The green badge of discomfort

“We want you to be uncomfortable,” the woman said, and I was. Eight minutes and 46 seconds is a long time for my stiff old joints to be kneeling on the wet ground and I worried about getting grass stains on my best summer capris, but I soon turned off the worry to focus on the silence of more than 1000 people kneeling in a city park to reflect and pray and offer support for social justice and racial equality.

Protests are not my thing and neither are crowds, especially since the coronavirus, but I wanted to attend the local Black Lives Matter protest that attracted a large and disparate crowd in our little river town yesterday, a purely peaceful event characterized by periods of quiet reflection, impassioned speeches, and occasional song. When it was over I felt as if I’d been schooled and churched and blessed.

I was proud to hear one of my former students talk about what it was like to grow up mixed-race in a mostly white community and to see so many colleagues come out to support our commitment to diversity and equality. Many wore masks and tried to maintain social distance while others milled about barefaced in a way that made me determined to keep near the back of the crowd. 

I haven’t been in a crowd that big since—well, February. The only place I go where I’m likely to encounter more than a few people is the grocery store, where I dash in, find what I need, and dash out, always keeping my distance from others. So I felt a little uncomfortable just being at the edge of this milling crowd, unsure when someone might mill a little too close.

But that’s not the kind of discomfort the event's organizer was aiming for. She asked us to kneel for eight minutes and 46 seconds not just to remember George Floyd and others like him but to think about what part we might play in our nation's long struggle to achieve racial equality. That's the kind of discomfort that can do some good, so I knelt and felt the complaints in my knees and worried about grass stains and felt the discomfort, but here's the thing: I got on the ground voluntarily, and I didn't have anyone's knee on my neck, and when the nearly nine minute were over, I got back up again, still stiff and a bit grass-stained but ready to do something useful with my discomfort.