Again, I’m standing in front of the solemn City Hall, the mask in front of the face and the distance of the bidder. But this week the reason for this is not a romantic, but heart-braking. I am taking part in a nonviolent protest against police violence, in a so-called Kneel-in. We will voice our feelings, we kneel. I’m early because, for the first Time in months, with public transport, run your best times more random. The width, of a young plane-tree-shaded place fills up slowly. With people of all ages and skin colors. In a group-haired protest veteran white inside, I see my neighbor Nancy. Families with children here, perhaps, the specialist community education. Many, many young people, holding their signs up high. However, in contrast to other demonstrations, I see no witty puns, no funny sayings. “I can’t breathe”, is the most. “I can’t breathe.”
But that’s just it, I think. I can breathe. I can go for a walk, I can drive a car or use public transport, I can shop, I can complain even about unangeleinte dogs. Without fear, appear, arrested, to be murdered or beaten up. When I see the mothers all over the world is to me, how intrinsically, to Worry about my sons do, then not that you are stopped by a policeman, arrested, or killed to be beaten.
In the case of my husband it looks a little bit different.
What makes us different? The Colour Of The Skin. The geographical accident of birth.
Can, can this be true?
This is what takes my breath away.
The Talk I’m listening only with half an ear. The place has filled up, but the safety distance is complied with. I’m part of a crowd and yet alone.
Then we kneel down to us. Automatically, I take the attitude that the sink I learned years ago in my Zenschule, in the knees, place the forehead on the ground and turning the palms up. The Americans knees drawn up, however, with only one leg and the other foot, as if you wanted to make someone make a marriage proposal. They kneel as Scarce to be knighted, as the football star Colin Kaepernick, so four years ago, already against police arbitrariness and the use of deadly force protested against dark-skinned Americans. And so his career ended.
However, no matter how you approach it – the knees is a highly emotionally-charged attitude. It is a gesture of humility. It is also gratitude expresses but. And a certain surrender to the Inevitable. And so I press my forehead on the dry grass, close my eyes and trying to endure the overwhelming and conflicting feelings that flood me. I think back to Victor, and what have taught me the last six years of living with him, How privileged I am. And how little that is, of course. It is what expresses this gesture of the Niederkniens is just that: humility. Gratitude. And the recognition of my helplessness.
