WASHINGTON — I would like to take a few moments this morning to reply to an email I received from a viewer, who caught the end of my final thought on moving from protest to politics.
I was stressing how important it is that we take the energy of these protests into the voting booth, and I asked some questions: Are you voting in the midterms, local elections, so forth? Our viewer, catching the tail end of it, took this as question to white folks: Why aren't you out here, too?
"I am white. I was touched deeply by this question... I want Reese to know that, from my perspective, white people have never been asked to be a part of the solution. I know we shouldn't have to be asked, but I believe that having a black person reach out to the white community makes it about us, all of us. I fear that white people get the perception that "it" is all about the black community. You reaching out to white people makes all the difference; it makes it about us. Mr. Waters. I will march with you any time you want."
First of all, thank you for your email. I wanna first point out that the white community has always been asked to take part in the battles for civil and human rights in this country from the very beginning. Frederick Douglass asked. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked. Barack Obama asked. We've asked, many times, and you've responded, but the asking is tiring. Carrying the weight of a struggle that we didn’t create, is tiring. And to be frank, we shouldn't have to ask.
But that's what sets this moment apart, what has the black community cautiously optimistic. For the first time, we didn't ask, you just came, and not just the white community. The diversity has been amazing, and heartening, and welcomed -- the Latino community, the Asian community, the Jewish community. Name a community and they are out there, together, and so many are so young trying to socially distance, but together -- walking, chanting, singing -- trying to collectively lift a pushed down people. And in what seems like another, truly stunning first, they are all listening. I can hear somebody black right now saying, "Finally!"
We've never seen a moment like this, and we should celebrate it. These peaceful protests look like the melting pot that America claims to be, or wants to be. And the people who are out on the streets, in every state, they seem to have decided that enough is enough. That it’s time for this nation to live up to the ideals it claims to be founded on: E Pluribus Unum, out of many, one. This feels different. I'm cautious, always cautious, but I’m optimistic, because I see all the different faces. And I think, they're are finally starting to see me.