I’ve been reading my whole life. I’ve met characters from other worlds—heroes, villains, and those that are a little of both. Some characters start their journeys at the bottom of their social hierarchy and some plummet from the top so they can start anew. But in those novels, amidst the magic and vast landscapes seen only in the mind, there are the characters we don’t pay enough attention to—the barmaid serving some mercenary a pint of ale or the farmer that waived good morning to the protagonist. When we look at life like a novel hot off the presses, we are the protagonists. The hero. Sometimes we are the villain. The “I” narrator. It’s all about the perspective.
So when I take my phone off Ultra Power Saver mode in the morning, I get a news update once the Wi-Fi kicks on. And when I read that news update, I learn about the deaths of black men and women shot by police, and I cry. A new plot line opens up in this narrative. I scroll through the news reports and learn the names. These people are no longer faceless background characters in a single narrative. They have voices and faces and stories. Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Treyvon Martin, Walter Scott, and countless others.
And when I switch from the news articles, I start on my social media feed and see prayers being sent out to the families. I click like and keep scrolling, and send out my own prayers to whichever higher power is out there. But as I scroll through the positive thoughts, the plot thickens. Amongst the #BlackLivesMatter hashtags and posts, the hashtag #AllLivesMatter pops up, and when it does, it’s like that one annoying character that is constantly making the protagonist’s goal a lot harder than it needs to be.
While I agree that all lives matter—we all bleed red and end up in the morgue at some point—right now, it’s black lives that we need to focus on. We need to focus on, as the heroes of our own stories, on not trying to drown out the voices that operate at a different frequency than our own, but giving them the megaphone and helping them be heard. Sometimes we need to step out of our narrative and help someone else in theirs.
