The Uncomfortable Truths that #(Black/Blue/All)LivesMatter Need to Face

If you have taken a side in the Black lives/Blue lives/All lives Matter debate, then something in this article will probably upset you. That's good. Let it upset you, but keep reading. If we disengage  from debate as soon as someone says something that we disagree with, then we will never solve any problems. And that is what I want to do - bring us closer to being able to solve problems. 

Life and death is a serious matter, and people are rightfully passionate about it. Trying to save lives is a noble goal, and people should be dedicated to it. That is why emotions run high and tempers flare. The proble is that when people are too close to a problem and feelings run deep, they can have trouble logically working out the best solution. So I am going to try and help each group take a step back and look at what it wrong with their current approach.  Let's start with Blue Lives Matter.

Blue Lives Matter, Second.

Police are important. Police put theirs lives at risk every day that they go out to do their job. In a ten year span, over 1,500 officers have died as a result of their service (according to the NLEO Memorial Fund). They have died from drowning, electrocution, being hit by vehicles, being shot, and even being beaten and strangled to death.  But - and I don't say this lightly - that is part of the job.

We give cops a lot of authority. We give them guns to defend us and themselves. We give them the benefit of the doubt when they kill someone. We have given them the power to stop and question any person in this country. 

Let me repeat: Law enforcement can stop and question any person in this country. You may think that you have nothing to worry about if you are a law abiding citizen, but it is impossible to follow all of the laws all of the time.  Therefore, law enforcement can stop anyone they want, and there is nothing we can do about it.

CITIZEN: Why have you stopped me officer? I don't think I was speeding.

COP:         You are supposed to signal a turn 100 feet before turning, but you only signalled 98 feet before turning. [Pause] You seem agitated. I need you to step out of the car...

I am not saying that all cops are corrupt and abuse this power.  I just want to make it clear that law enforcement officers have tremendous power. They have the power to ruin people's lives. They have the power to end people's lives. We give them that power so that they can protect us.  And we need to be more careful about who we give that power to.

A police officer that has the duty to protect our lives, and in the course of fulfilling that duty, has the power to take other people's lives, should value other people's lives above their own.

Blue lives matter. But they should matter second to civilians. 

Most of the cops I know feel this way. They are willing to lay down their life for the people they have sworn to protect.  But I have met one that did not feel this way, and it scared me. And though they are a small percentage of the police force, they should scare all of us. They are attracted to the job for the glory and the authority. Not only do they value their own life more than the people they protect, they place the value of their authority over the value of human life. 

How did you feel when you learned that Deputy Scot Peterson stood outside Parkland High School for 25 minutes with his gun drawn but never entered to defend the unarmed children being slaughtered inside?  Were you okay with it because Blue Lives Matter, so he was right to put his own  life first?

Watch the video of Kenneth Harding bleeding on the ground for almost two minutes while at least four cops do nothing to help him as the puddle of blood grows larger on the cement. Do they show the concern for his life that you think a police officer should have? Combat medics have shown more care for an enemy's life than those officers showed to a man who was running away after not paying a $2 train fare.  (You can argue that his criminal past was just catching up with him, but even if he shot first, he is clearly incapacitated and dying, and the cops don't do anything to save him.)

Blue lives do matter. I understand that they have families and children, too. We should be grateful for the good men and women who place our safety above their own. We can't condone people attacking cops. We must not encourage slogans that lead people to ambush and murder cops. But we also can't use slogans that reinforce the image that all cops are good, and everyone they kill is bad. We can't use our gratitude to the police to excuse ourselves from investigating whether or not the cops in our community have our best interest at heart. We can't trumpet a hashtag that makes cops believe they are more important than civilians. 

We come first. No matter what color, gender or religion. Even if a person has made mistakes in their lives and committed crimes, their life is sacred and should not be taken from them lightly. That is the job. And we need officers that believe that their lives matter, but come second in priority to the citizens they protect.

All Lives Matter, But Not Enough for You to Do Something About It

Your turn, All Lives Matter. I have three videos that I want you to watch. They are graphic and heartbreaking. 

The first one is the killing of Tony Timpa. He was a 32 year old male that called 911 because he was afraid and needed help. He suffered from schizophrenia and depression, and he told the dispatcher he was off his meds. He called the polic for help.  They killed him. They cuffed his hands behind his back and knelt on him for almost 15 minutes, suffocating him to death. 

At 9 minutes he tells them he can't breath. At 10 minutes he pleads for help. At 11 minutes he doesn't have enough breath to form words anymore, and just grunts and moans while the officers joke and laugh. At 13 minutes, after Tony has drawn his last breath, the cops make fun of him for falling asleep. At 15 minutes they finally get off of him and complain about how they are going to get him onto the stretcher.  The video is 30 minutes long, but I ask you to watch the whole thing. It will change your life. 

This happened in Dallas in 2016. Tony was white. Where were the #AllLivesMatters protests demanding police accountability and reform? 

The second video is the shooting of  26 year old Daniel Shaver. He traveled for his work in pest control, and was showing a friend his pellet gun that he used for shooting pests in warehouses. Another guest at the hotel saw the gun through the window, and called the police. Armed police met Daniel in the hall as he exited his room with his friend. Daniel was unarmed, unthreatening, and the cop shot him as he was crying and pleading for his life.

Daniel was white. He left behind a wife and two daughters, 5 and 8 years old. Where were the #AllLivesMattters protests in Arizona in 2017?

According to this website, police killed over 1,000 unarmed people in the U.S. between 2013 and 2019. To put that in perspective, in 2013, 158 unarmed people were killed by police in the U.S. That same year, 120 U.S. soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. 

