I wrestled with posting this. It’s such a controversial subject, which I tend to shy away from. I’m not one to get in your face and rant, but I don’t know if my heart can take it if I don’t say anything. As is often said, evil triumphs when good men do nothing. *big breath* So, here goes…
All Lives Matter
We’ve all heard the Black Lives Matter rally cry. What has been the response? All lives matter. Yes. A resounding yes, but that’s skirting the issue. I love the analogy I ran across explaining the problem. Here’s the short, me-ified version:
One child comes to an adult. They say they got no ice cream, unlike every other child. The child says they matter. The adult responds that all children matter. It doesn’t address or fix the problem. In fact, the adult basically dismissed and ignored the child’s complaint that they were being treated unfairly. If you were that child, how would you feel? Sad? Angry? Frustrated?
Yes, I get it. I think everyone on some level gets that all lives should matter (hence the amen choir joining in any time that phrase gets posted). But take a moment and post something supporting Black Lives Matter and watch the crickets roll in. It’s easier to rally behind All Lives Matter. It glosses over the issues in such a way as to make us feel comfortable, because we value lives – those of our family and friends and any we consider innocent. But when you get specific, it makes people uncomfortable. The fact is that the message of All Lives Matter speaks to the majority’s area of comfort, which is to keep things nameless and faceless so we don’t have to feel. Yes, all lives matter. Yes, we need compassion. But ignoring the issue and sweeping it aside with a blanket statement does nothing to correct the problem.
Black Lives Matter
It’s a resounding cry that comes from the hearts of all oppressed in their own way. It’s hard for us straight, white folks to acknowledge that we mistreat others because they are “other”. Do you think the situation would be different in the most recent shooting of a black man if he’d been white? I do. But watching the news the other day, the focus was more on white discomfort than on the real narrative. We got an instructional on how to behave if you’re pulled over while carrying a weapon. Seriously? Not only does this avoid the issue, but it casts blame in the most subtle and underhanded manner possible. (It’s called dog-whistling.)
And you don’t have to live in the south to see it, though I would argue that it’s worse here than anywhere else in our country. I’ve felt it walking into a local diner with my tall, dark and handsome husband (incidentally, the owner was later found to have been basically enslaving and mistreating the cook, a black man). I’ve heard the whispers among colleagues when my husband and I were planning our wedding. I’ve seen it affect churches, where the decay of the country is due to a black man in the president’s seat (though they would never put it that way – basically, more dog-whistling), and where the prayers and sermons are about how we as a country need to return to God (though it’s foolish to think that the United States ever belonged to God – look at our history, or the Bible). I’ve heard the liberal retelling of our country’s civil war as a move merely to secede from the union (losing slavery and the source of their wealth had nothing to do with that).
The perception is all wrong.
Rewriting history or denying the problem or praying for a return to something we never had in the first place will not fix things. And no, killing white cops will not fix things either. We have to stop dismissing the hurt. We have to stop denying the history and the still-present dangers of racism (and all forms of oppression, really). We have to look inside and determine if our reactions are based on skin color or gender or some “other” characteristic, rather than the truth.
To acknowledge that black lives matter doesn’t mean that we’re ignoring all the good in the world. There is good—thank God!—and I’m not trying to say there isn’t. And it isn’t saying that other lives don’t matter, either. Everyone should matter, but we’re not going to get there by sweeping specifics under blanket generalizations.
In Conclusion
Change begins with the individual. Change begins when the collective voice of those oppressed finally reaches the white majority in a deep and meaningful way. Change begins when we step outside our own skin and walk 1000 miles in a darker hue and realize that we are just as human as ever, if not more so, because of the hardships that one change brings.
My mom read my brother and I a book a long time ago, and the message is as important today as it was when it was written. It’s called Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin, a real story about how John conducted an experiment that turned him black, and then chronicled his travels through the heart of racist country at the height of racism. Yes, times have changed, but those attitudes still affect us today. We’re not so far removed from it as I once liked to believe, and I’m honestly heartbroken.
Black lives matter. Period. No buts. No amendments. No need to ignore it. We can’t fix something if we refuse to acknowledge that anything’s wrong.
/End rant.
**Please, if you decide to comment on the post, keep it civil. I reserve the right to delete any comments that I deem hateful or uncalled for.
