All Lives Matter

Muriel Bowser, the mayor of Washington DC has won the gold medal in Trump trolling.  Thursday night she got volunteers to paint BLACK LIVES MATTER across 16th Street near the White House.  The letters are as tall as the street is wide and easily seen both driving down the street or as the helicopter takes the President to Andrews when he travels on Air Force One.  Of course the message has been met with the typical response from the right wing saying ALL LIVES MATTER.  I really don't know if those who say it are so caught up in their own bias to not understand how offensive that is or if they really don't want to have a light shone on the on-going systemic racism that permeates our culture and in the last few years has found a voice in the highest seats of power. 

There are many metaphors for what All Lives Matter sounds like.  The most often cited one is that it is like complaining that the fire department is spraying water on the neighbor's house which is on fire and not yours which isn't.  However for me the more important metaphor is more like someone who sees food being brought to the home a family where a parent has died screaming "All Parents Die".  It is myopic at best, hateful at worst.  

The phrase Black Lives Matter grows from the idea that for too long black people were seen as second class both in perception and in some cases law.  The list of unarmed black people killed by police is too long and too often historically the consequence of those killings were minimized by a system that shared a view that black people were somehow inferior.  The idea that black people have to be careful performing everyday activities because of their skin color.  The fact that black parents need give what is called "The Talk" to their children is something that should make us all angry.  No group should have to worry at this level.  

Another argument made by people is that black on black crime kills far more young black men than the police do.  That is true.  But the difference is that when ordinary people kill each other there is no implicit or explicit societal support.  But police who kill are doing it in our name.  Police are hired by us as a community to act to protect and serve.  Holding a knee on the neck of man until he dies is not protecting or serving anyone.   

The latest attacks on the protests is that George Floyd, the murder victim that sparked them, was a felon and had drugs in his system.  Virtually every time a person is killed by police who is either in custody or unarmed there is a torrent of people who either make up or highlight a criminal past.  Let me be clear, a society should be judged by how the authorities in charge treat the worst of us.  Convicted or simply arrested, when in the hands of an agent of the government people should be treated with dignity.  Police must show restraint when encountering the public and it shouldn't matter if the person is an innocent charity worker or a ruthless killer.  The reason is that when you give police or others in power the ability to harm those they are charged to serve the line of where it stops is difficult to find.  We have seen in the last week police step outside of what most police think is appropriate behavior, egged on by the President who once called for them to rough up people when arresting them.  From college students pulled from their cars because they get stuck in traffic, to a woman who was beaten with batons after she pulled away from an officer who was groping her, to an old man who approached heavily armed police to be pushed to the ground causing him to bleed from his ears, and then at least one officer wouldn't allow a comrade to help him, each time the actions of officers, which is against policy and procedure, should never be tolerated.  Those were the ones caught on video, what else might be going on. 

The country is reaching a point where we have to define who we are as a people.  The justice that is part of the narrative of our nation's mythology must be upheld.  That means we all have to be seen as equal before the law, that means that government officials charged with maintaining order should be held to a higher standard and it means that we must do better in electing people that understand that and don't retreat to partisan nonsense and speak truth to power, even if that power is the leader of your own party.  If you truly mean that All Lives Matter, then you too should be in the streets, calling your elected officials, looking for reform when needed and elevating those who are striving for justice.   The Book the President so awkwardly held up in front of the church charges us with the words "Justice, justice you shall pursue", it is a call to action.  Pursue justice today, because if we don't then perhaps it will get to far away to find for a long time.