Who Can’t Breathe?

Don’t breathe on me. I can’t breathe. Just breathe. Breathe on me, breath of God.

As I joined the crowd at a protest this week, everyone dutifully masked in the early summer heat of this surreal covid season, I saw so many signs reading “I can’t breathe.” What a loaded statement. It hit me in a rush, how complex those three words are right now.

“I can’t breathe.” On a sign in the hands of a white person, in an affluent college town, where social distancing has been easy, most people have been able to work from home, and the loudest complaint has been whether or not people were masking on their daily hikes. “I can’t breathe,” the sign says. Except, of course, you can breathe. It has never been in doubt that you could breathe, that your breath would be protected, that you would have untold choices in where to breathe, that with each inhalation you would be able to breathe out words and viewpoints, no matter how they poisoned the air for others. I think what you are trying to say is that you feel the pain of not being able to breathe. But of course, that isn’t true, either. Your lungs don’t ache. Your arms need not reflexively try to close around your sons and daughters when you hear these words — unless it is to ‘shelter’ them from seeing the cruelness of the world created in a white image. I think you are trying to say that your breath catches in your throat when you have to see what happened to George Floyd, what happens to Black Americans every day, what crimes are committed against Black bodies, and happen, apparently, as easy as breathing. Your breath may catch, but there will be another one after that. I feel that what you are trying to say is that you stand with people in their fear. And that is good. But, of course, when you draw in a breathe to say ‘F the police,’ it is the Black person standing next to you who is likely to be taken into custody while you exhale in a wave of indignation. Of course, the Black person will have the right to remain silent, otherwise known as an invitation to save their breath. It is not clear who is listening, anyway.

Some of us can inhale and say ‘thank you, essential workers,’ or ‘reopen the economy,’ and not even pause to think that what we are really saying is that Black and brown bodies are expendable. That we are collectively okay with them going back to work, breathing in the miasmic air that spreads covid-19, the same fetid air that devalues lives. The same air that enables legislation which does nothing to end redlining, discriminatory banking, and myths about a welfare state. Do you see, when white people breathe in fresh air from large yards, keep a social distance and thank people on busses and subways, in warehouses and delivery trucks, the rest of us have to wonder if we are entitled to breathe at all. While a segment of white America protests the injustice of not being allowed to breathe on their hairdresser, their manicurist, their dog groomer, the message received is ‘don’t tread on me while I breathe this rot onto you.’ Some of us have never had to hold our breathe, or our tongues.

See these masks, far from hiding us, are leaving us unmasked. Our culture of casual racism is being revealed. The spoiled and entitled nature of white America is on full display. The shame is being revealed, and there is no mask that can sufficiently cover it up anymore. What does it mean, white America, to for the first time ever, have to hide your face? How does it feel to muffle your words, think twice about how you go about your daily life? Judging by the responses I see, it doesn’t feel too good. I understand. I have been biting my lip and howling into my pillow for decades. You can get used to holding it in. Trust me.

We are restless, trapped in our masks with our own, stale and clammy exhalations. But it is not yet clear that we would rather breathe fresh air if everyone has ample access to it: the breath of Black criticism has long been known to cause an allergic reaction in white ears.

We need to find a way to con-spire. A way to breathe not only the same air, but ideas that fill our lungs with life giving promise. Right now, white America is hyperventilating at the thought of losing their privilege, even as they deny having it. How can we con-spire together to create a world in which justice cannot be considered a choke-hold on those who are breathing just fine. What would it look like to set aside the anxiety of what you feel is being taken from you, and just breathe. Breathe easy, for no one is taking anything from you. You can use your breathe to say — out loud — that Black Lives Matter and it doesn’t mean you do not matter. Just breathe, and realize you needn’t use up all the oxygen in the room returning attention to your comfort, which has never really been in jeopardy. Inhale the truth of Black and brown bodies being strangled and exhale your ‘aha!’ that you are finally coming to understand.

Conspire, not to make apologies for your whiteness. Conspire to call other white people out when they misuse their breath to tell rusty old lies. Conspire to make this the last generation in which anyone needs to say ‘I can’t breathe.’ Maybe the next protest sign I see will read “I CAN breathe. So I will shout Justice.” That would be the holy spirit, the breath of God, the wind of change. And we all need a breath of that fresh air.