My son is Jacob. Not Jacob Blake, who was shot in the back seven times last week in Kenosha, Wisc. My Jacob is a few years older, but the main difference between them is that my son is white and Jacob Blake is Black. In this country that’s not supposed to be a difference, but clearly it is.
Friday, thousands gathered in Washington, D.C., to celebrate Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have A Dream” address. I organized my own one-man demonstration, having recently listened to the Ibram Kendi TED talk, differentiating the passivity and tacit denial inherent in nonracism versus the constructive activism of anti-racism. It was time for me to take the leap.
I made a big black-and-white sign that says “My Son Is Jacob. BLM,” and Friday morning I lugged it downtown to the corner of State Street and 500 South. That’s near the Utah Courthouse, the City and County Building and the Salt Lake County District Attorney office. You’ll recall that’s the building from which District Attorney Sim Gill proposed locking up young people for life for the heinous crime of breaking office windows and smearing red paint. They were protesting another unconscionable police shooting in the back of a person of color, for which Gill concluded no charges were warranted.
At first, holding my sign aloft for the benefit of drivers and pedestrians, I felt strangely like one of those “inspired” street corner soothsayers who prophesy the end of the world. Being outside one’s comfort zone took getting used to.
Predictably, my sign got mixed reviews: Some honks of support, a thumbs-up here, a wave or smile there, and occasional words of encouragement. On the other hand, I got a visual Doppler effect middle finger from the driver of a northbound pickup that lasted a good half block.
Another driver rolled down his window to shout, “There was a knife in his car,” implying that’s what made it justifiable to shoot the other Jacob in the back seven times.
After explaining my sign to one pedestrian, that Jacob was my son’s name, he asked what that had to do with anything. I replied that my son was privileged to have been born white. He responded by saying that it wasn’t a privilege to be white. I said, “In this country it is.” The light turned and he crossed the street. End of conversation.
You can assume correctly that all the negative responses were from white people. However, it was encouraging that the positive responses were equally from whites and people of color.
Quite a few police cars patrolled the area, perhaps because of all the government buildings. I steeled myself for the possibility that one would stop and I’d be ordered to move on, or to get a permit, or that they’d try to intimidate me somehow. But no one hassled me at all, which was a relief.
I wonder, though, if that would have been the case if I were Black. These days (and maybe not just these days) it seems that if you’re Black you have to worry when you go out your front door in the morning whether you’ll ever see home again.
I hope my protest did some good. I’m not recommending everyone needs to make a public demonstration. But everyone should consider it their responsibility to do something. Get people to register to vote. Write letters to your members of Congress and local representatives. Talk to your children about what equality means.
I did my personal thing for my son Jacob and for Jacob Blake and for all the Jacobs out there, regardless of their race, in the hope they’ll have a country they can believe in. Do something for your own children. Today is not too early to start. If a lot of people each do a little, there’s no telling how much can be accomplished to transform this country.
Gerald Elias
Gerald Elias is an author and musician who lives in Salt Lake City and is committed to anti-racism.