I’ve been trying to find the words to describe how I feel about the events of late, and struggling with what I want to say. I mean, I found SOME words. These words are, BLACK LIVES MATTER. Here’s some other words: SYSTEMIC RACISM NEEDS TO END. Until white people are being gunned down in the streets or are victims of police brutality at the same rate as Black people, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS “ALL LIVES MATTER” BULLSHIT, KAREN. I DO NOT WANT to fucking hear it.
What matters right now are BLACK LIVES. Hear that. Understand it. If you don’t know what that means, then educate yourself. If you can watch George Floyd being murdered on television and not feel outrage, it is YOU with a fucking problem. And I personally am angry about it. Really angry. Beyond angry; I’m furious and outraged. I don’t even know what to call this level of anger.
You know Meredith is mad when she doesn’t censor herself in her blog. For anyone who is hoping that I’ll stay out of the fray since generally I’m a light fluffy scrambled egg of a blog, then click the little “x” in upper right corner of your screen, because I have something to say about the events occurring recently. I keep hearing that that there is no wrong thing to say, and that silence = being complicit. Therefore, I can’t be silent. Not today. And it’s not just because the Black community has been kinder to me than white folks most of my life. Indeed they have; I’m grateful.
2Pac made sure I “kept my head up,” after I escaped an abusive marriage. 50 Cent inspired me to go to college and finish my degree. When I was a kid, the Black kids were friendly to me and accepted me when the white kids bullied me because I’m different. The first Thanksgiving after my divorce when it was just me and my mom and I was still healing from being choked out from my piece of shit drunk of an ex, the #BlackThanksgiving hashtag on Twitter kept me from thinking about the abuse and I could laugh instead of cry for the first time in months. So maybe I’m taking this a bit more personally than most white folks.
But all that said, THIS SHOULD BE PERSONAL TO YOU ANYWAY. Black people are being MURDERED by police for the same crimes that a white, privileged person gets a slap on the wrist for (if even that). Do YOU think that’s okay? If you do, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. Personally, I wasn’t raised like that. When I was small, I went to a diverse school in Los Angeles where Black History month was actually celebrated instead of given lip service like it is in some cities.
I remember learning about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had a Dream, once, of a nation where we could “look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” That was in NINETEEN SIXTY THREE AND yet systemic racism is worse than EVER. We haven’t progressed as a nation. We have REGRESSED. I find it BEYOND SHOCKING there are still people in this country in this very day that do exactly that: judge people by the color of their skin…
…and find them lacking.
Why? What gives a white person the RIGHT to feel superior to a Black person or any other non-Black person of color? How DARE you, racists! Yes, I am speaking DIRECTLY TO YOU, Mr. or Miss or Mrs. “White is Right” (a nauseating phrase if I ever heard one.) What is WRONG with you? (Well, I know what’s wrong with you, you’re a goddamned racist.) How can you see someone like George Floyd (SAY HIS NAME) get murdered on national television and dismiss it without a second thought?
Or worse yet, act like judge and jury and say stuff like, “well, he probably provoked the police” or “well he probably did it.” How do YOU know? INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, MOTHERFUCKER. Or have you forgotten that in your ignorance? Worse yet, how can you claim to be a “good christian” and “follow Jesus” and yet you judge a Black man or woman without knowing all the details of what they did, just because they are Black? Or even judge them on the street without knowing a single detail of their lives? All this said, how can ANYONE then condemn those rioting in the streets because Black people are tired of living in fear and have simply had enough?
As Dr. King said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.”
Do you see a Black person in a nice car and automatically think, “drug dealer”? if so, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM. I saw on a Twitter “call to action” today of a screenshot where some college girl openly admitted she didn’t like Black people until they gave her a reason to like them. I find that beyond vile and beyond shocking that there are still people that think like this. Because they have been TAUGHT to think like this.
What’s worse is she’s not the only one. Racism is taught, folks. We need to teach our kids that just because someone looks different from us, it isn’t a reason to hate them or find them inferior. It’s really not that difficult. Get to know someone before you decide if you like them or hate them or are indifferent about them, REGARDLESS of skin color.
All THAT said, I would like to say here, now and ALWAYS that I STAND with the Black community. I FULLY SUPPORT the Black Lives Matter movement. NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE. I SUPPORT the protesters that are out there risking their lives to show their support for Black lives. If I didn’t have a 77 year old mama living with me who’s life I CAN’T risk, I would be out there marching with you, mask on face and sign in hand. And I hope nothing I’ve written in this blog comes across incorrectly; I’m neurodiverse and sometimes what I want to say and what actually comes out are two different things.
In closing, I have some final thoughts that I’d like to leave you with. Tupac Shakur said in his song “Changes” that “we need to change the way we EAT, the way we live,” and what I feel is MOST important, “the way we TREAT each other.” And he was right. We DO need to change the way we treat each other. And that change can begin by treating folks like human beings that all bleed the same color blood, REGARDLESS OF SKIN COLOR.
Change begins with EDUCATING people about anti-racism and having the uncomfortable conversations. We’re already starting to have the uncomfortable conversations, which is good. More change can come about when folks are truly educated on the idea of “innocent until proven guilty” REGARDLESS OF COLOR. Change can be made when the police in America are trained to revert to their original motto which is “to protect and to serve” rather than what SHOULD be painted on the sides of police cars, in the words of Chris Bunyan: “to oppress and instill fear.”
Until REAL steps are taken to dismantle systemic racism, and there is REAL justice for the murders of Black men like George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, and Black women like Breonna Taylor and Sandra Bland as well as countless others who have been wrongly arrested, jailed, hurt or murdered at the hands of a racist enforcer of law or a white supremacist, there will be no peace, or change, in this country. Nor should there be.
BLACK LIVES MATTER.
Thanks for reading,
Meredith Silverman