Why Black Lives Matter — May 2020
What happened to George Floyd won’t happen to me, but it will happen again.
- Nate Craig
The Philadelphia Inquirer has published arguments championing Black Lives Matter and attacks against the movement. There are arguments for and against professional athletes peacefully taking a knee during the national anthem. Arguments for the movement state -simply enough- that the lives of black people are not valued in our society and by criminal justice system. They argue that the lives being taken do matter. Since there exists this disparity between what ought to be the reality and what is the reality that black Americans face every day, that the phrase “Black Lives Matter” needs to be said.
The events of May, 2020 could easily have bridged the gap in understanding, if understanding were truly what were lacking. The impetus for why Colin Kaepernick felt compelled to start these protests has roots in an oppressive racist culture that have never been pulled out. That reality is why the phrase needed to be said loudly, and in front of an audience that would have continued to ignore that racism otherwise. An athlete’s simple acts of quiet protest, however, has made some -mostly white- people angry, and uncomfortable.
It is normal and expected that white people demand that to be — to remain- the judges of what the first amendment means. White people who want exclusive rights to tell the story of what oppression is, what it was, and was not. As avid sports watchers, they believe that they, over and above the players who use their bodies to entertain and amaze audiences, should be the ones who decide what is protest-worthy from their couches, sports-bars, or club box seats.
These sports-watching white people project their own experience with law enforcement onto America when they contend that police brutality is a mere fiction of the left…“Kaepernick vaguely tells wild tales of police gunning down innocent people and then being rewarded with paid leave”. They shout it on their talk radio shows no matter how many unarmed black lives are lost, even when the circumstances are caught on camera for all to see. They will never know what its like to be afraid of being pulled over, and they, therefore, assert that there is no reason to be afraid. They don’t know what it’s like for someone to threaten your life, or bodily safety by saying they will lie to the cops about you. That an investment banker, a white woman would use this threat as a punishment for a black man having the audacity to ask her to leash her dog.
These white folks’ priority is to elevate their right to watch sports over players’ right to the first amendment. How dare those players force a conversation about the human dignity of not only the players themselves, but also their friends and families. They adamantly assert that saying something about injustice amounts to liberal libel against the boys in blue. That what ever injustice exists off the field, it is wrong for a protest against that reality if it entails an interruption to their down time. Even though kneeling is a simple, peaceful protest, it has made them so uncomfortable that the issue has been turned into a presidential campaign tactic.
When President Trump isn’t pardoning police brutalizers like Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, he is denying the validity of police brutality. As he does, he is strategically scoring points with these same sports watchers when he repeatedly derides athlete protestors. Realizing these are his people, he even sent Vice President Pence out to counter-protest (which cost taxpayers $250,000).
While she is apparently no champion of civil liberties, current Philly Police Commissioner, Danielle Outlaw’s response to George Floyd’s death spoke volumes as to how deeply this impacts even her own children. Her comments on an all-too-common incidence of police brutality made me realize again that I have never and will never know the terror of existing in this country as a person of color.
“As a mother, I cannot relay enough the helplessness and sadness I feel when my sons, having been children of police officers their entire lives, relay to me that they fear for their lives because of the unjustified fear others have of them; solely due to their existence,” said Outlaw.”
Neither me, nor my white son, will ever know what it is like to live in fear of being choked to death by police. If we went to Central Park, in New York City we would have nothing to worry about if someone called the police on us for politely asking them to put a leash on their dog, like the posted park rules indicate. Actually, that’s true no matter what park we go to.
Regardless of the street we decide to run on, we will not be hunted down and executed by racists, one a former cop, like Ahmaud Arbery.
Even if me or my son ever made the bad decision to use counterfeit money to try to buy something, like George Floyd, our lives would not suddenly be in jeopardy upon being confronted by police.
If May of 2020 shows anything, it could be that “Black Lives Matter” is a statement that needs to be repeated. It’s a counterfactual statement that needs to be protested until all levels of our criminal justice system rectify the fact that our criminal justice system systematically devalues and eliminates black lives at all levels.
Cops in Minneapolis were far from an exception when they acted as judge, jury and executioner of George Floyd. He made two bad choices, and he was dead within minutes of the police arriving. His executioners got fired then waited at home for investigations, or for charges to be brought.
Minneapolis erupted, and rightly so. Many other cities have gone into the streets. If the violence against black bodies doesn’t enrage our sense of common human dignity, then we have none. The fear that black men carry through their lives is legitimate. The incitements of violence over the weekend of May 30th, as well as the looting, and burnings seem to have been done mostly by infiltrating right-wingers trying to cause a clash with police in spite of the protest planners aiming at peaceful demonstrations.
There are gross disparities in the way our criminal justice system operates. It fails black people. If May of 2020 has taught us anything it’s that we must all join in shouting that black lives need to matter. We must protest the deaths of all of the George Floyds until black lives are valued, until they are protected. If we fail to protest until black lives do matter, then we, ourselves, ignore the value of black lives.
Perhaps it’s time for the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board to pick a side regarding Black Lives Matter. Continuing to spread contrarian voices that try to muddy the waters around our need to make black lives actually matter, and to publish the columns of those that continue to question whether there is a need to rectify the ongoing injustice against black bodies will only further hamper progress.
