At my college graduation, our speaker was a community leader who fought and worked for equality for black lives. After the ceremony, someone I'm very close with, who is a white male, mentioned that they thought it was a bit "racist." I was dumbfounded and didn't know where to even begin to describe why it was important for her to do that. Our white privilege and our need to share platforms and the mic with voices who are often muted in our unequal society.
Last week within 48 hours of each other, two black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, were killed by police. Sterling, a 37 year old father, was killed on June 5th outside of a convenience store where he was selling CD's and DVD's. The next day, Castile, 32, was pulled over by police conducting a traffic stop. The officer fired shots at him while he was reaching for his wallet, and his girlfriend captured the video on Facebook Live. His daughter was in the car.
Lately with more and more black American deaths, there have been sparks of outrage about racism, police brutality, the lack of justice, and guns. So far this year, over 560 unarmed people of color have been killed by the police, and the number keeps rising.
I've been reading a lot of posts on social media, paying extra attention to those written by people of color, the voices I strive to elevate and be an ally for. And then I started stumbling upon posts by some white people. One in particular caught my attention. The post compared the number of black deaths in America by police to the whole population of the world. The post said things along the lines of "well you should just comply with police". Once again, I was in shock.
Comments like this not only degrade the value of an individual black person's life but also are clueless in relation to why black people in America get killed by cops. It's easy for a white person to say things like "just comply" because they have never experienced vast racial inequalities from the other side, from the side that when complying with the police is described as doing the opposite, the slightest involuntary bodily reaction to being slammed on concrete being an excuse for those in power, those armed, to kill them.
Here is an image filled with a list of things black people apparently cannot do in America. Every sentence contains a reason black people have gotten killed in this country by police officers:
Sure, compared to the world population, the number of these deaths are low. However, that's true of almost anything compared to over 7 billion people and isn't a valid argument to defend the actions of those police officers who are killing unarmed people, and not being charged when there is even evidence on camera that they have crossed the line.
When it's a black person who is killed, the "logic" seems to be to assume they must have been doing something wrong and then justice is not served. If it was a white person who was killed for selling CD's or reaching for their wallet, we'd be hearing all about their lives, the language used by media would be more positive, the images chosen would paint a positive picture of who they were and there would be justice in some form. What's happening here, and what I'm discussing here, isn't police defending themselves from dangerous, armed criminals. What's happening in far too many incidents here is modern day lynching.
The issue, in addition to the reasons I listed about racism, police power and guns, is the type of culture this creates for people of color in America when this is allowed to occur without justice. This would be unheard of if it was a white individual, but it happens regularly with those who are not in this country. It happens almost every day, and too often officers face little to no consequences for killing another human who was doing nothing wrong. This creates a culture of fear that is born through sharp social inequalities and makes people feel unsafe for doing day to day activities.
Imagine worrying every time you walk down the street that you could be killed and there would be no consequence for it at any moment any time. That's a horrifying thought, let alone horrifying that it is a reality for people who live in this country in 2016. That is how people should feel in a war-zone, not in "the land of the free".
Steps need to be taken to alter police officer training and to tighten laws regarding consequences for police. No one should be able to murder someone who is doing nothing wrong and get away with it. It's that simple.
Yes, all lives matter; but for some reason in the judicial system, white lives matter more. It is something we are given and something we take for granted, even if we are highly aware of this privilege. Our lives matter to the judicial system, so we need to be the ones to speak up to aid others who don't have this privilege. Although these attacks do not affect us directly, we need to act like they do because our voices are the ones that are more influential in these discussions. The voices of others are unfortunately less likely to be heard. As allies we need to step up and use the privilege we were given to stop this and make black lives matter in this country and in the judicial system. Police training is handled on a local level, not federal. We need to speak up and address police brutality. Please write to your legislators.
No, as white people we will never know their pain, suffering, anger, sadness, or how it feels to be in their shoes, but a person is a person is a person is a person and black lives do matter.
