Because they’re lives. Because black people are first and foremost people and deserve to be treated with the same respect as anyone else. I know this doesn’t sound like a radical notion, but the fact that in 2016 there is a movement called Black Lives Matter is all the proof you need that it is a radical idea.
I have post here on a number of topics from serious to inane. That being said, if you were to group my diaries by subject, I think you would find the top 3 subjects are race, LGBTQ, and gun safety. As a straight white man in NYC, none of these subjects has affected me personally. So what am I writing about?
This week, we acknowledge the 25th anniversary of the Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, New York. I am a native NYer, and I remember it well. On Friday, the New York Daily News had an op-ed on their “Be our Guest” page which claimed to tell the “truth” about the riots, to wit: Reverend Al Sharpton inflamed tensions, the only perpetrators of violence were black, Mayor Dinkins and the police commissioner sat back and did nothing.
What was missing from the piece was any mention of what set off the riots in the first place. Two people were murdered during the rioting. Yankel Rosenbaum, a Hasidic Jew, and another white person who “looked Jewish.” This article seemed to imply that Reverend Sharpton incited violence against the Jewish community in a vacuum.
In the interests of disclosure, I have my own problems with the Reverend. However, what these purported truth tellers omitted is entirely the point, and in 2016, it shows an unprecedented level of tone-deafness.
Prior to the riots in Crown Heights, a Hasidic Jew without a drivers license struck and killed a young black boy. He was charged with nothing. Nothing. Not negligence, not reckless endangerment, not driving without a license. The message was loud and clear. The life of that young black boy didn’t matter.
Republicans respond to chants of “Black Lives Matter” with “All Lives Matter” as if they do. They consider a call to hold police accountable when an unarmed man is killed a call for violence against the police. I have marched twice with the BLM movement. Once it was planned and once I just stumbled upon them on my way home and joined up.
I heard no calls for violence against police. To be sure, the police were out in force on both occasions lining the route, and not in riot gear. The chants I heard there were:
“Hands up! Don’t shoot!”
“I can’t Breathe!”
“No Justice, No Peace! No Racist Police!”
I must admit the third made me uncomfortable. It is possible for a reasonable person to take that as a statement that ALL police are racists, and the wrong have far too many unreasonable people.
Most white people do not have many interactions with police. So in our minds, the police are doing their jobs and keeping us safe. On the rare occasion we get pulled over, we blame the one policeman who stopped us. We weren’t doing anything wrong, so the officer must have been an idiot (see Gov. Kasich). On the other hand, when police stop Black People (or Blah People as totally non-racist Sen. Santorum might say), they must have been doing something wrong or why would the police stop them?
Since Black Lives Don’t really Matter, we have come to a place where being Black is cause for Reasonable Suspicion. This is why New York’s “Stop and Frisk program was declared un-Constitutional. Police are allowed to stop people suspected of engaging in criminal activity. Being Black is NOT criminal activity.
We need to do a better job of making Black Lives Matter. It is an urgent matter of National Security. The lack of trust between the police and the Black community creates a dangerous situation called fear. It is only natural for Black people to be fearful of police when they don’t believe the police value their lives. It therefore is reasonable for police to be more fearful that an encounter with Black people will involve violence.
This has been a long post, but when Black Lives truly Matter, it will go a long way to solving many other problems. We will adequately fund inner city schools, and not pollute disproportionately minority communities, among other things. We will not send Black people to jail for minor drug offenses that we do not even look for in white neighborhoods, and we won’t blame them for the resultant breakdown of the family.
I’m voting for Democrats (obviously?) and I think everyone in the Black community should, too. Not because they have nowhere else to go, but because Democratic policies are better policies for them, for me, for those who want to see America continue to form a more perfect union. I want the Black Lives Matter leaders to keep on pushing their agenda until they no longer feel the need. I can’t determine when that condition has been met. I will support them until they feel it has.