Black lives matter. Your response to that statement tells more about you than a photograph ever could.
The response we hear most from those who, for whatever reason, are offended by Black Lives Matter is usually 'All Lives Matter'. And who can argue with that? Of course all lives matter. That's the point.
Folks need to be reminded black lives matter simply because the history of our whole country is that they don't. One can start with slavery and move forward. The only people black lives mattered to were the sellers and the owners who put a dollar value on that life. When a slave died, the seller simply kidnapped another or the owner simply bought another.
The only value of that person to most white folks was as a commodity. No different than a pack mule or a plow. The loss of a pet was mourned more than a slave in the field. They said all lives matter, too.
We all know slavery ended in this country over 150 years ago. But that magic day didn't mean black lives mattered any more than the day before. The rise of the Klan, the adoption of Jim Crowe laws throughout the old south, and a long history of lynchings and murder ensured that for most white Americans black lives mattered even less than when they were a commodity.
For those of you who say "but that's not the way it is anymore", I say "really?"
What about that jogger in Georgia who was murdered by a father-son good ole boy team? What about that first responder in Louisville who was murdered by police in her own bed? What about the man who was choked to death by a cop who was so nonchalant he might as well have been tying his shoes?
And that doesn't include the native Americans we've wiped out or confined to hopeless reservations, the brown kids we've let die in cages at our border, or any of the refugees we've shipped back to face near certain death.
If all lives matter, why aren't you mourning those folks? If all lives matter, why do you call for lead instead of rubber to be fired at peaceful protesters?
This week thousands of people in Georgia, primarily in African American communities were shut out of the primary by a voting system rigged against them by a Republican governor who got himself elected by removing thousands of registered Democrats from the books when he was the state's attorney general. If all lives really mattered to these folk, why can't these Americans vote by mail, especially during a pandemic?
But All Lives Matter types fill my social media feed with anti-mail in voting memes daily. Their reluctance tells me all lives may matter, but not nearly as much as winning elections. That's the kind of thinking only cult members can justify.
When a cultist says All Lives Matter, they're only speaking of their cult. There are no lives outside the cult. That's what history really tells us.
Black Lives Matter. Any response not along the lines of "yes they do" paints a self-portrait no American should want on their wall.