Please read and remember the following quote. It will become important when asking yourself the question posed in this article.
“They attack, bust you all upside your mouth, and then take you to court and charge you with assault… What kind of democracy is that? What kind of freedom is that? What kind of social or political system is it… They attack the victim, and then the criminal who attacked the victim accuses the victim of attacking him. This is American justice, this is American democracy and those of you that are familiar with it know that democracy is hypocrisy.”
Many of you unfamiliar with the above quote probably immediately pictured the Black Lives Matter movement. It sounds very much like what they say in interviews, during protests, and on the signs they carry.
Except the quote isn’t from anyone in today’s Black Lives Matter movement, and the quote definitely isn’t recent. It’s from Malcolm X, and he said it more than 50 years ago.
It’s important to remember this while pondering the question I pose about the Black Lives Matter movement because it’s important to remember that the Black Lives Matter movement, and the specific issue they’re protesting, is not new. Because of the overwhelming presence of news media and social media in modern life, you may have just become aware of it, but this is a decades, even centuries-long, issue.
Here’s the question: Can these two statements be true at the same time? 1) “I am not racist” and 2) “I believe that people of color who have been saying, at least publicly, for over five decades that they too often experience racism in their interactions with police are all liars.”
I’ve read many comments on stories about the Black Lives Matter protests, and #2 definitely seems to be the theme of those who disapprove of it. Yet, every one will still insist that they aren’t racist and that they carry no racial biases into their disapproval.
So are these people commenting talking only about the protesters now, or all of the ones who came before? Do they mean only the BLM movement is filled with “thugs” and “trash,” or is it every person of color who has said this same thing since the 1960s?
Let me go ahead and answer what I’m sure will follow, albeit in much more insulting terms. It will sound something like this:
“This is different. Black people back then really did have it hard because of segregation and stuff. All of that’s over. NOW they’re just…”
What? What are they “just?” Liars? Criminals looking to get away with crime? Thugs and thieves and murderers and rapists?
Keep in mind, please, that people just like you said the same things to people involved in the Civil Rights Movement. People said the exact same things to the followers of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. It sounded like this:
“This is different. Black people used to have it hard because of slavery and stuff. All of that’s over. Now they’re just…”
It sounds eerily similar, right?
So when you call the people protesting police brutality “thugs” and “criminals,” or when you insist that they aren’t being truthful and that they’re just being inflamed by the “race baiters” and the evil media, ask yourself who you’re talking about. There is no real way to separate it into “now” and “then.” It’s the same complaint. It’s the same issue. And it’s being voiced by the same groups of people.
I am a middle-class, middle-aged white woman. I will never experience brutality by police for no other reason than that too many people in this country see me as a danger or a threat simply because of the color of my skin. The difference between those so resistant to the Black Lives Matter message and me is quite simple. It isn’t that I’m a liberal and most of them are conservatives. It isn’t that I’m brainwashed by social media and they’re not. It has nothing to do with my race or my income status or my experiences in life and how that compares to theirs. I have most or all of those things in common with every one of those commenters.
The difference is that I cannot reconcile the two statements in my question. I cannot tell myself that I am not racist, and that I have no racial biases, and still believe that the vast majority of people of color throughout history are liars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN61vqnjJbo
Featured image via Johnny Silvercloud available under a Creative Commons license
