4 Responses To #BlackLivesMatter That Show White People Don't Get It
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We need to learn how to be allies of anti-racism. In order to do that, we’ll have to admit that we’re not the teachers of this particular lesson: we’re the students.

We don’t get it. Even though we don’t get it, we’re reacting and making certain our voices are heard. The protests, anger and debates on social media seem to have erupted out of nowhere. White folks are scattering into ideological camps like we’ve been ambushed. After all, we wrote History, and the Guiding Principles of Black Lives Matter don’t fit into the narrative. But, the ways in which we’re reacting to #blacklivesmatter reveal how we feel about race in America. Let’s press pause for a moment and dissect our responses.

1. #AllLivesMatter

At least the logic makes sense with this one. I mean, it’s ostensibly inclusive and dares anyone to suggest that some lives don’t matter. In actuality, the hashtag is code for: black lives better not matter more than white lives, even for one news cycle. And #AllLivesMatter stops the conversation before it even starts. As a people, we don’t acknowledge (let alone apologize for) our role in devaluing black lives. When someone is hurt and then ignored or called a liar, the wound becomes a state of being. This truth plays itself out almost daily in my home: my son’s face burns red with angry tears until his brother apologizes for hurting him and promises to not do it again. Even if the promise is short-lived, my injured son can think about and do something else for a while. When it comes to injured people of color, we point blame at our forefather’s fist and turn a blind eye to his other hand – the hand that cradled and lifted us to power.

2. Blame the Victims

Suburban American neighborhoods and schools remain racially segregated. Most of us have never lived as a minority in an African American community. Many of us have never even spent meaningful time with a family of color. They are “They” who exist on the now-tainted Cosby Show, NBA courts, or as a sassy sidekick with an irrelevant backstory. How could we possibly grasp a reality in which we’ve never set foot? So we create unauthorized biographies of slain African American men and women riddled with soundbites, citations and accusations of why they deserved what they got.

3. #BlueLivesMatter

We’re not scared of police and they’re not scared of us. We call them when we need help and teach our children to do the same. We dress our children in police uniforms on Halloween and for Career Day in school. Admitting that police brutality is a problem feels treasonous in most white communities. Even if the jury of white public opinion found one law officer guilty, we seem incapable of conceding that we have a systemic police brutality problem in America. If we admit this, we have a flawed democracy and our destiny stops being so manifest.

4. Why are black people so angry? It’s time for peace and unity!

Black anger scares the hell out of us. Literally. Black rage unearths a cacophony of white sins and we want that box of hidden history to stay locked away. African Americans marching through the streets in the name of justice threatens to upset the American racial order. So, white folks pass around watered-down Dr. King memes recommending peace instead of facing the conflict in the mirror.

In which of the four camps have you pitched a tent of reaction to #BlackLivesMatter? What is our white community going to do other than react? We need to learn how to be allies of anti-racism. In order to do that, we’ll have to admit that we’re not the teachers of this particular lesson: we’re the students.

If we decide to absorb the lessons of #BlackLivesMatter, we may lose some white friends and relatives. And that will be painful, because we have genuine love for our affable racist uncle. You know the one. The one who gave us a wad of First Communion cash and our first sip of beer. Despite the cost, it’s past time to have the conversation with him that we’ve been dreading; the one that might make him never call or visit his liberal niece again.

It’s time for us to put down the pen and listen to others’ accounts of past and present history. More importantly, it’s time for us to believe them.

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