and that summer thinking I could never really be in solidarity with anyone. I am not black. I am not homeless or poor. I am not gay. Yet, I feel it is important to stand in solidarity with these groups. What does that mean exactly?
To be in solidarity with another does not mean you have to know someone’s lived experience exactly. I am in solidarity with survivors of sexual assault because I’ve been there too. But I am also in solidarity with anyone who has been victimized or experienced trauma. I can say that because I get feelings of smallness, powerlessness, confusion, anger and disempowerment. I do have other lived experiences that bring me in solidarity with others who on the surface appear unlike myself. Yet, I am in solidarity with those whose lived experience does not match mine.
How does that work? It is because I choose to be conscious to their experience, to say, “I see you and validate who you are and what you have lived through or are going through.” I can do this by also saying I may not really understand exactly what’s happening, but I am choosing to be conscious to it and stand with you in it.
So, on a hot, August Saturday afternoon, I stood in solidarity with a community I have never been a part of and never will be, with a family who grieves the loss of a son, a people whose historical memory is wrought with oppression, violence, and pain. I stood with others who may or may not completely get what it is like to be attacked because of the color of one’s skin. But we stood together, in solidarity, because enough is enough, and although hundreds of miles away from Ferguson, we wanted that community to know they were not alone.