"Enough" Video Essay by Doug Glanville in Collaboration with Outside the Lines

by Doug Glanville

June 5, 2020

 

 

It takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds for sunlight to reach the Earth. In that time, under its warm touch, the world saw George Floyd go cold under the bended knee of injustice and inhumanity. We stopped, still granted the gift to breathe, trying not to stare, but unable to look away. Then the tears flowed and the temperature rose. The glistening streets became thoroughfares of protest until buildings burned under the recklessness of justifiable outrage and hopelessness. Nothing had changed. We had once again ignored the disinfecting power of the sun. We had silenced the voices of a people because their peaceful pleas were not made at the right time, at the right place, in the right way. We were once again told to wait. Even when Martin Luther King Jr. implored us in his Letter from A Birmingham Jail that “‘wait’ has almost always meant ‘never.’ ” And the face of smug indifference cast its shadow with self-serving and willful ignorance, defiantly staring into the heart of the sun until we were all blinded by the hate. Staring with eyes that could see color, but not humanity.

 

Yet the sun rose again. To give us another opportunity to be enlightened. To help us see George Floyd as all of us and not just one of them. Eight minutes and 20 seconds to realize that we are still breathing when others can’t. Enough time to lift a knee. Enough time to say something. Enough time to take a deep breath. Enough time to ask why I'm calling 911. Enough time to wipe a tear. Enough time to be a teammate. Enough time to listen. Enough time to break bread. Enough time to learn from our differences. Enough time to raise a flag. Enough time to say enough … enough. We have had enough time to change. But too many times the light did not illuminate because we shielded our eyes from the reflection we did not want to see. We are 8 minutes and 20 seconds too late. And George Floyd is eternally non-responsive because we were non-responsive.

 

So let’s respond and make his death be our light.