It the second week of July, year 2016. This week, America saw two shootings resulting from police and civilian interactions that just really went south in a dramatic way. To add chaos to turmoil, we saw another deadly shooting involving police and civilians. That is three shooting incidences that have occurred in a three day span. This has been an emotional week. Amid the chants of “black lives matter”, instead of the response of “black lives matter”, we hear Caller: “Black Lives Matter!!” – Respondents: “But ALL Lives Matter!!!”. Then pause, a fight breaks out and now no one is listening to each other.
The first incident happened on Tuesday, July 5, 2016. The story goes a little something like this: Allegedly – A black man was selling CDs in front of a convenient store. Reportedly, he is always selling CDs or something. He is the modern day hustle man some have stated. His name was Alton Sterling, 37. There was a 911 call made. The caller stated, “Someone is out here threatening us with a gun.” The police arrive to the scene. What happened between then and the point that video footage was done is a matter of investigation at this point. The American public comes in at a frame of Sterling being tackled, much like you would see a Quarterback being sacked. There was a wrestle on the ground, two cops and Sterling. The two videos that are publicly available now show two different angles of what appears to be Sterling on the ground struggling with the officers. What I can say from my observation is that it would appear that Sterling’s hands were constrained by one cop on his left and the other cop on his right. You then hear one of the cops holler, “he has a gun”. We cannot deduced if he hollered this because he saw the gun or because he was informed prior that the suspect had a gun. That is for the investigators to decide. What we do know is that shortly afterwards, bang bang; you could hear two or three shots. Then there were four more shots being fired into what I saw was a man that was not attempting to get up off the ground. The video ended.
The second incident happened on Wednesday July 6, 2016. Phillandro Castille was traveling in his vehicle with his fiance’ and their daughter. Castille and his family were pulled over for an alleged broken tail light. We do not know what ensued from the time they were pulled over until the moment the video began because we have video footage only after the shots were fired. What we do know is that Castille was shot four times in his arm and/or side. He later died at a local hospital. It is something you only expect to see in a movie like Menace II Society.
The third incident, several police officers who were doing their duty to serve and protect were gunned down resulting in 5 officers loosing their lives. Thank goodness the American public did not get to see such gory details of their deaths but we did get some sound bites and a few silhouettes of officers laying lifeless on the ground. A guy decided he wanted to take the law into his own hands and bring about what he felt was retribution on innocent cops all because of the actions of two bad apples and an ill trained cop. I will explain why I described the three cops from Tuesday and Wednesday shooting in that manner later.
Fifty-three years after Dr Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech on the Washington Mall, we still are struggling with a major racial divide. So major in fact that whites who have black friends and vice versa are tipping around each other trying to be extra careful not to be offensive. They are being extra nice to each other because of the elephant in the room. I feel this is a sign that there needs to be a real discussion about race relations in this country. Black people and white people have to learn to trust each other. The truth is, we do not trust each other as a whole. What I mean is while a black person may have white friends that they love and trust they still have trust issues with ‘white culture’. I believe that perhaps black people who did not grow up around many white people feel that white culture as a whole is oppressive for them and that there is no equality from being black to being white. However, this perception has good reason for being there with slavery and Jim Crow, etc. There is a vice to this because likewise, White people have black friends to whom they love and trust but they do not trust black culture much. This only means that there are misconceptions that each side has with the other that further creates this racial divide which is ironic. This is ironic because the basis of these misconceptions are true. Black people have experience an insurmountable amount of prejudices and inequality. This inequality has resulted in large percentage of black people being a product of the ghetto where crime is high. With the limited access to a quality education, this creates a breeding ground for degradation in all forms. Therefore, if some White people are fearful of Black people, they got this fear from the reality of the fruits of black inequality which is perpetuated by white supremacy. Understand that I am speaking on the nature of the racial divide and not about the reality that there are inequalities between the races in America. In order to fix the inequality we have to fix the roots of the racial divide. Those roots feed our perceptions of each other which then feeds the system that creates the inequalities.
Although white blood and black blood is the same color and our body’s main organs function the same, black culture and white culture are fundamentally different. They just are. This is one of the reason why it is so hard to close the racial divide. Blacks are suspicious of what we call “white” culture so much that when a black person speaks very well, the black culture criticizes it. We call it “talking white” as if white has a dialect. Here is an observation, the racial divide is so prevalent that it is not only perpetuated by White people, but it is perpetuated by Black people as well. We both are guilty of giving the racial divide strength. We attribute pointless characteristics such as how a person eats or speaks towards being “white” or “black”. What that does is cause us to be divided. When in actuality, Black culture is shaped by our roots to the Mandingo people of Africa AND 400 years of slavery. It is true. The reason we frown up at a black person who speaks well is because for so long we were taught enough English to only understand what ‘Masta’ order us to do. We were never taught to speak the language well. Therefore, it has become ingrained in our culture to speak a certain way, to behave a certain way and to eat a certain way and whenever you deviate from that, now you have somehow lost your blackness. My point is this: we are the reason for the racial divide. It is not just White people, it is not just Black people, it is all of us not being willing to accept that nobody has a one up on language or dancing or how we have church. Until we can fix these small foxes, the vines will forever be spoiled. White people should not view every Black person that they do not personally know who dresses according to their culture as a thug or less than intelligent. Just like a Black person should not be resistant to things they feel deviate from blackness. We have to be honest with ourselves that this whole black vs white thing in modern society is partly fueled by both sides. Keep in mind again, I’m only speaking on the racial divide and not racial inequality.
