The other day at work I was talking with some interns about the challenge of inviting people who are not directly impacted by poverty and discrimination to join our social justice work. A young man asked me, “How do you explain the black lives matter movement to someone who doesn’t get it? Maybe, to someone who says, ‘yeah, but all lives matter’?” I was taken aback. I’ve never really tried to do that. In fact, I was baffled by the question. As someone who works and lives in progressive circles we tend to take it for granted that this sort of thing is obvious. It is easy to dismiss people who “don’t get it” as racist or malicious.
So, I took a deep breath. I put myself in the shoes of a loved one who would probably say “Yes, but all lives matter.” I thought to myself, what would she need to understand what “black lives matter” means? The phrase is powerful and meaningful only if you start from the premise that we are steeped in an unjust society and culture where black lives don’t matter. One arrives at that perspective by knowing the following things. Slavery was a brutal, genocidal, evil practice in which people were regularly raped, beaten, starved, murdered, separated from their families and otherwise dehumanized. For more than 200 years. To slave owners – black lives didn’t matter. While not everyone was a slave owner, few questioned the institution of slavery and all benefited from it. To the wider society – black lives didn’t matter. When slavery ended, black Americans were not suddenly treated well. Between the end of the Civil War and World War II, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, more than 4,000 black people were lynched. To be clear this was the practice of torturing and murdering black Americans in the most heinous ways with impunity. To the vigilante gangs black lives didn’t matter. Law enforcement, did nothing to investigate these murders or bring the perpetrators to justice. To the government and the crowds of onlookers, black lives didn’t matter. This practice not only devastated the immediate families of the victims, but exacted a sense of terror on the entire community by communicating that if they did anything white people didn’t approve of they would die. Black lives didn’t matter. In contemporary times, public policy has targeted black Americans and imprisoned them disproportionately. For example, according to the ACLU, distributing 500 grams of powder cocaine – often used by richer white people – received the same sentence as distributing just 5 grams of crack cocaine – often used by poorer black people. What message does this send? It sends the erroneous message that black lives don’t matter, we can lock them up for years. And this is just a sample of the history of overt racial violence in this country.
There are many more subtle ways that our society has embodied the idea that black lives don’t matter. Discrimination has been rampant and constant whether it is employment, housing, schools, social services, the use of public spaces, even in restaurants and retail spaces. This discrimination isn’t simply perpetrated by a few bad people, it is and has been government policy. It spans across the culture. It has real and negative outcomes for huge swaths of people simply trying to live their lives. The message is “black people shouldn’t be here” and “black people shouldn’t have access” or “they don’t really matter.” The stereotypes so many Americans hold are real and they serve to further dehumanize black Americans and justify action that reinforce the idea that “black lives don’t matter.”
Yet, many in our society are living completely ignorant of this reality. My generation has been raised with the message that we are all equal. Yet, we are not treated equally. We were raised as though this is a post racial society. We were raised to think the Civil Rights movement got the job done. There is so much more work to do. My loved one who would say, “all lives matter,” is a part of this generation. She knows not be racist, but she also doesn’t understand that she is. With segregation still commonplace, she had few black friends or neighbors. She went to the same public schools I did, where American history covers only what we are proud of and hardly mentions black history at all. Then she went to college where she majored in business. She may never have taken a course about American culture or history or sociology that may have raised her awareness of these facts. Then she started working and probably consumed mostly mainstream media geared toward white women which is so problematic for so many reasons, not least of which is the fact that it tends to reinforce stereotypes rather than question them. Even movies that highlight the amazing contributions of black Americans, like Hidden Figures, treat the discrimination and segregation they experienced as a benign result of tradition rather than part of a brutal system of oppression.
In this context, the phrase #blacklivesmatter is transgressive. It calls out the fact that black people have been devalued and destroyed in our society and that this continues. Deniers of the movement either do not start with the premise that any of this history or oppression is real or they are racists who actually don’t think black lives matter. My belief is that a large proportion of the deniers are truly ignorant of the premise. This does not absolve them. They are not forgiven. But, those of us who care about justice also should not shame them. After all, they too, are a result of a racist system. We need to share what we know. We need to explain what we mean. We need to invite them to help us make the future better. If you, a friend, or loved one is white and interested in learning more contact your local chapter of SURJ, an amazing group helping white people learn and become allies for racial justice.
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POST SCRIPT
I’m no expert on the Black Lives Matter movement. However, as an ally I take this question up in this blog post for two reasons. First, it is now commonly accepted that people of color should not have to take on the entire burden of explaining their experience and justifying their actions to every person who doesn’t get it. Second, the constant shaming of people that aren’t “woke” enough doesn’t improve our society. It doesn’t build the power of a movement for justice. It doesn’t inspire them to learn more, examine their role and make changes in their personal lives that will make this world a better place for all of us. Let’s move away from that.
Thoughtful and empathetic post, Rachel, which is what I would expect from you! Bravo. Keep up the good (and sometimes brave) work of explaining tough things to people who may not understand your perspective.