“There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.”
~ Lyndon Baines Johnson, March 15, 1965 ~
I was thinking about this as I walked Joey this morning, in the peace and quiet of a neighborhood not yet awake. We have an American problem.
Language is important, right? I don’t mean one language is better than another, and I don’t mean grammatical importance. I mean, what you say, and how you say it, tells me something about you.
For instance, when you talk about “riots” and clearly you mean “protests,” it tells me something. While there was an initial boiling point, when rage and anger were the inevitable outcome of choke-holds, knees on necks, and bullets in backs, there were opportunists who latched on to that rage and vandalized, looted, and destroyed. They were not the masses. They were the exceptions.
When you say that protests like these are not the way resolve these issues, it tells me something. People said that same thing in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Taking the front seat of a bus wasn’t right. Sitting at a lunch counter wasn’t right. Little black girls going to what was once an all white school wasn’t right. Marches across bridges weren’t right. More recently taking a knee wasn’t the right. Protests, as I said in one of my recent blogs, “An Inconvenient Truth,” are by nature inconvenient. To those of us who are unaffected by the injustice, the protests force us to become affected. They force us to look the injustice in the eye.
When you argue that all lives matter every time you hear the words “black lives matter,” it tells me something. It tell me you don’t get it at all. And you know what else tells me that? If all lives truly mattered to you, you would be out there on the front lines, protesting as well. You would live what you preach. You would be fighting poverty. You would work for the starving children who not only need food, but education and hope as well. You would be fighting for the immigrant who seeks a new home and a new life. A chance. You would show how all lives matter by fighting for all lives. But you aren’t.
If you believe you are not racist, but you can’t understand the words black lives matter, and you can’t differentiate between a protest and a riot, and you don’t see the need for any of this, you need to take a good long look in the mirror. Words matter. So do deeds.
Choose your words carefully. You cannot, in good conscience, continue to support a flawed legal system and dysfunctional government and tell me you’re not a racist and you believe everyone matters. Your choice of words, and your lack of commitment to the disenfranchised and marginalized among us tells me otherwise.
🙏 Namaste
~jwb~