Mural Artists: Sandra Bland matters.
Vandals: No, she doesn't, because EVERYONE does.
Um.
I am inclined to start by pointing out that there is not a finite quantity of "mattering" in our country. Congress has not formally determined that 2,000,000 Americans may matter at any given time, leaving us to battle for the glory and honor of having basic human worth. In truth, we can all matter at the same time, no lines, no waiting, and no one erased in the process. We should all matter that way.
And we don't.
Let's take the example of Michael Brown. Michael Brown was shot and left in the street for four hours. When news broke that he had stolen cigars prior to his death, many people on the right said (I'll paraphrase), "This is who you want to glorify? A thief? A thug?" Somehow, the insistence that people who are black should not be shot and left in the street, that police should not withhold information, that's veritable hagiography.
Michael Brown was a human being of worth and value and beauty, but to say that became a radical, incendiary act. He was not given the standard pass for (white) teenagers, whose parents were advised in a Family Circle article about teen shoplifting that shoplifting is a big deal, although of course, it "isn't life or death." In fact, Mike Brown was not even given the standard treatment of being called a teenager (let alone a child) because he was a big guy. As Linda Chavez said in an interview on Fox: "We're talking about an 18-year-old man who is six foot four and weighs almost three hundred pounds."
Rumors began to fly, mostly via email forwards, that Michael Brown had a lengthy rap sheet, that he had been charged with "Burglary, Armed criminal action, Assault with the intent to do great bodily harm, and again Armed criminal action." As one email put it, "let us be clear, Michael Brown was a n*****; a sorry assed, criminal, hoodlum, n*****."
Ah. Now we get to the heart of racism: Don't worry about Michael Brown, because he wasn't a person. Michael Brown was a n****** whose life had no value.
Except wait.
If All Lives Matter, then ALL lives have value, right? There can be no such thing as a life without meaning, unless of course All Lives don't matter equally, and that is part of the point.
If All Lives matter equally, someone needs to alert the All the Police, because some officers seem to think that All Lives means Some Lives, or maybe even All Lives means White Lives. When the Department of Justice investigated the Ferguson PD, they found that "[n]early 90% of documented police violence was used against African Americans," while 100% of canine attacks were directed against blacks. The report also explains: "FPD appears to bring certain offenses almost exclusively against African Americans. For example, from 2011 to 2013, African Americans accounted for 95% of Manner of Walking in Roadway charges" (which sometimes just means being in the road) "and 94% of all Failure to Comply charges," casually known as contempt of cop charges. Keep in mind, too, that officers were found to be detaining people without reasonable suspicion, and then arresting them without probable cause, using these charges (sometimes incorrectly and unlawfully) as justification after the fact.
Of course, no one can make a fuss about any of that because of #blackviolence. No really, that's a hashtag on Twitter, and it refers to violence committed by black folks. (I'm not going to link to it, but you can look it up if you are feeling strong.) The idea behind this hashtag seems to be that since black people commit more acts of violence against other black people than police do, it is hypocritical to be upset about police violence. I saw someone on Facebook arguing that outrage about police treatment of black people is for this very reason "phony."
Forget that being killed by a cop, who is paid to serve and protect, is entirely different than being killed by a civilian, who is not. Forget that civilians are not intended to risk incarceration, bodily injury, or death from cops who don't like the way they are sitting in their car or walking down the street. Forget logic and basic sense, because human beings are apparently ONLY allowed to protest the single greatest threat to their lives, and no other. By that reasoning, the Black Lives Matter movement should vent all their anger at cardiovascular disease.
In reality, the problem here isn't black anger; it's white anger. Here's the low down on Sandra Bland from a blog called ClashDaily:
Let me just say, had Sandra Bland been white and committed suicide inside of a Waller County jail cell, this would have been a non-issue or just a possible blip on our news. But since only black lives matter all Hell has been unleashed on the Hispanic arresting officer, the Waller county Sheriff and his whole department … and God knows every white person in the great state of Texas is also responsible (ellipsis in original)Amen. Hear hear. I hope every white person in the great state of Texas will shortly be charged with the crime of . . . with the crime of . . . oh what does it matter. I'm sure they were in the street, not complying.
The statement that Black Lives Matter doesn't mean Black Lives Matter More. It means that Black Lives Matter Just as Much as Anyone Else's, and Everyone Else's. It means that All Black Lives Matter, Not Just the Lives of Black Heterosexual Men. That assertion is not anything like a cry for superiority, or special rights, or any of that nonsense. It's a statement about the value of black life in a society that lessens, diminishes, and denies that value, with deadly costs. In 2014, researchers trying to understand racial disparities in death penalty sentencing showed participants pictures of black faces and white faces, along with sets of value words, meaning words that cast someone in a positive or negative light. What they found was that "participants consistently were faster to associate Black with lack of worth and White with worth." And it sure is easier to sentence someone to die when that person doesn't really matter anyway. Sorry assed, criminal, hoodlum, n*****.
When white folks have interactions with police that aren't above board, they get upset about it. When white people's rights are trampled on, white people holler. If white people found out that juries were more likely to sentence white criminals to death, white people would scream to the heavens. And why shouldn't they?
Why shouldn't anyone?
On its face, and divorced from its context, All Lives Matter seems like a harmless enough thing to say, but in context - and we are pretty much bursting with context, here - All Lives Matter is not only a demand for silence, but a scolding for speaking out in the first place.
Black Lives Matter. No one should ever suggest otherwise.
