black lives matter. no qualifier necessary.

I am a middle aged white male.  I have never had to look over my back whenever I have walked outside, even in a neighborhood I did not live in.  I have never been particularly concerned for my safety when pulled over for an occasional traffic violation.  I have never been frisked.  I have never been asked what I am doing anywhere I have ever walked.  I have never had to lecture my sons about how to act to the police if they get stopped, other than to tell them to be polite to everybody.

So I do not know what it is like to be the subject of ingrained institutional generational racism and bias against me or "my kind".

But I do know one thing:

Black Lives Matter.

You see?  That was easy.  All I had to do was put three words together.

Black.....  Lives...... Matter.

I didn't have to add or subtract anything from it.  I did not have to add a qualifier.  There is nobody out there who can be hurt by my writing or uttering the phrase.  It simply states the obvious.  Nothing else.

Black Lives Matter.

If you cannot say it without adding "Blue Lives Matter" or "All Lives Matter", then quite frankly, black lives do not matter to you.

Because if black lives really did matter to you, you would not have to add anything to it.  We all know that blue lives matter.  We all know that all lives matter.  Nobody seems to have any difficulty saying either without adding anything to it, especially "All Lives Matter", which is a just any overly simplistic way of saying "Can't we all get along?", and avoiding the real issue in the first place.

So just say it.

Black Lives Matter.

Pause for a moment.  And then do not add anything to it.  Do not tell me about any other kind of life that matters.  Do not explain anything.  It does not need an explanation.

And certainly do not tell me that George Floyd was no angel, as if he deserved what happened to him.

At that moment, whether or not George Floyd had done something terrible to anyone else any time in his life before having his breath squeezed out of him by Derrick Chauvin's knee while his three partners looked on and did nothing has no meaning at all, unless black lives do not matter to you, nor should it.  I would highly doubt that while he sucked the life out of George Floyd, Derrick Chauvin was thinking of Mr. Floyd's "victims", whomever they were.  He certainly was not thinking "all lives matter".  As you watched the video for the first, second or third times, I would doubt you were thinking of George Floyd's supposed victims or that all lives matter either.  All you were thinking was how horrible that was, and possibly that black lives do indeed matter.  If you were not thinking, at the very least, that we witnessed barbarity at that moment, then I do not think I, nor anyone else, will ever be able to help you.  If you thought well, all lives matter, not just this life, then black lives probably do not matter to you.

So we march.  We paint signs.  We dance around the streets.  We yell slogans.

And then what?

If we go home satisfied that we have done our part and then do nothing else, then black lives do not matter to us either.

So vote.

So agitate.

If you see something that says black lives do not matter, point it out.

Do not stop.  Force the change.  Force those in charge to face the fact that black lives do matter, even if they have never owned up to the obvious in the past.

Do not shoot a jogger in your lily white neighborhood.  Come to his aid if he is being harassed by a know nothing.

Intervene if a black man is being crushed under a knee.

Do not let them push over a black woman who is doing nothing but exercising a constitutional right to speak out against institutional violence perpetrated for generations against her and her family.  Or sleeping in her own home for that matter.

Use that cellphone camera for all it is worth.

Press charges.

Make them stick.

Vote those out to whom black lives do not matter.

Do not buy or do business with those who do not believe black lives matter.

Vote.

Vote.

Vote.

Make them know, even if they do not want to hear it.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

you can't talk to a maga -- exhibits b and c

A couple of months ago, I talked about a person I had known since high school who unfriended me over a very brief Facebook discussion about cadet bone spurs.  I called it exhibit a as to why you cannot talk to a maga.  Today, I present exhibits b and c.

Exhibit B

I have known this person for about twenty years.  He is a colleague in the legal profession.  He is an ex-marine.  I have known for years he is a conservative; however, we have always been reasonably friendly and our conversations always respectful to each other, and something I rather enjoyed.

Until this past Monday night.

The fun and games started when cadet bone spurs addressed the nation prior to making his way out to St. John's Church for his photo op with the Bible.  In his brief remarks before heading out into the wilds of Lafayette Park, cadet bone spurs noted he was out there protecting our second amendment rights, as if that had anything to do with the ongoing protests.  I said exactly that in a facebook post, wondering why he would mention the second amendment at that moment.  I did not say how ridiculous it was to encourage anyone to bring weapons to public protests that were already tension filled.

My now ex-friend responded heatedly that anyone would have the right to bring their weapons to protect themselves against the marauding mob of looters out there who were setting fires, throwing bricks, etc.  I responded simply that I disagreed with him and could not disagree more.  I did not explicitly say that I was referring to weaponry in a tension filled public protest; only that I could not disagree more with what he said.  I was not advocating looting, arson, etc.

His response was to invite me out into the street with the hoodlums, where he sort of hoped I would be bashed in the back of the head by a hammer wielding thug, that I had obviously not paid any attention to anything taught to me in law school and good luck with whatever is left of the rest of my life.  He not only unfriended me, but blocked me from any attempt to tell him he had completely misinterpreted anything I had said in my post.

A number of people thereafter told me I was not missing out on anything having been unfriended by him.

Exhibit C

This one involves a friend of mine.  I will only use her first name --Karen.

Karen posted on Facebook after cadet bone spurs made his heroic pilgrimage across the mountains and deserts of Washington, across the street to St. John's Church, waved his Bible and posed for photos with a bunch of folks from the office, who all looked like they may have preferred to have been sunbathing on Mars.  Her post showed a photo of his highness, holding the Bible in front of the church, with the caption, "He tear gassed Americans to get a photo in front of a church he doesn't go to holding a book he never reads".

The response?

Several defended the indefensible.  Many claimed everything said was a lie.  My favorite was this guy -- no names this time -- who questioned if there was really tear gas used, if the crowd was peaceful, as opposed to his claim of being unruly and violent, that we really did not know if he does not belong to the church and that he does not read the Bible.  It was pointed out to this MAGA that the teargassing was on several videos shot by several different news organizations, clearly showing tear gas being shot at a peaceful group of protesters.  Some pointed out that the pastor and the bishop of the church both said that cadet bone spurs is not a congregant there, and hardly ever shows up at all.  No priest, pastor, reverend, bishop, cardinal, pope, rabbi, or holy man of any kind has come forward to say he is a member at their house of worship.  It is conceded that we do not have personal knowledge as to whether or not he has ever cracked open the Bible, read a single passage of if, or did anything with the Bible other than autograph it next to a reference to God.

The next response?

Our MAGA worshiping hero told Karen that this is why he does not read newspapers or watch the news, but that he knows in his heart that none of this can be true...

As we say in court, no further explanation is necessary.  I rest my case.