When did this moment become an appropriate time to form assumptions of each other such as: if you are for the cause Black Lives Matter and want equality then you must also condone the destruction of small businesses, attacking business owners, and verbally/physically attacking all police officers?
All lives actually mattering is something we can only prove is a truth when we provide equal protection of all lives. And yes that means protecting our businesses and businesses owners when a riot takes place. It’s the protection of innocent life and what those lives build that coveys life’s worth and the protection of all should be happening. It doesn’t matter to me who starts an action that is started to harm innocent people. All people should be protected but that is the main issue here. All people have not been protected equally for a long time.
I haven’t spoken to one person who acted violent or thinks they have the right to loot/burn/beat down an innocent small business and business owner physically as a response to feeling that this country’s overdue responsibility to bring about equality has reached a boiling point. I have not heard that rational at all in my conversations.
I have unfortunately spoken to people who think the cause for equality is less important now that some protests have turned into riots.
If all you have to say to the CAUSE and the reason behind the protesting is that you can’t get behind the principle of it any longer because of the destruction that broke off parallel to the now almost 70 year old constructive tone the civil rights movement has carried- Its like the other side saying they can’t get behind ANY further laws or ANY policemen because of what some of those individuals have caused. But the other side isn’t saying that. The other side is saying let’s make changes the right way through voting, vetting, and exercising the rights we all have as citizens to enact appropriate change. It is a tone of pro-work, pro-follow the rules, do it the right way with a real plan and get real things done. We have to stop jumping to extremes when we make assumptions about what whole groups of people actually want.
The anger may be there from the weight of the oppression endured by inequality but it isn’t being displayed violently by the majority for the cause and it has never been the virtue of the cause for equality to get irrationally violent. For references on the virtues of the cause behind the Black Lives Matter movement google anything ever written or said by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Are you actually against this movement or are you against people having their businesses destroyed? If it is the latter and that means you care less now about equality because you lumped everyone into the “rioter” basket- you are as morally compromised as the rioters destroying innocent businesses. It also means in 7 days you have taken up a new extremely assumptive perspective and dismissed a cause that has been predominantly peaceful for decades when compared to the other “causes” we have undertaken as Americans.
Those of us who want to see the world become a safer place for everyone are already thinking what comes next? What comes after the protests end? Because that’s when the hard work begins. Anyone with a “what do we do next to fix this” mindset is focused on building and cultural creation and not on condoning further brutality and destruction.
Anger and finger pointing about rioting being wrong is loud enough for us all to hear and it deflects momentarily for some who probably don’t spend too much time contemplating the reason people are protesting in the first place.
People wanted to be heard and they should be heard because for most human beings when they feel unheard for a long time the very thing they need is to be HEARD and ACKNOWLEDGED. When we feel validated for feeling upset we tend to feel less inclined to act out physically. There is fulfillment and hope when we acknowledge someone else’s reality as real. But for those of you who can’t see WHY behind everything that is going on and can only see the WHAT (and mostly what has always been filtered for what we are shown) is going on, you are just isolating one part of a very complex issue and weaponizing small parts of a giant greater good to gaslight a reason for keeping things the way they have always been.
But I really don’t think the played out smoke and mirrors tactics will stop the right things from happening this time. Why? Because enough of us with the power to see a change through finally care to the extent that there is no fear holding us back and we are not threatened by equality.
When you no longer have fear then you are actually free.
Free to live and free to fight for the rights of others to live like you do.
No fear= Freedom
So since some still live in fear daily we don’t share and equal experience of “freedom” still in this free country.
How can anyone dismiss people living in daily fear in this country as the most important issue to correct and focus on in all of this?
When everyone is equally protected we can resume saying all lives matter because then it will be true. Right now we seem to be arguing about what lives matter more and it’s not the right argument to have.
Bringing a group up to equality doesn’t mean bringing another down to equalize. It just means the focus is on bringing up the group that is not being treated and protected the same as everyone else.
CDM Think Tank LLC 