Keep Calm and Carry On. That’s what the signs say down the street from where I live. My neighborhood is about a mile away from where these signs begin at the border of Bunker Hill Village. I sometimes go for runs along the main street that runs between my neighborhood and Bunker Hill Village, more often than not continuing on through the village to run its tree-lined streets. I like running there, especially when I need a break from trail running. The sidewalks are perfect for running. Pristine, wide and flat, with nary a crack or rut, they trace past impeccably manicured lawns and picture-perfect homes. Birds sing, squirrels dash, and everywhere the eye lands is filled with lush and beautiful foliage. I can’t think of a better street for a peaceful jog.
I first saw the Keep Calm and Carry On signs last week. They’d be hard to miss. As I encountered the first one, I was surprised by the height and width of it and even more surprised to see there were additional signs spaced out at intervals along the road. The signs made me cheerful in a way I hadn’t felt much since the coronavirus hit and I found myself becoming more buoyant as I followed them down the street. It was clear the signs had been erected to encourage not only the residents of Bunker Hill Village to Keep Calm and Carry On, but also to impart that same message to anyone who might see them as they drove, biked, walked, or in my case, ran by. Keep Calm and Carry On. These days, we need all the reminders we can get.
The main reason I became a runner is because it soothes my anxiety. And I’ve certainly had many reasons to lace up my sneakers during this COVID-19 pandemic. When I set out for my run this morning, I stuck to the confines of my own neighborhood, but I thought about those Keep Calm and Carry On signs dotting the streets just a mile away. The words didn’t elicit the same cheer or sense of solidarity I’d experienced last week. I was nearly paralyzed, each of my footfalls as heavy as an anvil. My breath was short and there was a lump in my throat. My heart beat so hard it seemed ready to launch itself from my chest. Instead of the run soothing my anxiety the way it usually does, it was bringing on a panic attack.
Keep calm and carry on.
I kept running because I had 2.23 miles to complete, a fraction of my usual 5 miles, but in that moment, they felt like the hardest miles I’d ever attempted. I kept running. I kept running because Ahmaud Arbery couldn’t. Because Ahmaud Arbery had been gunned down by two men while out for what would become the last run of his young life. I kept running because Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man, was stalked through the streets of a Georgia neighborhood he jogged frequently by two white men with shotguns who did not think he belonged there.
Black men being violently assaulted and killed by white men has become so commonplace in this country as to make it almost anaesthetizing. Yes, we are outraged. But we also feel impotent. This keeps happening. It keeps happening and nothing we do or say seems to make a difference. Those who don’t value black lives will continue to take them. And those who value white lives more than they value black lives will continue to look the other way. It seemed the latter would continue in the case of Ahmaud Arbery until the video of his murder was released earlier this week. He was killed on February 23rd, yet it wasn’t until last night that the men the authorities had declined to arrest back then (because they didn’t think a crime had been committed) were finally taken into custody and charged with murder and felony assault. Had a video not been released, few of us would even know Ahmaud Arbery’s name. Without the video, I doubt if anyone outside of his family and the members of his community would be seeking justice for him. A movement has galvanized across the nation. We want Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers behind bars until the time comes for them to follow him to the grave. As we take to social media, call the politicians, sign the petitions, and peacefully demonstrate, we want so badly to believe justice will prevail this time.
Keep calm and carry on.
While I was running, I wondered if Ahmaud Abery was like me, if he also ran to quiet an anxious mind? What kind of anxieties could he have been trying to outdistance? Was being a black man in this country one of them?
Ahmaud Arbery was chased down and killed because he was black. Two white men decided he didn’t belong where he was and pegged him as a possible criminal based solely on the color of his skin. These men felt they had the right to hunt Ahmaud Arbery through neighborhood streets, confront him, and ultimately take his life. I can’t help thinking of myself. The neighborhoods where I enjoy so many of my morning runs ‑ where signs along the road urge me to Keep Calm and Carry On ‑ are overwhelmingly white. When I run in these spaces, do the white people I encounter think I don’t belong? I suspect at least some of them might feel this way, namely the ones who don’t return my “Good Mornings” when we pass on the sidewalk, who avert their gaze when I approach so as not to make eye contact with me. I have sensed the hostility from these people who don’t think I should be where I am. Not in their neighborhood. Would one of them confront me one day?
But if not here, in the neighborhoods we jog to get some exercise, then where do we belong? If not in the communities where we also live, where we raise our families, where we pay taxes, then where? Where should Ahmaud Arbery have gone for his jog? Where should I?
Keep calm and carry on. But how?
Like so many people who have been affected by his death, I set out today to run 2.23 miles. My run was to memorialize the date Ahmaud Arbery’s life was stolen from him and to acknowledge the 26th birthday he didn’t get to celebrate wih his loved ones today. When I finished my miles, I would join others in dedicating my run to him by posting #IRunWithMaud to my social media accounts. I ran today even though what I really wanted to do was sit down on the ground and cry and scream. For Ahmaud Arbery. For all the black men who came before him and the black men who will come after. And for myself. I kept running because I had to make 2.23 miles.
I kept running.
