Do black lives REALLY matter? In theory yes, but if we are looking at the answer in realistic terms of what we see in the world today, can we really answer that question with an honest yes?
A few days ago I watched a video in horror and with tears filling my eyes, as I saw a young girl who looked to be around the same age as my fourteen-year-old son being man handled and shoved to the ground. Her face being smashed into the grass as the knees of a grown adult officer was being planted firmly into her thin body! I watched and I cried at the mistreatment of a child, someone’s baby. Who, yes I will agree should have been more respectful, but still didn’t deserve the treatment she was receiving. She, who was being singled out of the crowd for something she has no control over–the color of her skin! I watched as the officer chased, cursed, yelled, shoved, and disrespected the African American teenagers, not once did I notice him addressing any of the Caucasian youth in the same manner. In fact it was a male teenaged Caucasian who recorded the video that has now gone viral.
The purpose of my blog isn’t to condemn the officer for obvious use of excessive force nor is it to judge disrespectful youth that come in every hue. The purpose of this article is for us to take a look within our own hearts and ask ourselves, do black lives really matter?
The night I watched the video my 14-year-old son who is 6’1 and half, weighs 190 pounds and wears a size 14 shoe came to me and said, “Mom, I’m going to go running at 7am tomorrow morning.” Instantly fear swept over me. We live in a gated community in the suburbs and with only a handful African American families within the community I began to be fearful for my child. Is my black son safe in his own neighborhood? I wondered.
I’m getting ready to be all the way real in the next few sentences. I am a brown-skinned African American woman, who is told often that I am beautiful, so white America embraces me with a different set of lens then that of my teenaged son. He has a very different experience in this world than that of myself and even my husband. When I walk into a mall, I’m not watched. I’m treated kindly and smiled at by salespeople. When I’m out shopping with my husband, I don’t notice many strange looks in his direction. He is light complicated and under six feet. However when I’m out in public with my son I notice the stares and odd looks of my darker complicated, bigger in statue son. It makes me sad, they know nothing about him and yet their facial expressions display their discontent with his presence.
No, all white people ARE NOT prejudice and neither are ALL black people ghetto or thugs. We are smart! We love, we laugh, we are human! The majority of us desire the same American dream that any white person desires. We are not dogs, monkeys, or any sort of animals! Having brown skin or black as people refer to it as, is just that a pigmentation. It shouldn’t be cause for us to be watched, singled out, profiled, stereotyped, abused, jailed, murdered, made to feel like we are voiceless, or should bow down to mistreatment. And, yes things have become better in our country, but there is still so much more love to be given, understanding and sensitivity to be shown, and respect equally distributed. And before someone says African Americans are treated fairly, I must respectfully say you can’t possibly understand the position we forced into in America until you’ve walked in the shoes of a boy whose already met with the stares of world who has already decided who he is without even knowing him. Until you’ve had to explain to your 11-year-old son why a grown man is watching his every move while we shop then you can’t understand the pilate of people pleading with America. We want to really matter and not just be tolerated and hated.
“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” Albert Einstein
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