Black Lives Matter; "All lives Matter", "Police (blue) lives Matter". The latter became the response, usually shouted back at those supporting the BLM movement.
How does responding to the "Black Lives Matter" activism with "all lives matter" or "Police lives Matter" and even the photo of the police officer walking up in the mirror of a car that says "his life matters" create a hostile response?
The Black Lives Matter" movement was started in 2012 after a man shot and killed an unarmed black teenager and was acquitted due to Florida's "Stand you Ground" law. Stand your ground, apparently even in a public place that you both have an equal right to be in. The man that did the shooting, George Zimmerman,
was a part of the local police's neighborhood watch group. (see link for more details). He since went on to be the subject of more criminal behavior--but who could have guessed that would happen(🙄🙄🙄)
After the acquittal, Alicia Garza is credited as having inspired the slogan when she posted on Facebook: "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter, Black Lives Matter."
I can hear the tone of what she wrote. It is not a tone that says "we matter more", but one that says,"what happened was not ok, it is not ok to kill us, we are people too and our lives are as important as everyone else's."
When the "Black Lives Matter" activists started appearing at the places in which black people were killed or maimed for reasons that few nonblack persons would find believable and no rich, white person would face, protesters began the "all lives matter" slogan. It was a response to the original cause; a way of saying "hey, we all matter, you have nothing to complain about." It probably made the nonblack people shouting think they were being colorblind, when, in fact, it proved they were merely blind to institutional racism.
If you have never been stopped for being in a car because you look too ethnic for the neighborhood or been treated with disrespect because the person that pulled you over feels that they can talk to you like you did something horrible--drugs, alcohol, shot someone--but the pull over was for forgetting to put the sticker on you license tag; if you have never had to warn you teenage children to not do anything in their car that might get them beat in the head or thrown to the ground, then you really don't have a clue what it means to be black person in a country that is pseudo-colorblind.
But the third protest cry--" Police Lives Matter". That is pure denial. The NYPD officers that started selling the t-shirts that say that said it was in response to growing lack of respect for police and "people don't appreciate us the way they should"
My response to that is:
1. Respect is earned by individuals not given to a group because of their membership in that group. You have a career. If you act in a professional manner, people will show you respect. If you act like your uniform entitles you to cuss people out, hit them, shove them, belittle them and treat them as lesser creatures than yourself, you deserve NO respect.
2. Appreciation is also earned. We agree to work for money and benefits. If you want appreciation in addition to that, do appreciably more than the job calls for. We all have jobs. "Should" is a word used by truculent tweens.
Lets look at statistics.
Using the FBI reporting, between 1980 and 2014 the average number of felonious Police Officer deaths was 64 per year. This was for the 50 states plus the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
In 2003 the number of deaths was 52.
In 2008 it was 41.
In 2011 it was 72. (the only year in the recent that was above the average.
In 2012, after the beginning of "Black Lives Matters", there were 48 Felonious Officer deaths--44 by gun, 2 by vehicle and 1 with bare hands/feet, and 1 with a knife.
That is national over a year. We have lost 100,000 in three months to a virus in 2020)
In 2013 there were 27 felonious Officer Deaths, (new group--7 by ambush--no warning) 26 with guns, 1 by vehicle, (25 of the killers are already arrested or dead).
In 2014 there were 51 felonious Officer Deaths, (8 by ambush) 46 by gun, 4 by vehicle, 1 by bare hands, (All killers already arrested or dead)
The 2015 numbers from the FBI are not yet available, but if you search for the 2015 Officer deaths, you will pull up a string of media sites discussing recent years of spiking officer deaths. (We have not seen a year over the average since 2011). In 2018, there were 53 shot and 2 beaten to death, so the number have not grown in the last few years.
The FBI did not put any statistics about the killers so it is unknown what their race, age, culture, or even sex was.
It is harder to track the killing of unarmed black men, unarmed men, or unarmed people of any kind.
There is no government function that tracks the excessive use of force by local police. Since BLM began, they have been seeking a national tracking of this but for some reason, probably the same reason the CDC is not allowed to study gun violence, it is not allowed.
Most of us didn't know we weren't tracking police caused deaths until the death of Michael Brown.
If you do an internet search, you will find this:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicholasquah/heres-a-timeline-of-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-over#.kvlPGE4d3
http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/young-black-men-killed-us-police-highest-rate-year-1134-deaths
http://www.mintpressnews.com/776-people-killed-by-police-so-far-in-2015-161-of-them-unarmed/209127/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootin
http://gawker.com/unarmed-people-of-color-killed-by-police-1999-2014-1666672349
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/local-news/20150808-cases-of-24-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-this-year.ece
There are many more articles available now.
In my own county, an unarmed man was killed on video by a favored (read wealthy and contributing) volunteer to the sheriffs department. The petitions that were passed around and signed by enough people to lead us to a sheriffs election this year, were carried by people of all backgrounds, races, and ethnicities. The Sheriff was replaced and the volunteer was found guilty of manslaughter and received a sentence of 4 years. He would be out by now.
That same year, 2016, a Tulsa police officer shot an unarmed black man, it was captured by helicopter, with sound, the video is still to be found, but when it first happened, the one that went out made it obvious she was in no danger. She was fired, acquitted, and promptly got a job with a police department 20 miles away---training their officers.
So what is my point? Here are a couple of stories about police shootings.
If you dig around in these stories, you find things like--
"Officer and his father and cousin shot when at a private residence, 3 people tried to steal a motorcycle and the police family started shooting, off-duty--over a motorcycle--over a motorcycle. If a nonpolice victim and had done the same, they would have spent months trying to figure out who of the 6 involved in the shoot-out should be charged.
Black officer in plainclothes chasing hispanic suspect shot at 6 times---wait for it--by white office in squad car that passed the chase and made assumptions. Lucky for Mr White Officer, he was cleared and is now a sergeant.
Officer C. Kondek, in Florida, shot and then run over by Marco Antonio Parilla, an hispanic 23 year old, out on probation for drugs and leaving the site of a crash, someone called in a loud music complaint, he was afraid of a probation infraction, scared of jail, so he shot the officer then ran him over--so the prison he was so afraid of is now to be the rest of his life. 2 lives ruined--not counting the families that have to figure out how to put all that into their memory banks without being rather crazy at the end.
But don't misread me.
None of the officers deserved to die.
Not one person has celebrated the death of any officer. (short of one song from 1992--and when you listen to the lyrics, you realize it was the angry rantings of people that had been mistreated by the LAPD when the LAPD was at its most over the top. (Rodney King) That was it. )
No one is currently saying anyone should do anything to police officers.
The number of Officer deaths is not up.
And no one has ever been shot by an unarmed black man.
So, yes, all lives matter, but for a lot of people, that is not an expression of a new idea.
The next time you hear "black lives matter", just join them, say it back, chant it with them.
or just be quiet.
Now, a little rap about it all.
https://www.facebook.com/NickCannon/videos/249657193124575/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDE3MDA0Mjg3NjozNTY2Nzg4MzUzMzM2Nzk4/
http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/
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