Black Lives Matter in Out There

On Making a Statement

I haven’t written a truly public entry in many years. I do not feel especially qualified to speak on this, but I still feel compelled to speak, as I have come to understand that one of the worst things we can do, as light-skinned pacifist bystanders who feel like this isn’t really their battle to be won or lost, is remain silent.

So I won’t be silent, I won’t try to stay above this, I won’t intellectualize or trivialize the issue, engage in whataboutism, or try to add deeper perspective by reflecting on history as a way of not answering the immediate question. I will put myself and my reputation on the line with all of you, the closest community I have outside of my own family, and stand in solidarity, the best way I know how, with those who have marched and shouted and bled and died.

As a white, middle-class male who has neither the right nor the experience in life to say this, I’m going to say it anyway, again and again, because I think it’s really important.

Black Lives Matter.

On Lives that Matter

I know many of my peers who are quick to substitute a different statement, like Hillary Clinton did in 2016, who sincerely believe that it is in fact a stronger and morally superior position: All Lives Matter. And this I understand - the desire not to exclude any of the other visible minorities that we’ve maligned and abused in this country over the last 450 years. The deficiency with ‘All Lives Matter’ is two-fold. First, it’s just one very tiny step down from being entirely tautological. All lives matter. All water is wet. All raccoons are mammals.

Only in the most depraved corners of the planet would one human disagree with another human on the point that ‘all lives matter’. This generality serves only to weaken the assertion, not strengthen it. And that’s the second deficiency. By watering down the statement, one steps away from the inherent controversy of the original, when it is this very controversy that needs to be addressed by saying it.

I am fine, morally, with those who would offer a more exhaustive list, as long as Black Lives are still somewhere on it. Arab lives matter. Asian lives matter. European lives matter. All good. But right here, right now, Black lives are the topic at hand. Black lives, today, are the lives that need to be spoken for and defended.

So don’t hide behind ‘All Lives Matter’. Enumerate your convictions. Bring forth the one that is currently needed most.

Folly of a Protest Movement

They aren’t listening, folks. They didn’t have anything to say to Occupy, they don’t have anything to say now. I understand that people were taught in school that mass protests were historically effective vehicles for enacting change. But everything is different now. Thanks to decades of gerrymandering and voter suppression and supreme court fuckery, very, very few politicians feel like they have anything to fear from the electorate anymore. I understand that the protests are designed to draw attention, and they certainly have, but it’s also possible to draw the wrong kind of attention, and for said attention to be exploited. I’ll talk about whether violence is the answer in a minute, but overall, just being honest with you here - the media coverage only focuses on the extremes, and so I am looking at these protests as a whole lot of risk being taken, to the movement itself, for very little potential gain. I see the propaganda every single day: YOUR PRESIDENT IS UNDER ATTACK, ARMED TERRORISTS ARE TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE COUNTRY - PHOTOS INSIDE. People believe that shit. Be careful.

On Violence as the Answer

In the past I might have preached lawfulness, even as people are dealing with entire lifetimes of pent-up anger and frustration. Coming from me, I know how it sounds: you can only protest the way I will permit you to protest. That way, I still have control.

I read a story about a young white man from North Carolina who drove all the way to Minneapolis with his collection of assault rifles, and openly brandished them in order to protect the protesters and ward off police. While I am not usually an ardent defender of the 2nd Amendment, bravo to that young man for using it exactly as intended - to prevent the government from overstepping its bounds. I think that if it resonates as true that the man waving his gun at the police was doing exactly what he should be doing in that moment, then it’s not such a reach that other forms of defiance, while not lawful, are still morally defensible, in that moment. In fact, this entire conversation is about a class of people, the police, who routinely get away with breaking the law. So I’m going to stop condemning the one-time looters and small-time opportunists, and focus instead on condemning the murderers in government uniforms, and the pathologically negligent leaders who are responsible for this unrest in the first place. Everything else is just anger. Anger with no viable outlet, no acceptable remedy, simmering and simmering until eventually it just spills over.

So I’m done wagging my finger at a few broken windows, a reaction the proportionality of which seems downright courteous when considering the cost: a man’s life.

Black Lives Matter.

On Martyrdom

While I’m not of them and I don’t speak for them, I do believe black people have the right to decide for themselves whether George Floyd represents their community or not. I have read arguments that say we should not be surprised at what happened to George Floyd, as he was an ex-con, and he was nabbed passing bad currency, which proves he had not fully reformed.

Again, consider the cost: the man’s life. There are death row inmates eating state-funded dinners every night, while George Floyd is casually executed for a crime on about the same severity/victimhood tier as jaywalking. The man himself is not a hero or a martyr. We speak his name because of what his circumstances tell us about the world we live in. The manner in which he died and the injustice of that moment should be abhorrent enough to be remembered, regardless of his personality or his past actions.

What those circumstances say about wider race relations in this country is precisely what we need to be talking about now, along with what we can do about it, so that the hope stays alive that, some day, there won’t be any more brutalization of another man just because of his race. For now, this is the first word I will openly say on the topic.

Black Lives Matter.

Last updated June 05, 2020