The police killed more unarmed Americans than the Taliban killed Americans, period.  Where were your All Lives Matters signs and social media posts in 2013?

Where was your outrage when Daniel Harris was shot while trying to use sign language to tell the cops that he couldn't hear them? He was unarmed. He was white. 

All lives matter, to be sure. But you should be thanking Black Lives Matter, not opposing them. You should thank them for being willing to take to the streets and put themselves at risk to do something about the horrifying number of people being killed by the police.  Their efforts to curb police shootings will benefit all lives, not just black lives. 

76% of the country is white. There are six times as many white Americans as black Americans. If All Lives Matter had taken to the street with the fervor that Black Lives Matter has, change could have been been brought about years ago. Hundreds of lives - important lives of every race - could have been saved.  You have no right to be offended by their signs. They have felt the same rage and despair that you felt as you watched the videos of Tony and Daniel, but instead of shaking their head and moving on with life, they went out to try and do something about it against overwhelming numbers of apathetic Americans.  

O ye hypocrites! You can get mad enough to criticize Black lives matter, but not mad enough to fight for the actual lives of the innocent people that need your help?

Black Lives Matter, too.

Pretend that you own your own business, and you have been working hard to grow it for the last several years.  One day, you hear that your biggest client thinks that you have cheated them. You know that you haven't cheated them.  In fact, because they are your best client, you have even given them some upgrades for free to show how much you appreciate their business. You are angry that they would accuse you of cheating after all you have done for them! You also know that if you lose this client, your company will be set back several years, and maybe even be forced to close.  Which of the following options do you think is the best course of action?

A.) Call your client and tell them that if they want to talk bad about you, they should come do it to your face. Let them know that you think they are cowards and liars, and tell them that if anyone cheated someone, they cheated you by not paying for the free services you provided them. Then get on social media and tell everyone how bad their company is, and how you will never trust them again, even if they do apologize.

B.) Call your client and explain that you are very sorry to hear that there has been a misunderstanding. Ask them why they feel cheated, and do your best to work with them to resolve the problem so that they feel like they should keep doing business with you. 

Obviously, the best choice for achieving your future goals is to communicate with - and most importantly - listen to the concerns of your client.  You need to be the more mature person and make sure they are happy with the solution. You need that client in order to achieve what you want, so you have to negotiate with what they want.

That is an important lesson. If someone holds the key to what you want, you need to listen to what they want. You can't negotiate without listening first.

This is an important lesson for the Black Lives Matter movement. Your cause is righteous, and your motives are sincere. I applaud you for your courage. But you are blinded by what you don't understand, and it is your greatest weakness. 

You are not going to want to hear what I am about to say, but it is the truth, and you need to hear it. 

You need to listen to the concerns of white people.

What? Listen to those privileged racists that call the cops on us when they see us jogging in their neighborhood? They are the problem! Why would I listen to them?

Here's why. If you want to make real change real fast, you need a large majority of the country to stand with you.  (Not just 51%. Hillary can tell you how useless 51% is.)  76% of the country is white.  You need most of them on your side.  Some of them are already on your side, but you need virtually ALL of them to stand to shoulder with you as you take up this fight.  And to get them on your side, you need to listen to them. Even if you think their problems and questions and complaints are stupid, you need to listen to them so that you can negotiate to resolve them.

And when I say listen to white people, I don't mean your liberal "woke" friends who are racked with guilt over slavery. I mean the white people holding "All Lives Matter" and "Blue Lives Matter" signs. They have things they care about, things they fear, and things they don't want to lose. A lot of them are fighting desperately to not slip off the edge of middle class and fall into poverty. Like all humans, they care about their own future more than the future of other people, and when they feel attacked, they go on the defensive. They are human, like you. Most of them are good, like you. Their reactions are normal human reactions if you understand where they are coming from

For instance, it is a normal human (and animal) response to quit doing something if you are not rewarded for doing it. Even worse is getting told you are wrong no matter how hard you try to be right. That makes most people just give up. If you treat a boy like a criminal no matter what he does, he will probably eventually give up and just become a criminal. What's the point point in trying to be good if everyone treats you like your bad, right?

That's how white people feel about being told that they are racist. Whether it is your intent or not, the message to white people is that they are racist, even if they think they are not racist, and no matter how hard they try, they will always be racist because they are white.

That is not how you win allies.

So white people feel attacked. And I know that the way they are being attacked might seem silly compared to the way black people are being attacked, but that is not the point. The point is that all humans get defensive when they feel attacked. If you want them on your side, you need to make them feel like you are not attacking, judging, or blaming them. And sometimes the littlest thing can totally change the perception.

I was talking to a white woman about Black Lives versus All Lives, and she said that she had no problem with people protesting police violence. In fact, she has thought for several years that the police are too trigger happy. She said that at first she was put off by the Black Lives Matter slogan, though she has come around to it after some careful consideration. However, she said one little word would have made her never question supporting it from the very beginning. If it had been called Black Lives Matter, Too. 

That's it. One word to make her feel like it was voices joing in, not a group trying to take over. It may seem small, but how much time has been lost debating Black v. All Lives Matter? A little time listening to people you need to join you can save you a lot of time in the future.

Have you tried listening to white people about their feelings on white privilege, removing statues, or  how they feel about being painted as racists? Or have you only argued with them? Boasted about how you hold the moral high ground? Told them their opinion isn't valid because they are white and they can't understand?

As a white person with a lot of white friends, I can tell you that most of white America should be on your side, wants to be on your side, and is only on the defensive because they feel attacked. Listen to them. Make them your friends. Invite them to join you in a common righteous cause, and you will have the majority you need to forever change the world.