Lives That Matter

     A few words about the recent events surrounding #blacklivesmatter and the controversy surrounding them – and if you possess a lighter skin tone, these words are especially for you:

>> By saying Black Lives Matter, nobody is saying that other lives don’t matter.    When people deface their signs by removing the “Black”, or by chanting “All Lives Matter”, the reaction I have is “DUH!”  These defacements and re-statements are dismissive, and miss the point of the message.   This is not a zero-sum game, with some lives mattering and some not – that’s part of the point of all of this. 

 

     Turn on the TV, or the radio.   Look at any number of the major supermarket “People” Magazine-inspired fish wrap rags, and check for the stories involving somebody’s murder, rape, or other tragedy.   If it’s a non-Black face, it will get far more coverage and fawning over than the same types of things happening to those with dark skin.   Remember Jon-Benet Ramsey?  Or Natalie Holloway? Or Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson and the ensuing circus?  This isn’t to discount what happened to them – murder is murder is murder.    But when the same thing happens to an African American, the tendency in our white supremacist culture has been to dismiss it, as something that happened “over there”, “to those people”, and to write it off as an expected event in a “poor”, “high-crime” (both code words for BLACK) neighborhood.  

>> Why go after Bernie Sanders, especially with his extensive record of work on behalf of civil rights issues (to the point of arrest)?   From what I’ve seen in Slate and other internet postings, when the two BLM activists co-opted the stage in Seattle a couple of weeks ago, the target was not Bernie Sanders.   It was the thousands of people drawn to the event.    Most of these people were light-skinned, and considered themselves progressive in their politics.   The point of it?  You can’t be a “progressive” and ignore the issue of racial inequality, while at the same time trumpet to the moon the issue of economic inequality.  They are intertwined, especially in American society.     I’m sure that this was not Bernie’s intent – the lesson here, from a political standpoint, is to include the movement from the outset of the campaign.   From what I’ve seen so far, he’s learning this lesson well, which just might be his ticket to the White House.  

>> Take another look at Chris Hedges’ recent works, especially Death of the Liberal Class.    What you’re seeing in these BLM actions can virtually be taken straight from Hedges’ work: civil disobedience, especially of the asymmetrical kind like what happened in Seattle.    So far, they are proving effective at shifting the national dialog, even in the seemingly messy way they are occurring. 

 

>> Why the urgency, and now?   What would you do if it was your son or daughter killed or injured at the hands of a cop?   Especially if that son or daughter was unarmed and posing no threat to that cop?  What if you look around and see the same thing happening to your neighbors ON A DAILY BASIS?  What if the media completely ignores you and dismisses you when these tragedies happen?  What if you’re keenly aware of your history and the history of this country in relationship to the ethnic group in which you are a part?  You reach a breaking point.     We’ve reached breaking points like this before:  the Watts Riots come to mind, the fire hoses drawn on protesters in the 1960s in the Deep South, and other violent actions perpetrated against peaceful protesters.    We’re at yet another breaking point now, and if this is not addressed, then Watts and Ferguson will be comparable only to cake walks.  

I’ll have much more to say on this in coming posts.   Stay tuned.