Ignorance Is Our Bliss

Once my guy friend said, “You live so close to the lake. You should walk around it at night. How cool would that be?”

I wrinkled my nose and squinted my eyes. 

“I can’t do that,” I retorted. 

“Why not?” he said.

“Because I’m a woman.”

“Oh,” he replied taken aback. His eyes processing what I had said.

“You just don’t do that,” I continued. You never walk alone at night. You just don’t.”

And, there my friend, naive and earnest, saw what it was like to be a woman, and how he, a man, wouldn’t think twice about walking around the lake at night

But I would.

And, I see George Floyd suffocating with a knee on his neck.

I wonder why Darnella Frazier, the woman who filmed it all, didn’t step in?

Why didn’t she do something more?

Put one foot on the scene

Stretch out her hand to tell them to stop.

Perhaps, she didn’t do these things

Because she’s black.

Could she have been next?

White knees on her neck?

Walk around the lake, he suggested.

Step in and stop them, I say. 

My naive friend and I 

Are one and the same.