Commentary: Open Letter to Rory, who stood where no one else would

Dear Rory,

You could have taken an easier route. You could have joined other peaceful protesters in Champaign. You could have been one face in hundreds, standing in solidarity to say that the system we have in America is neither fair nor just. 

Instead, you did the one thing that people twice your age have yet to work up the nerve to do: stand, bare-hearted in the face of passersby, with a message that we often don’t want to face; we, no matter where we live, are the problem.

Shortly before I walked up to you, I’d driven from Davenport, Iowa, to Mahomet. I watched the clouds change and sang a few hymns, thinking about the state of the world today. I watched the death of George Floyd; I listened to him cry for his mother and pictured her 46 years ago, holding that baby in her arms, wondering who he’d grow up to be. When I held my son 14 years ago, the thought of him being worried about police officers never crossed my mind, but I’d bet that it crossed George Floyd’s mother’s mind. 

His pleads will never leave my ears. And the way that the officer’s knee on his neck, the way George’s lips were hanging near the cement, the way he was taunted to get in the vehicle when he clearly could not move, will never ever leave my being. 

But I thought for a moment, what if George Floyd hadn’t died?

What if he had been put into the ambulance and they revived him? 

What if he were just another bird watcher being threatened because of his skin color? What if he wasn’t hired for a job because of his skin color? What if he was taunted at school because of his skin color? What if he was just out for a walk and followed because of his skin color? 

Would we be just as outraged? Would we be standing up? Or would the racial inequality that he had experienced just be another story for our social media feed until we can move on to something else sensational?

I have the answer to that because it takes several witnesses catching a grown man begging for air for us to say that this system, the way that it was built, is not working. It takes that much evidence for us to even believe the story that he was not fighting back. It takes that much evidence for us to believe his innocence over police testimony. 

Of course, he is not the first to die at the hands of a system that singles one out over another. Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Ezell Ford, Michelle Cusseaux, Tanisa Anderson, Natasha McKenna, Walter Scott, Bettie Jones, Philando Castile, Botham Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, Eric Reason, Dominique Clayton and Breonna Taylor are among the victims of the same fate as George Floyd just within the last decade. 

When Stephen Jackson came onto my television screen Sunday morning, I thought that it was a video of George: the two men look so similar. They were friends and Stephen called George his twin. I wondered if George had dreamed of playing in the NBA, too. And if he had, would we treat him differently? Would he be the God that we all look up to or would he still be the man who someone thought deserved to be pinned down?

Instead of looking elsewhere for the answers to these questions, Rory, you decided to look inside. As your parents rolled past you on Oak Street, asking you to talk to a doctor because no one was there with you, you stood your ground. Maybe you questioned your sanity as you waited for someone else to show up, but instead of taking the easy road, going home to wait for another protest, there you stood next to your turquoise bike with a white basket on the front, holding two signs.

You recounted growing up in a home where racist language is used, and living in a town that needs to take heart of its own prejudice. It would have been easier to say that this racist world is only in bigger cities or that it’s somewhere else in our county, but you chose to stand in your hometown, taking count for all the moments and memories that breed racism while saying “enough.”

We need more people like you in the world, Rory. Those people who will stand alone to that well inside of them that says what has happened, what is happening, what will happen, if we don’t change what we are doing on the very basic levels of our being, is wrong. Those who will stand and say we need a change in our homes, in our schools, in our community, state and nation. 

Thank you for sharing your story and perspective on Monday. And thank you for standing where no one else would. 

-Dani Tietz