Yes, black lives matter
Lynley Jones
What if I said this: Children’s lives matter.
Or this: Grandparents’ lives matter.
Or this: Your life matters.
With any of those titles, you’d happily open this post expecting to find an uplifting message of hope. Or a righteous declaration of a worthy cause. Something you could get behind.
But to say Black Lives Matter feels different. It feels a little controversial, like I’m picking a fight.
Why?
Here’s why I think so many of my fellow white people have a problem with this phrase:
Saying that black lives matter also means acknowledging that it does not go without saying. Why else would we have to say it? It doesn’t go without saying? That’s big. And that’s really uncomfortable.
White people have lived our whole lives with the narrative of the greatness of this country. How much we’ve overcome, how much we can accomplish. America the Exceptional. America the inclusive. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Anyone can become president. We’re part of a narrative of achievement. We can look back on our own accomplishments with pride. We’re self-made. That story feels really, really good.
But the truth is that America is just a regular country, made up of regular people, just like all the other countries. And as a democracy, America is going to be whatever we make it to be. So yes, there are lots of ways we’re great. But we also make mistakes. And when we fall short, the uncomfortable truth is that is us who are falling short. We the people.
Right now, in most of the ways I can think of, our country is falling frighteningly short. Our democracy is at risk, our healthcare system is teetering, our economy is in a shambles and our cities are struggling to keep the peace. And right now, starkly, every person in this country must surely recognize that we’re also failing to keep our sacred promise of liberty and justice for all, including those with black and brown skin.
To paraphrase Shakespeare, some countries are born failing, some achieve failure, and some have failure thrust upon them. So which is it, then, for us?
We have to say it.
We have to acknowledge that we are failing. We are failing to live up to our ideals.
The evidence is right in front of us: A teenager in a hoodie carrying Skittles looks completely innocent in white skin. A man in the car with his fiance, respectfully explaining that he’s lawfully carrying a gun he has a permit for, looks completely innocent in white skin. A woman who knocks on a door looking for help when her car breaks down looks completely innocent in white skin. A man pulling out his wallet looks completely innocent in white skin. A kid playing with a toy gun looks completely innocent in white skin.
A man accused of a minor crime is entitled to due process. Protected from unreasonable use of force. Innocent until proven guilty. Detained in an orderly manner, no knee to his neck …in white skin.
Surely, now, we cannot deny that all of these scenarios, and many many more every day, are different for a person in black skin. In this country, every single day, black lives are treated like they do not matter as much as white lives in this country.
And we have to say it.
My white friends, think back through your life. Think about yesterday. Think about last year. Think about when you got that job. Think about that time you got pulled over. Think about when you were dating.
How would it have gone differently if you’d had an accent? Or if you were disabled? Or if you were black?
I can look back over my life and find example after example in which, I later realized, I was treated well. Let off easy. Given a break:
Like when my college friends and I racked up hundreds of dollars of calls on one parent’s corporate calling card without permission, and we had to go down to the police station to get a lecture about calling card fraud. If we apologized, they’d let us go. We apologized.
That time my 7 year-old son was mistakenly assigned to the special needs group at school, and his teacher began treating him like he was a little slow. And the only notification I ever received about it was written only in English.
That time I was the victim of a crime in my immigrant/Mexican neighborhood, and the officer told me, “Well, you’re not the usual type from around here, so we’re going to do everything we can to put this guy behind bars.”
That time we rented our first apartment in New Jersey, and I only realized later that the very nice landlord who couldn’t wait for us to move in had said through her thick accent that the reason they needed to do extra cleaning for us was because the previous family was black.
All the waitressing jobs I ever had, all the tips I got, all the times drunk customers pissed me off and I talked right back to them with impunity. All the times I got in the face of various adults growing up. All the times I showed up late and got away with it.
The fact that I run a business exploring food and cultures from around the world, and no one has ever once asked me why I don’t focus on the food from my own culture.
I’m just a regular person, a married mom of two, living in the suburbs. A small business owner. Nothing special about my life. And I can find example after example after example of preferential treatment. If you’re white, I know you can too.
And we have to say it.
This is an extremely uncomfortable truth, but it’s the truth. And, my white friends, simply telling the truth about this doesn’t make you a racist. It doesn’t mean you didn’t work hard to get where you are. It doesn’t mean you don’t deserve the good things in your life. It just means that other people deserve all the same rewards for their hard work. They also deserve the benefit of the doubt. Brown people. Immigrant people. Black people.
We have leaders and loud voices who benefit from dividing Americans into opposing camps and pitting us against each other. My fellow white people, they want us to believe that there’s not enough to go around. That if some other group is up, we’ll have to be down. That acknowledging the unfairness of the system somehow threatens our own well being.
This is not true. This country, this world, this universe is big and beautiful enough for all of us. There is plenty of goodness and fairness and justice to go around. Drawing the circle wider, opening our hearts and our minds, embracing opportunity for everyone does not defeat any of us. It only makes all of us stronger.
We are strong enough to acknowledge injustice. We are strong enough to look it in its face and speak up. We are strong enough to help forge a new, better path. And we must.
So please say it. Black lives do matter. They matter just as much as white lives. Just as much as our lives. If all lives matter, then black lives matter.
Black Lives Matter.
This is the sign I wrote and carried to a recent peaceful demonstration in my neighborhood.
(PS - If you’re new around here, welcome! Adventure Kitchen is a local, small-batch maker of original spice blends and prepared foods, and I’m the founder and chief creator. Separately, I send a weekly email with recipes and cooking suggestions. If you’d like to follow along with that, you can sign up on this page. And if you’d like to support my small business, you can buy our spices online. We ship everywhere of course, and we deliver locally for free!)