19 July 2016

BLM matters

There’s been a lot of pushback on social media against the BLM Movement. I’ve seen attempts to dismiss or trivialize the movement. I’ve seen so many people taking exception to the movement and the anagram. Those folks angrily proclaim, “All lives matter” or “Blue lives matter.” These folks seem to think the BLM Movement is saying that only Black lives matter. But, that’s not what the movement is saying, and what it really is saying tells us all why BLM matters… and, should matter to all of us. 

The anagram really says it all:
BLACK Lives Matter, 
BLUE Lives Matter 
because LIVES Matter  

No one needs to qualify by saying “all lives matter” because the movement and the anagram already proclaim: LIVES MATTER.

Moreover, if the phrase “black lives matter” offends you, but the phrases of “blue lives matter” and “all lives matter” do NOT offend you… then, the word that offends you is “black.”

REMINDER: It’s not “us versus them.” It is “us” as in “ALL of us.” Equal social justice and equal social worth are something all of us have a right to expect and it is something all of us must come together to create for all of us. 

BLM began because 
all of us aren’t being accorded the same rights of equal social justice and worth. The truth that any group of Americans feel the need to point out that their lives matter is reason enough to listen and to validate their sentiments. It matters as long as ANYONE in this country feels their life doesn’t matter.

All the people who are NOT-rich-white-Christianish-males (the NOT-them) have been shown for too long how their lives do not matter as much as rich-white lives. Worse, NOT-them people’s lives are too often treated as disposable, leaving them feeling under assault, embattled. That is less the fault of the police and more the fault of the monied and privileged demanding the police protect them by keeping anyone NOT-them “in their place.” The privileged are fed the lie – by covetousness, fear mongers, and hate mongers – that they must necessarily lose their own social worth if the NOT-them person next to them has equal social worth.

Until we ALL stand together and accord every person the equal social worth – that is every person’s right – there will continue to be a need for movements like the Civil Rights Movement and the BLM.




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