Please keep saying “Black Lives Matter” With Me
I am a white woman in a small predominantly white town in upstate New York. I have rarely attended protests in the past, but I have marched and rallied for Black Lives Matter this summer and I would like to share why.
I am sure you have heard the facts, perhaps even seen the video. On May 25, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill. A police officer, knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down, begging for his life and repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe”.
8 minutes and 46 seconds is a really long time to kneel on a hand-cuffed man’s neck while he begs for his life, while bystanders beg you to stop.
George Floyd was handcuffed and on the ground, not a threat. They suspected, only suspected, him of passing a fake $20 bill.
His life mattered, to his daughter, to his family, to his co-workers, to dancers who knew him, to many people. I did not know him, but his life matters to me.
I ask myself why it did not matter to the police at the scene, why it did not matter enough for them to stop when he said “I can’t breathe” or when he begged for his mother or when bystanders repeatedly told the officers that they were killing him.
Why? All they knew about George Floyd at that moment was that he was a black man accused of passing a fake $20 bill.
And now he is dead.
You can claim past criminal record or drug overdose. You can say the officer knelt on his neck for almost 8 minutes, not 8 minutes and 46 seconds. None of that really matters. George Floyd did nothing deserving of an execution and yet he was executed by police, in the United States, in broad daylight, in front of many witnesses.
George Floyd would be alive if all lives mattered enough that black lives matter.
Black lives matter. Period.
No one should really have to even say something so clearly true, to demonstrate about it, but here we are. We keep learning of black people killed by police. So please say “Black Lives Matter” with me.
Please say “Black Lives Matter” with me until police are required to behave as if it is true and are held accountable when they don’t!
“Black Lives Matter” is a cry for long overdue help and support.
“All Lives Matter” is true but it is also a cruel response to legitimate outrage and pain over the murder of black people, especially at the hands of police who should serve and protect all citizens.
On July 6 2016, about 10 minutes away from where George Floyd was killed by police, Philando Castile, a 32-year old black man, was also killed by police in a routine traffic stop. Like Floyd’s murder, the murder of Philando Castile was also captured on video.The officer begins by saying “The reason I pulled you over is your brake lights are out”.
I remember that summer and how I felt when I saw that video. Philando Castile was just in his car with his family. It was a routine traffic stop. He was clearly following directions, no possible threat. He respectfully and proactively told the officer that he had a firearm (one he was licensed to carry) so that there would be no surprise. The officer proceeded to gun him down.
I will never forget how Diamond Reynolds, Castile’s girlfriend remained calm and even called his murderer “sir”. In the video, she says “Yes sir, I will keep my hands where they are”, “Please Jesus don’t tell me that he is gone” and “Please officer don’t tell me you just did this to him”. If you haven’t seen the video, I would ask you to consider watching it, especially if you find yourself wanting to say “All Lives Matter” when someone says “Black Lives Matter”.
Diamond Reynolds was required to remain calm to protect her life and the life of her 4-year old daughter who was in the back seat when the officer shot her boyfriend. If Reynolds did not remain calm, her daughter might not have a mother today. She must have had to practice that kind of calm response to oppression throughout her life and then use it in that instance in order to protect her life and the life of her child. That she had to do this was absolutely devastating to me.
How can it be that black victims have to remain calm but “trained” police don’t have to? I think about the trauma of having to repeatedly practice calm in the face of oppression. I think about the damage that kind of experience had to inflict on Diamond Reynolds and so many others. It is hard for me to imagine the path my life might have taken if I had been subjected to the same repeated trauma and injustice.
I remember a woman I know here in Northern New York saying that the video of Diamond Reynolds looked unreal exactly because she remained so calm. Perhaps the constant practice of calm in the face of oppression, the calm Reynolds was required to practice and show, was simply beyond the realm of her life experience as a white woman. That is one reason, among many, why we must say “Black Lives Matter”. Black people are forced to live a different reality in their interactions with police than many white people can even imagine. Even white people who love and marry black people and have black children sometimes find it hard to really understand the different life experiences that their loved ones are forced to endure.
In the summer of 2016, I remember thinking, naively, that because this was now so clearly on video, things would have to change. Here we are in 2020. What has changed? Where was the justice for Philando Castile’s family? Where was the anger from advocates for gun rights about Philando Castile’s rights? Where was the sustained pressure for real change? Since the summer of 2016 and the murder of Philando Castile, there was no real change, clearly not enough to prevent George Floyd’s murder this summer in that same area of Minnesota.
Three Black women — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — started the #BlackLivesMatter movement in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman. I remember becoming more aware of the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2016 in the aftermath of Philando Castile’s murder.
I also remember the rise of “All Lives Matter” as a response. It was not my response, but I will admit that I was fooled into thinking that it was a reasonable response. While I believe strongly that all lives matter, I now see how cruel a response it is when someone says “Black Lives Matter”.
If I tell you that my mother died, please don’t say “all mothers die”. It might be true, but it is also a cruel response.
