My two cents on the We Believe signs, maybe they share the same conceptual base as All Lives Matter
Ok, everyone. It’s been two years. Two years since George Floyd’s murder. And according to research, there is a decline in support for police accountability, reform, and defunding among all racial groups. And according to Robin Worlobah, the first Black and socialist councilmember in Minneapolis, after George Floyd’s murder, the momentum for change has “gone backward.” The reforms championed by working-class people to defund the police, make police more accountable, and find an alternative public safety system have been blocked by propaganda campaigns from the elite, and the unelected Charter Commissions have blocked legislative demands at all levels of government.
We feel the shift around the country, as support for BLM as a movement is waning across all racial groups, but least so with Black people. Isn’t it just a symptom of a larger issue? That Black people are the ones most likely to believe that Black Lives Matter?
I was talking to a friend about how, as the president of a nearly all-white association in Peru, I had quit over their blank-faced don’t-give-a-shit reluctance to declare Black Lives Matter in an internal message to our members. My friend replied, “At least they could have said ‘All Lives Matter.’ “ I was like, hell no!
But, isn’t that the crux of the issue? Few folks want to declare, as a stand-alone statement, that “Black Lives Matter” because people don’t want to treat Black folks as exceptional except when it comes to targeting them. Black people are seen as exceptional when shopping in a store, bird watching, sleeping in cars, or even being athletes, but honing in on Black people to give them basic human rights? How dare you (insert glove slap)!
For Cornel West’s sake, I try not to lose hope, but it is hard. People are against “special considerations” for Black people only when it is in a positive direction. And after George Floyd’s murder, support for Black liberation was an action item handed to everyone on a silver platter, but many people dashed the tray against the wall.
So, what’s the fear? It’s wrong to do a single good thing to help Black people? Is that what everyone’s mad about? Not…
