by Kurt Streeter in the NYT. Thanks to Mike C. for sending this in.
SEATTLE — The bloom of the Black Lives Matter signs. That is what my son and I saw as we jogged through our mostly white neighborhood. Everywhere we looked, we could see what felt like change.
The signs were on front lawns, attached to trees, displayed in windows, stapled to telephone poles.
There was also a flag that displayed a clenched fist, Black and bold. A fence with huge letters that spelled a single word: Ally. A nearby building was painted with the name George Floyd.
It was summer, hot and dry in our Seattle neighborhood, where I am among the few Black homeowners — and one of the few Black joggers — in a community of roughly 40,000 not far from downtown.
Though this is a place that leans left politically, visible displays of support for Black human rights have been scarce. But then Floyd died in Minneapolis after a white police officer pinned him to the ground, knee upon neck. As the country heaved in protest over racism that stretched back four centuries, something changed where we live — on the surface, at least.
Like Black joggers across the country, we saw the burst of supportive flags, placards and murals. They gave some comfort to a guy like me, unsure and anxious about our place in a community we enjoy. I could not stop wondering what it all meant.
“Never in a million years would I have thought we’d see this,” I told my son as we finished up a three-miler one day. “Never.”
He replied with the cleareyed directness of a 9-year-old. “But Dad, where were all those signs before? It’s crazy that it took someone dying to have this happen.”