If I tell you my child is dying, please don’t say “there are children dying all over”. It might be true, but it is also a cruel response.
If I am in enough pain about the murders of black men and women to say “Black Lives Matter”, please don’t say “All Lives Matter”. I agree with you that all lives matter, but it is simply a cruel response.
In 2016, I was fooled into thinking that “All Lives Matter” was an acceptable response to “Black Lives Matter”. I am sorry I did not see through it earlier. I won’t let that happen again.
Black Lives Matter. Please say it with me until we get real change, the kind of change that means we won’t have another George Floyd, another Philando Castile, another Breonna Taylor, another black person killed by police without repercussions, another black person taken from their family.
How can all lives matter if black lives don’t matter enough for police to act like it? How can all lives matter if things like this keep happening over and over and over and we do not insist on the real changes necessary to stop it?
When you hear “Black Lives Matter”, please don’t say “All Lives Matter”. Please say “What can I do to help bring about real change?”. We need change in our communities, change in our families, change in our selves.
The murder of George Floyd sparked protests around the world. The initial reaction, even in my small upstate NY town, was dramatic. Somewhere between 800 and 1000 people marched on June 1 in a college town where the summer population is only around 17,000 people total. Around 300 people marched on June 10 and the first public Juneteenth event in town was organized on June 20. Today July 12, I was one of 4 people demonstrating in front of the post office. I have only participated 4 or 5 times. Some amazing people demonstrate there every single day from 6 to 7 pm, especially local activist Jennifer Baxtron, who was presented with an award for her work at the first local Juneteenth event this summer. Many of these amazing people needed a day off after attending an emotional memorial for a local black teen, Treyanna Summerville.
I joined that daily protest today. Some people who drove by today honked to show their support, but many, even passengers who weren’t driving, seemed to actively look away or even gunned their engines a bit menacingly. A few weeks ago, a black woman in my community said she felt a bit afraid to go to Walmart for the first time in many years. With some of the looks I saw today, I can start to understand why. I found that if I waved, some people would wave back. That was encouraging, but it was hard not to miss the hostility of others and also the change since June 1. Sometimes progress is two steps forward and one step back.
Tonight, an older gentleman with a white truck and an American flag stopped to tell us that if our signs said “All Lives Matter” he would be there with us. I respected him for taking the time to stop and talk. We assured him that everyone in our group believes all lives matter, but we also tried to explain why “All Lives Matter” is a hurtful response to “Black Lives Matter”. In that moment, he was not convinced, but I like to imagine he might consider it more later. You never know.
A friend of mine who has been going to demonstrate most days recently said on Facebook “Cmon people. Keep showing up. There is so much work to do!”. The other day there was a video of her and other demonstrators in front of the post office waving a Black Lives Matter flag in the middle of a much needed summer downpour. I wished I had been there with them in the rain and that is why I committed to come tonight despite many other jobs I could and should be doing at home. It is a marathon, not a sprint. If you, like me, are looking for ways to help somehow, you don’t even have to come out and demonstrate. There are so many ways to make a difference, different levels of government to work on, different people in positions of authority to call and talk to, petitions to write and sign. You can have difficult conversations with your friends and family and be willing to consider where you yourself may have been wrong in the past.
I want to imagine that we will not forget, that we will insist on real change like these common sense steps from #8cantwait. But I worry what happens as 1000 people turns to 300 turns to 4. I worry what happens as June 1 turns to June 10 turns to July 12. I worry what happens as summer turns to fall turns to winter in our outpost by the Canadian border. I worry what happens as 2016 turns to 2020 turns to 2024.
Please keep saying “Black Lives Matter” with me.
Footnotes
1- Here is an album of an #AsyncArts project that became entwined with the Black Lives Matter movement in our town in some beautiful ways.
2- If you find yourself saying “I would support Black Lives Matter but I don’t because I find the views of some other supporters too extreme”, it may be worth considering that fake accounts on social media, often controlled from other countries, do that deliberately to divide people. They take extreme views on *both* sides of polarized issues specifically to divide and ruin. If you can’t defeat a country from the outside, see if you can convince those on the inside to do it themselves. Here is an article and interview on this topic and a less than 1 minute snippet that appeared on Fox News Headlines. It is a message that both sides of polarized issues need to hear.
Don’t let fake Russian bots convince you not to support your real black friends and neighbors! Black Lives Matter.
3- I learned after George Floyd’s death that even here in upstate NY, I am only a few degrees of separation away from his life. A friend I know from dancing posted something from a friend “He was part of our dance community. I did not know him personally but he was part of the dance community. He worked at a local dance venue and loved the music and the dance. He made the ladies feel safe and was kind and joked with everyone. He was not a dancer yet but had already had the passion from working at the venue.” It is a good lesson that we are all more interconnected than we know. A lesson we should never forget.
George Floyd’s life matters. Black Lives Matter.
4- You never know what can make a difference: “Opinion: NCTW story and Potsdam peaceful protest made difference in Wisconsin prison”, July 23 2020.