I must be honest; I felt concerned when Alton Sterlin was killed. But I was not enraged. I do fell he was killed unjustly. I feel the cops involved should be punished. I feel they acted out of their perspective of him as a black man with gold teeth. They saw him as dangerous because he fit the “perspective” but I was not enraged. Perhaps I was not enraged because this has happened so many times that it has become numbing. However, when I saw the video of Castille the next day. I was enraged to tears. I was hurt by it. It was horrible. What I saw in that aftermath of the video is a black guy who was bleeding out and he was dying on camera while a cop had a gun still pointed at him. To me that says that he was scared. I could hear the regret in his voice and he hollered “I told him not to reach” or something like that. He sounded like he too was crying. That let me think that he did not mean to shoot him but he did so out of fear and a preconceived prejudice that all black men not in a business suit must be dangerous. We must speak to this fear. This goes back to what I have already stated. There is a fear that each race has against the other and that fear perpetuates this perspective that each race has against the other. To explain what I mentioned earlier, I believe the cop who killed Castille was simply ill-trained and he let his fear take control of the situation. I believe the cops that were involved with the murder of Sterling had a preconception of Sterling’s “type” and this was the driving factor on how they chose to engage Sterling. There was a better way.
When I study scripture, it says we should do things in “fear” of the lord. That word fear means to understand. When you fear something, you react to it based on what you know or understand about it. Do know that understanding does not necessary mean that what you understand is true. It just means that your mind has come to an agreement about information and your perspective is now set based on that agreed upon knowledge. So here goes, if a white person fears black men that do not dress up in a suit and tie, it is because somewhere in life was an understanding placed in him or her that created a response. For example, If I fear a pit-bull, it is only because knowledge has taught me to fear it. That does not mean all pit-bulls should be feared. I fear a hot iron because knowledge has taught me to fear it. However, if I was never told that a hot iron would burn, I would never have a reason to believe that it could hurt me. Some White people view Black people like a hot iron that is unplugged. They do not know that it is not hot but because conditioning has taught them that an iron is supposed to be hot they approach with care whether they know if it has been plugged in or not. How many times have you tested an iron by tapping your hand flat against it? This is my attempt to explain why cops shoot first and think second. They do not want to get burned because they think the iron is hot. But there are other ways to discover if an iron is hot without burning yourself, just like there are other ways to arrest a suspect without killing him. I think it all goes back to perspective. What do the cops believe before they even engage that causes all of their training to go out the window?
Black lives matter because All lives matter. All lives include white lives. So if white lives matter then black lives matter too. Black lives should be treated with the same care and caution that white lives are treated as and there should be statistics to reflect that. To say that black lives matter is not also saying that other lives do not matter; it is highlighting that if all lives matter, then why are black lives being mishandled? If all lives matter, then why are black lives feared? There is a consensus out there that believes that black people only want to live off the government, smoke weed, play hip hop music and be disrespectful to society. The word consensus means a general agreement. But that does not mean that all agree. It just means that a lot of people agree. The truth is, a lot of White people do agree that Blacks and Hispanics symbolize the degradation of society and a lot of Blacks and Hispanics believe that white people are manipulators and racist with a superiority complex. That is a consensus as well. It is not how all believe though. The problem is that we let the consensus of a select few on both sides set the tone for how we react to situations such as these. Just because I believe these two black men had their life unjustly taken from them does not mean that I agree that payback was carried out with cops being assassinated in Dallas TX. That was a cowardly act and their lives mattered because Black lives matter. It is this perception that one race has against the other that fuels this trust issue. So much in fact that some do not trust the Black Lives Matter movement because they see it as a war against other lives. It is not however. It further proves my point when white people who believe that Black Lives Matter is a racist klan-like group. They only believe this based on their perspectives and the consensus of a few. Not all who support Black Lives Matter believe that cops should die. I will not be foolish to say that some black people fall in that group. I am sure just like there are some blatantly racist White people, there are some blatantly racist and bigoted Black people.
What happened to the brave men and women of Dallas police force was not a Black Lives Matter movement. It was the result of a few bad apples. If you do not believe that this is the case, then be prepared to give your allegiance with the Ku Klux Klan. You cannot say that you refuse to separate good black people from bad black people but then want to separate good white people from bad white people. It is not right to label a whole race due to the actions of a few just like it is not right to not acknowledge that all parties in “All Lives Matter” deserve to have their lives treated with concern and care but yet one group in that “ALL” is not getting that benefit. When that happens, then that one group has to get special attention or else “All Lives Matter” becomes a lie. So, in order for All Lives to truly Matter, then we must address the issues that suggest that Black Lives do not Matter as much.
We have to come together as a people and do this the right way. White people have to tell their fellow white people when they are wrong for upholding racist ideals and misconceptions and judgments about black people because you cannot really say all lives matter as a response to black lives matter when black lives matter BECAUSE all lives matter. Likewise, we Black people have to stop separating ourselves from white people in a way that continues the racial divide. There is nothing wrong with speaking well. There is nothing wrong with becoming educated. You are not an uncle tom if you do not agree with everything the black movement cosigns. Whatever happened to us being uniquely and wonderfully made? I cannot say I hate white people when I have white blood. My great great great grandfather was half white or white. I am not sure which. I have half white nieces which means I have a white sister in law. Why is it that a person’s whiteness or blackness is never thought of when they are your family or your boss? It is because White lives and Black lives matter because ALL lives matter. The ALL is broken when one part of it is not a part of the whole. If Black lives are being mistreated then the treatment of ALL lives is at risk. We are more linked together than we are separated.
Let us learn to find the commonalities that we all share. The Bible teaches us to meditate on whatever is good. It is good for people to dwell together in unity. It is not the desire of God for us to be so divided. Remember, it is the small foxes that ruin the vine. We both have responsibility in how our attitudes are concerning the other races. It is wrong to mark a whole race based on the behavior of a few in that race.