It has been incident after incident lately in the world. It seems that we can’t put someone to rest without someone else’s name flashing in all caps in a breaking new story on CNN.
It is the same thing over and over. We learn about the victim, we voice our outrage and sympathies, we give our condolences and turn around to see another victim lying lifeless on the ground at our feet. No matter where we turn, there seems to be another news article waiting to be written.
When will this cycle end? When will the senseless violence happening to all of human kind everywhere around the world come to an end? Do we have to keep protesting these deaths or continue to push it under the rug until the mountain of dirt becomes too large to ignore? This is exactly what we have been doing for hundreds of years.
A lot of people ask “how did the world get this bad?” but in truth the world has always been this bad, we just didn’t readily talk about the issues that made the world bad.
We, as people, have gotten into the bad habit of shying away and not talking about what makes you uncomfortable. But then again, some of the stuff I talk about shouldn’t make you uncomfortable. I should be able to exercise my first amendment rights without feeling ostracized.
But that is all that I have gotten since I have begun to open my mouth and speak against the injustices of the world—especially the injustices against the black community. When I first dealt with racism, I honestly thought most of it was in my head. I thought that racism had ended when segregation had ended, but man was I wrong.
There have been senseless killings of black people by law enforcement. There have been 187 deaths of black people just in 2016, to be exact. And that reason alone is why I am such an advocate for “Black Lives Matter”. The host of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, put it this way: “if you are for something in America, it automatically makes you against something else.” This not only makes it harder for people to want to speak on the issues. And one of the current issues now is the “Black Lives Matters” movement as a whole.
The biggest debate surrounding the calls to action from the idea that “black lives matter” implies that we, the black community, think that our lives are better than everyone else’s. This of course is not true. But that belief is where the “#AllLivesMatter” slogan was born and with it an ignorance that can’t be ignored.
The Black Lives Matter movement is about fighting, not physically fighting, these inequalities that blacks have faced. We acknowledge that all lives do matter but it seems to us that the world believes that black lives matter less. We just want the lives that we have lost to be acknowledged and something to be done about it.
We should be preaching that every life matters and that in the case of the innocent people who lost their lives in Orlando, say that had they had guns of their own they would’ve been protected.
But in the case of black men and women, we imply that since they had a weapon it automatically makes them a thug and they need to be taken down. Not all black people are thugs, most if not closer to all are just trying to start families, buy a home and live a life they can be proud about. So why is it that we are considered threats to society and slaughtered like animals for playing in our yard, getting pulled over for a broken tail light, or even doing absolutely nothing?
The Black Lives Matter movement wants the world to know that we aren’t letting these deaths slide. That we won’t let Mike Brown, Travyon Martin, Sandy Bland, Alton Sterling, and the many more who have lost their lives. All of our lives will matter when black lives matter.
I can’t and I won’t preach that all lives matter until I don’t feel threatened in the place I have called home for years. One wrong move and I could be the next name flashed on CNN. But as an 18-year-old, why should I ever have to feel like this because my skin is darker than most?
Our protests have always been peaceful, which was especially shown yesterday in Georgia, and we hope to keep them that way. History was made, hundreds of black women and men, celebrities as well, walking the streets of Atlanta hand in hand and letting their presence be known. They have made a monumental difference in the world. Despite this lives are still being lost; we can’t end the violence with more violence.
Somewhere a long the lines it has to stop. Our lives, as black individuals, must be noticed and not taken so lightly. We shouldn’t have to name our movement Black Lives Matter Too. We should be able to proudly say that Black Lives Matter without individuals assuming we are disregarding everyone else. While yes, every life does matter, we must first focus on the lives that are being taken away just because of our skin color.
It isn’t fair, and it isn’t right. It seems that every step we take towards a better future we take ten steps back and that has got to change.
