Black Lives matter.
This is a statement that is ubiquitous in American culture. It is a statement that first rose to prominence after the death of Trayvon Martin, though I first recall it two years later with the death of Michael Brown in 2014. It is a statement that is so simple, and so apparent that it almost seems silly that it has to be said at all. Obviously Black lives matter. Only the most bigoted or racist of people would think otherwise. It should be a sociologist’s version of “water is wet.”
And yet.
As apparent as it should be, for many, it is not clear if Black lives, do in fact, matter. Now don’t get me wrong. If you were to ask people on the street if Black lives mattered, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who did not agree with that statement. But after that initial blanket support of an obvious truth, if you were to press people on what BLM means and dig a little deeper, you would see that the statements of support from John Q. Public, are belied by an inaction and complacency that shows they don’t mean what they say.
Going back to my own first encounters with BLM in the wake of Michael Brown, my reaction to seeing the start of the BLM movement was similar to John Q. “Of course Black lives matter. That’s silly. Why would anyone make a point of that? All lives matter so obviously Black lives matter.” I’m sure if you were to ask many of your family or friends if Black lives matter they would come back at you with something similar. And, on the surface, those statements are relatively innocuous. I mean, much like Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter should be a “water is wet” type statement. Honestly, how could anyone disagree with that?
But here is the problem with seemingly obvious truths. They aren’t so obvious and they aren’t all that true.
Let’s look at “All Lives Matter”, my initial response to the BLM question, there are a couple flaws with that answer. The first is, I wasn’t using the statement of All Lives Matter as a good faith, philosophical debate point on racial inequality and social justice in America. If I had, then maybe I could’ve said that and we wouldn’t have a problem. If I genuinely was campaigning to make sure ALL LIVES mattered, then my words and my actions would have been in harmony.
But I wasn’t using that statement to prove some higher point on how people should treat each other. I was using it as weak defense for complacency. In 2014, I was largely fine with the social order in America. I had a good job, my wife and I had just had our first child, I was working on buying my first house and aside from a few speeding tickets and some youthful foolishness, I was able to keep myself out of trouble from the law. Things worked for me. Why would I want to change something that worked?
Sure there were some bad actors in law enforcement and society. And yes, sometime the wrong man or woman was convicted for a crime they did not commit. And OK, sometimes people were killed in encounters with police officers, but those cops were just trying to do their job and serve the community they live in and we can’t judge an entire system based off a few bad apples, can we?
Sure, the system has its flaws, but overall, it works.
Ah, but here is the problem. Its not that the system HAS flaws, its that the system IS flawed.
Here is how I know that the system is flawed, and no, I am not going to get into incarceration rates among Black men versus their White counterparts, or statistics of Black men dying at the hands of cops, or how the way the prison system is set up is a legacy of chattel slavery and Jim Crow. I am not going to get into those stats because you have heard them all before and if numbers haven’t changed your mind yet, then they probably aren’t going to do anything now.
You see, the way I know that the system is flawed and doesn’t just have flaws, is that I live a life of assumptions. I can ASSUME that I will be able to find a good job if I want one. Its assumed that if I want to buy a house, that there is a system out there that will enable me to do so with steps to help me achieve that. Its assumed that my wife and I will be able to provide for our family. Its assumed that if I get pulled over that the end of my interaction with police will end in a ticket and slightly higher insurance rates.
I live a life based on assumptions. Assumptions that, because I expect things in life to go a certain way for me and my family then that must be how it is for everyone. The system works because it works for me.
But if it isn’t apparent yet, just because the system works for me, that does not mean the system works. Because where I can assume, so many young Black men and women can only hope. Hope they can find a job. Hope they can afford rent. Hope they can put food on the table. Hope they don’t get pulled over on their way home tonight.
Hope is a powerful and beautiful thing. I would have long been lost were it not for hope in He who is greater than I. It is a lifeline that has carried me through my own personal struggles so far and will carry me through many more.
But hope should not be the only recourse of millions of Americans when they daily have to fight against a system that works against them.
So back to the beginning. Black lives matter.
Do they?
I ask, because if Black lives matter, then how can we continue to support a system that does its best to make sure they don’t?
If Black lives matter, then how can we be OK with young men and women dying at the hands of our justice system before they even have a chance to make their case?
If Black lives matter, then how can I willfully blind myself to a system that works for me, but not for my fellow man?
If Black lives matter, why doesn’t it feel like it?
Much has changed since 2014.
The murder of George Floyd in the late spring of 2020 forced America to wake up from their complacency, to watch, as a man slowly had the life crushed out of him as he begged for his mom and pleaded with the officer, gasping “I can’t breathe.” We had to confront the reality that our system, which ostensibly is supposed to protect and serve all Americans has failed astoundingly on both counts. We had to start to reconcile the contradictions between what we thought we believed (Black lives matter) and what we actually are OK with (systemic racism). If we say that Black lives matter, then we need to start behaving as if Black lives matter.
There is no middle ground.
No longer is it OK to say “well, I’m not racist” while we change our Instagram stories to a Black square. Its no longer enough to not be overtly discriminatory while abiding a broken system. Its no longer acceptable to pretend we understand someone’s pain while doing nothing help solve what is causing it.
I’ll be honest. This is where I find myself at a loss. I do not know what a person should or shouldn’t do to make the statement Black lives matter ring true. I do have some thoughts. One of them is I need to stop treating the Black people in my life as some token upon which I can hold up as some sort of enlightened, anti-racist credential, as if by having Black friends or co-workers that I am somehow above rebuke, not only because the “I have a Black friend” trope is tired and disingenuous and a casual bigotry, but because it still centers the focus on me. It makes me the hero of the story. It only lifts up others so that it can lift up me.
Another thought, just listen. If someone tells you something, believe them. So often, when confronted with the Travyon Martins and the Michael Browns of the world, my first instinct is to immediately offer my often unsolicited and uninformed opinion on how things really are, instead of listening to the stories of those who are directly affected by the challenges that face Black America every day.
Treating people as people and listening aren’t revolutionary ideas, at least, I hope they aren’t. For me, they are a starting point. A place were I can begin to look at my own blind spots, my own failings, honestly address them, and be better. A better man. A better co-worker. A better friend. Because if Black lives matter, and they do, then we cannot rest until that beautifully simple statement, that lofty goal, is realized in truth and power.
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