Testimony

Kenny Wiley / May 26 at 9:05 PM

I suppose I should start by saying that

Nothing particularly racist has ever happened to me
Overtly, at least.
I think it’s important to be clear about that.
Compared to what so many of my black and brown siblings go through
I’ve had it pretty good.

All I really wanted to say tonight about this

George Floyd, dead
Killed
In Minneapolis, from Houston
“I can’t breathe”
Officer takes a knee, and a life

Christian Cooper
Central Park, NYC
On Twitter all day: Oh! He went to Harvard and wrote for Marvel and was just so nice and he’s good-
looking and loves birds and how could Amy Cooper feel threatened by * him *

All I really wanted to say tonight about this

If anything ever happens to me.
I don’t think it will

I’m a journalist and I smile and head nod a lot while I’m out on my bike and I love quoting Star Wars and
Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and West Wing and sending goofy Thanos GIFs and I mean, come on,
I work for a newspaper and was head greeter at my church back in those days when we could greet
people at church

But
Just in case
If It does

You might be tempted to make me better than I am, to tell them

About my Eagle articles
That I love women’s basketball
That I am under 50 and read the New York Times and Houston Chronicle most days

Oh, and ultimate frisbee

You can tell them those things

If you like
But they’ll find other things, worse things
There are always, always other things
Like I said, statistically, I’m pretty sure I’ll be just fine
But
Just in case
You could say

“Black lives don’t just matter if they’re polite or smile a lot or like Friday Night Lights and went to
Mizzou, or if they're Harvard grads who wrote for Marvel and who love birds”

I’m a journalist now, and I try not to editorialize anymore

But – if only for one night — here goes:

George Floyd should be alive

Ahmaud Arbery should be alive
Sandra Bland and Rekia Boyd should be alive

I heard Bryan Stevenson say, in June 2017 in New Orleans, something he’s said dozens of times before
and since: “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

I think about that quote all the time, and sometimes, I’m not even sure why. I know it changed my life,
theologically
I think, maybe
It’s because more than anything else I know, it’s that I believe
That so often, we badly want a world of saints and sinners, angels and “no angel”s
And what Stevenson gets, I think, is that nearly all the time, it’s not that simple

We, all of us — we make people smile and we hurt people deeply

We show up for our friends and we steal things
We save lives and we break hearts, and laws
We sin, and we save
We do unforgivable things
We commit unbelievable good
We live
We are more than any one thing, any one moment, any one triumph, any one mistake

And we all deserve to live.

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