In June, like millions of others, Tahl and I watched the video of George Floyd being murdered at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, in abject horror. Protesters all over the world took to the streets, in what many hoped would be a radical shift in America’s reckoning with its history of racism.
It wasn’t for me to say what it all meant, or would become. All I knew was that I wanted to be a part of it.
How I see things, how I am able to comprehend them, is through my camera. I didn’t photograph the protests for any professional assignment. Instead, I took pictures for myself, mystified as I watched people for whom racism and its insidious effects hadn’t been central to their conscience suddenly marching, talking about it, caring about it, showing up. I saw generations of families together at protests, and I spoke with dozens of people for whom this moment represented an about-face—a startling realization that their politics needed to be fundamentally rooted in questions of racial justice and fairness.
My own family was not among them, which hurt me more than anything from the past four years.
One of the rallies fell on Izzi’s birthday. We went straight from there to my sister’s house, where my family was gathering outside to throw her a party. Tahl and I drove the whole way in stone-cold silence, each of us brooding over what was to come.
And I still wasn’t prepared.
As we pulled into the driveway, my mother approached our car. Before we could even get the kids out, she started in. “Can you believe these riots? The looting and the violence!” she snarled. “Disgusting.”
This time, it wasn’t me who lost it. It was Tahl, who had always been the one to nudge me back from the brink of rupture. But by this point, even he had had enough. When the kids were out of earshot, he turned to her—spitting mad.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not remotely interested in hearing your complaints about a Target getting looted when I haven’t heard a thing from you about seeing a white cop hold his knee on a Black man, squeezing the life out of him as he cries for his mother,” Tahl yelled. “Do you understand that our closest friends have to sit their kids down at Shiloh’s age and warn them about police officers? The system is violently unfair to them, and when they try to peacefully protest, all they get is indignation.” It didn’t end there. “No more excuses! You thought Trump would be better than this, but he’s been the worst president—and by far the worst man—
in the history of American public life. He didn’t give you your America back; he’s burned it down.”
My mother didn’t respond—not a word. Instead, we walked into the backyard, where we sang “Happy Birthday” to a four-year-old we all loved.
When we got home that night, I sat on the floor of my room and cried.
Shortly thereafter, I got an assignment to shoot Mary J. Blige—who’d long been on my list of dream subjects—but there was a catch. In order to get this done, we needed to find a location, which was proving nearly impossible because of COVID. Just when it seemed the assignment might not work out, my parents swooped in and offered their backyard.
They were perfect hosts—wearing masks in their own home, making every space available and generally staying out of the way, except to excitedly watch through the window. Everyone on set noticed, including Mary J. Blige herself, who came over to me at one point to compliment them. As she talked, all I could think about was the picture of my father with Trump on their fireplace mantle, and I began obsessively worrying: Please don’t go inside, please just don’t go inside...
At the end of the day, I went in to thank my parents. I couldn’t locate my mother at first, so I headed upstairs—where I found her lying on a yoga mat, in Savasana pose, listening to Trump’s ranting like it was a Buddhist mantra: “We’re going to let you preserve your American dream in the suburbs... We are going to fight for you...We are never going to forget you.”
I was careful to be quiet, but even with her eyes closed, she knew I was there: “Try to listen with an open mind if you can, Gillian.” It was all so absurd, I burst out laughing.