My mom sent me a web link this morning via email and asked me what I thought. I reacted so strongly to it that I felt it was necessary to make a blog post. This article claims that saying “All Lives Matter” instead of “Black Lives Matter” is wrong because:
it promotes Colorblindness
It dismisses the oppressive history associated with being black
It is just another way to refocus attention on white lives mattering
It supports the idea that being “black” is taboo
This guy comes from a great place in his heart, I am sure. I think it is interesting that we have to categorize people in order to address their oppression. I think categorizing is actually counterproductive because it alienates groups of us from each other. Putting people into cateogories never has worked (It’s called segregation) as it makes people less relatable and promotes a hierarchy of social power. I am not really sure why we think it is going to work in our favor now with this emphasis on “black lives mattering.” Seperating groups of people has never worked before. If you think about it, us seperating ourselves as “whites” and “blacks” is how we created the slavery system in the beginning of this nightmare.
What is racism? Why do we experience it in our lives when we so desperately want to overcome it? Did anyone ever ask these officers if they blatently mean to shoot black people in these scenarios? I cannot imagine that shooting another person in this context could be a rational and well thought out decision. I can’t imagine that police officers have the ability to make rational and well thought out decisions when they are in situations of panic. They are as human as the rest of us.
There are a couple different reasons why racism exsists and I believe there are ways we can overcome it, but first we have to understand where it comes from.
Human beings are interesting creatures. We have some survival mechansims we don’t take the time to understand because we are too busy blaming each other for everything. When you are never exposed to something in your enviornment and then you are exposed to that something, it can be biologically startling for you. Your brain reacts and thinks that experiencing some one relatively different than you is a threat. You get stuck in fight and flight mode, and you react with absolutely no thought involved. This is why when some of us claim we are unbiased it is not true… we all are at least somewhat biased. We were built to be that way. Unfortunately, most of the time our brain doesn’t adjust to the fact that we don’t need to be on high alert since we live in a civilized environment.
So what do we do? How do we solve this because I agree that we cannot live this way. The answer is: We start exposing ourselves to diversity and we stop isolating groups of people. We experience that fight or flight response when we put ourselves in these types of situations, but we let our brains know that we are not in danger. We say hi to people we aren’t comfortable around and we smile at them. And we do this because we realize we are all human beings regardless of how we look, act, or live. We all originated from the same place- the Savannahs of Africa, 200,000 years ago and all even started off with dark skin. White skin is nothing but a genetic mutation barely visiable on the human genome. We all know what it is like to feel happy, sad, angry, scared, mad… and so when someone has these human experiences, we can easily relate to that person no matter how different their physical appearance may be. We have this amazing ability to empathize and humanize each other. No other animal has this kind of ability. How about we shut up and use it.
I am one of those “fellow white people” Mr. Halstead refers to in his article that has adopted the philosophy “All Lives Matter”. Is it because I want to take attention away from this issue, dismiss that black people experience oppression, or be colorblind? No. It is absolutely not. I have no problem noticing physical characteristics- such as differences in skin color, differences in height, visible physical disabilities, etc. and also noticing the social struggles associated with those characteristics. Racism is very real and has been real since the beginning of humanity. In the United States the oppression of blacks started when they were forced to come here to be sold as slaves against their will. For too long black people were treated as inhuman by white people. This mistreatment had to be heavily internalized by black people, and the ability to mistreat black people had to be heavily internalized by white people. Even after they were freed, for generations and generation black people have passed down this internalization of their treatment, and white people have passed down their social advantages over black people. This is called Systematic racism, and it is thorough throughout the Gorvernment and thorough within each of us. Even if we are not aware of it, it is rooted in our upbringing as we were raised within this system. We can fight this type of injustice if we choose to approach it by understanding this roots of the problem.
All lives Matter. I am not going to pretend like anyone is fighting a battle that is not my own battle as well. Even if I am white, and even if I was born in a priveledged situation. I still take all of this personally, as it still has something to do with who I am. I still consider every person I come across as a part of the human race that I call my own. I don’t care what you look like on the outside- black, white, purple… if you are human, you are still like a brother or sister to me as far as I am concerned.
So how do you fight racism? Well, you can shut down your computers and stop paying attention to media that fuels resentment and hate. You can start by going out and smiling at the next person you see in public that makes you feel a little uncomfortable on the inside. You can even strike up a conversation with this person and ask them how his or her day is. You can do this every time you see someone who makes you feel uncomfortable- regardless of their social status, skin color, religious background, gender, etc. Eventually you will find yourself being more comfortable around people in general and embracing people will be something you do without a second thought. This may just be one small change, but in order to make changes in the world first we must make changes in ourselves.
thesearchwithinme 