The Fourth of July is right around the corner. Every year I reflect on what it means to be independent and free. It’s a beautiful thing, but it’s worth saying that while we have it way better than other countries, we still have some improving to do. The topic top of mind for me now is the Black Lives Matter Movement. I agree with all of those people who say “don’t all lives matter” because you’re right; they do or at least they should. See, it’s ironic that people would jump to the conclusion that explicitly stating the life of a certain demographic matters inherently means other lives do not. So, in the spirit of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” let me kindly break this down for you.
The hashtag #blacklivesmatter was created as a response to the numerous black men, women, and children who continually lost their lives due to police violence. The hashtag was meant to be an explicit reminder that despite the societal norms established over many centuries, black lives do matter. Historically, black lives did not matter, pointe blank. Black people were first labeled as savages in an effort to dehumanize the race. Black people were later captured and placed into slavery, because after all they were seen as subhuman, less than in every way possible. While enslaved they were literally considered someone’s property, bought and sold like cattle, food, and land. Their bodies were seen as nothing more than a means to produce more product, which could be kin or crop. In the eyes of slave masters and general society, black people were incapable of emotions and forming familial bonds, which justified the raping of women, the ripping apart of families, and the killing of black people for punishment and/or sport.
Flash forward and a few people begin to realize that black people might actually be part of the human race; they begin to think that slavery is cruel and should be abolished. After extreme push back from the south, slavery is finally abolished and black people begin to think there might actually be hope yet. Despite slavery being outlawed, black people were kept separate from whites by physical barriers, they were refused basic rights of citizenship, such as voting, because they couldn’t read (remember it was against the law to teach a black person how to read). After years of systemic oppression, lynching, and raping, segregation is finally over, or so they say.
Although there weren’t necessarily separate fountains, bathrooms, and buildings, employers used their discretion to either deny employment, or make employment unappealing due to harassment eventually boxing black people into a certain type of work which typically provided very low pay. Now people begin looking down on black people because they’re working jobs no one else wants to work. But wait, as a result of the low pay they receive from the job they are pigeon holed into blacks can only afford housing in specific neighborhoods which are typically impoverished and lacking basic resources and schools. While black people are no longer slaves, they are still labeled as inferior and made to face countless barriers in their pursuit of success and happiness.
While times continue to change, the negative mentality around black people endures via racial profiling. The media disproportionately describes black men as inherently aggressive and sexual and black women as having insatiable libido; this is later used to justify racial profiling and sexual abuse in the community. Again, the black community is labeled as inferior.
Flash forward to 2017, Black men and women are still being stereotyped as hypersexual and aggressive, which is consciously and/or subconsciously used as justification for harsh punishment by law enforcement officers. In the event these interactions turn deadly, the death is justified by the past transgressions of the black individual.
Given all these years of oppressive history, it’s hard to argue that black lives ever mattered to anyone aside from black people. The Black Lives Matter movement was an explicit call to action to all of those who consciously or subconsciously played into the idea that black lives did not matter. Those who believed the stereotypes conveyed by the media. Those who ever muttered “but he/she had a criminal record”. Those who somehow believed that a 13 year old boy should be treated as a man.
It is painful and disheartening to think that this is the state we’re living in, but this is the social norm; not just here in the U.S, but around the world. It is engrained in society that black lives are not equal to the lives of others. The whole reason for the black lives matter movement is to combat this mentality and uplift those in the black community who may have internalized the crude projections of our society.
So to those who chant “all lives matter”, do you mean black lives too?
“… the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed.” – Barack Obama