Black Lives Matter

I surprise strangers daily. It comes with the territory of being a full-time singing telegram performer. Unsurprisingly, recipients occasionally react adversely. To be fair, I’m often dressed as a gorilla in a tutu. And sometimes a Grim Reaper wielding an antique rusty scythe. But mostly I am a costumed white man with a guitar. With Black Lives Matter protests happening across the globe right now, I can't help but wonder how different my experience would be if I was an African-American singing telegram artist. Would more recipients react adversely to being ambushed by a black singer? Would white security guards occasionally be more suspicious of my intentions? Is my modest success based, at least partially, on the inherent privilege of my skin color? I certainly don’t have the answers, but it’s a thought experiment every Caucasian person should consider undertaking.

I can’t stand physically in solidarity right now, because my mother is in an immune-compromised state, so I am doing everything else I can: educating myself and others about racism and its history in America, amplifying others’ voices via social media, asking Minneapolis PD to charge the officers involved in George Floyd’s death, signing petitions and donating what I can to Black Lives Matter and similar causes. If you are in the position to fund the fight, please do so.