Blog #4: Don't Be Afraid, Black Lives Matter

Don't Be Afraid, Black Lives Matter

MGK

July 30 2020

Black Lives Matter, as a statement and as an organization, has gained both resonance and support across the country in recent weeks as yet more instances of unjustified killing and harassment of black people have come to the attention of the entire country.  This is shown in public polls and is happening in tandem with an increase in the percentage of Americans who believe racism is a serious problem.  Yet still many whites ask something along the lines of “why do they say black lives matter, don’t all lives matter?”  What is causing this question, and why do so many white people ask it?

At one level it seems fairly easy to deconstruct the statement that “black lives matter.”  It is simply a statement that is meant to respond to overwhelming evidence that black lives matter less than other lives in this country.  It says nothing about other lives, and clearly does not imply that lives other than black lives don’t matter.  It is a statement of sadness, frustration and anguish, a simple and eloquent request that the mistreatment of black people stop.  It isn’t a negative statement, it isn’t confrontive in a conflictual way, and at some level it is both a statement intended to empower and also a cry for help.  Yet many whites, and probably some others who are not black, feel that it is some sort of threatening statement against people who aren’t black.

What is the sticking point?  Why do so many of us whites have an immediate defensive reaction to that statement?  My husband and I were discussing this the other night, after a conversation he had with another white person who raised the “’don’t all lives matter” question.  He was able to talk that individual through the question to see what is really meant by “black lives matter”, and it was a productive dialogue, but in the course of that conversation he had a sense that the barrier to understanding was fear.  I agree.  For us as whites to fully take in what is meant and implied by “black lives matter” we have to confront some difficult realities:  being white includes privileges that we haven’t earned, and we might be complicit in maintaining those privileges.  That is a discomforting thought because many of us have an image of ourselves as fair, as believers in meritocracy, and as having earned whatever we’ve achieved due primarily to our own individual efforts.  That discomfort can be scary.

When we are confronted so clearly with evidence of unearned privilege it creates an internal conflict:  how can I be a good and moral person and at the same time be on the receiving end of unearned privileges?   Two conflicting perspectives create what a psychologist might call “cognitive dissonance.”  Cognitive dissonance can create fear and we try to avoid fear.  In order to avoid fear, we have to avoid thinking too deeply so we defend ourselves and turn a plea for help from another into an attack on ourselves.  Sometimes we push past the cognitive dissonance by not engaging it or making it about somebody else.  In other words, we project our fear onto other people.  These two reactions describe in in a nutshell the race dynamics in this country over the past 150 years.  We will never get “past” racism if we can’t engage it honestly in the present moment as it is occurring.

If you are white, and you want to reduce racism, start by asking yourself what it really means to be white, something we whites rarely think about.  Ask yourself why we know so little about the daily experiences of black people.  Ask yourself how, despite any other issues related to your gender, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, and other differences, your whiteness has given you privileges large and small.  Ask yourself how those privileges make you feel, in the context of the values you hold and who you aspire to be.  Then, stop undermining honest and hard conversations about racism.  Stop turning a call for justice – BLACK LIVES MATTER – into an attack.  If you are a well-intended white person who has thought seriously about issues of race, quit projecting your fears in a self-righteous way onto other whites who haven’t done that reflection; if fact start talking to them.  Start acting like black lives matter.