Have Compassion for your Fellow Man · 11:12am Jun 5th, 2020
Black Lives Matter.
It isn't that "all lives" don't matter, but that Black Lives currently matter less in the eyes of the government and police. Until Black Lives Matter, then all lives don't matter equally, and everyone's lives should matter equally.
This shouldn't be a political statement, but some people might take it as one. Please take a moment to examine your reasons why you think that my statement "Black Lives matter less so until we make them matter then All Lives Don't Matter" is somehow an indictment of any political group, or denying the rights of other groups.
I don't like riots. I don't support looting. I think that rioting happens for understandable reasons, and looters are people taking advantage of those circumstances. You have to see the riots happening as a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself. People tried peaceful protests and got called thugs for kneeling in solidarity for people protesting police violence at the start of football games in America. Other groups said it was about the flag, made it into disrespect of our nation, but the true message was about police violence. The message was co-opted by racists to make it about other things, about a flag. When you ignore peaceful protest, when you ignore the plea for justice, you get riots.
Police have flags on their uniforms, and they wear those uniforms while kneeling on the neck of an innocent black man for 8 minutes and 46 seconds while he cries for his mother. I think that's pretty disrespectful to the flag, too, but it's not about the flag. It's about the knee on the black man's neck, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
The knee on that black man's neck ended his life.
That's not okay. Nobody should be okay with that. If you equivocate, if you hesitate to agree, stop. Examine yourself. If you have anything to say counter to this, a "but" or a "what about" or anything... don't. Even if it's "police kill lots of people all the time, not just black people", then you're missing the point, so here it is:
Black Lives Matter, if it brings about police reform, will bring about police reform for everyone. White, black, hispanic, latino, asian, and so on. Everyone benefits from a kinder, community-oriented, less-harmful police force. Europe handles their police differently, encourages community engagement and de-escalation. We could have that, here, in America. We could have kinder police officers, in a system of justice that is equal and not biased, not built off the back of slave-hunting gangs that the modern police in America finds its roots in.
Black Lives Matter.
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Covid's fucked up my life pretty hard and I've essentially been trapped in my house due to being severely at risk due to a combination of health factors. If I get Covid, I'm probably dead. I can't work and haven't been able to for a while.
Positive thing, though: I have been admitted into a teaching credential program. I'm going to be a full-time teacher with a MA in Education. I've been doing online classes working towards that goal, and that's been a lot of my focus as of late.
I know writing hasn't happened, and I apologize, but I've just had other basic survival-level things going on in my life that's made it difficult. I don't know, now that I'm fully in the credential program, when I will find time to write more.
I hope you are all safe and healthy, that you are doing as well as you can, and that you're surviving all of this to the best of your ability. I hope, perhaps with the extra time, some of you are thriving, enjoying this time off from school or work to focus on hobbies or other things that make you happy.
Be well, all of you. <3
Hey, you have to make sure you're alive to write before you can think about writing. Stay safe. Hopefully when you can leave the house, a friendlier nation will meet you.
I grew up in the other America. My people rot away in concentration camps and suffer a parade of endless humiliations while the colonisers continue to find new ways to plunder and despoil the lands that were once ours. We rot while others prosper. The message is clear; our lives do not matter. We endured a holocaust that no one seems to have noticed. Millions upon millions of lives ended. The camps still exist. The evidence of the crimes committed are still fresh. Mostly because, these crimes are still happening. The criminals are still prospering from the crimes committed.
Black Lives Matter gives me a modicum of hope. Perhaps if the lives of former slaves can be made to matter, than maybe, just maybe, our lives can be made to matter too.
I doubt that I will live to see that day.
Good message, sad to say I'm one of those people that have some gripes about BLM, mostly because it seems like they're not stomping down on the 10-20% in their group that is racist towards others.
5277741
Inquiry: if you put the shoe on the other foot, would you have some gripes about white folks because of the actions of a few? It sure seems like they're not stomping down on the 10-20% in their group that is racist towards others. So are all of them bad or do they get a pass? Do you judge them as a whole, as a group?
These are important questions right now. We owe it to ourselves to question our motivations and to examine our logic about why we do what we do. If we can take circumstances and apply them elsewhere, do they still hold up or do they reveal bias?
5277764
Yeah, it's hard to stomp down on the 20% for a group that doesn't exist, we already stomp down on KKK and Neo-Nazi groups when they step out of the shadow, but you can't arrest someone for just being racist, so they have to actually be committing a crime or discriminating.
It's easier to keep bad members of a group when they agree with your general message.
5277808
This applies to so many people and groups of people.
5277845
Yeah, like police and politicians, the human condition man, it's crazy.