All Lives Will Come to Matter But Only After We First Affirm In the Strongest Ways Possible That Black Lives Matter

This is our BLM sign in front of our Vancouver, WA home that is next to our community altar — For the Children, For Peace — that Ron built following Sandy Hook.

All Lives Will Come to Matter 

But Only After We First Affirm In the 

Strongest Ways Possible That 

Black Lives Matter

On April 20th my husband and I sat watching the TV as the verdict came in. Derek Chauvin found GUILTY on all three counts!! Tears! Thank God! BLACK LIVES MATTER!

And at the same time that I was flooded with relief, the deep grief that arose reminded me that this was but just a drop in the bucket. As the DA affirmed after the hearing, this was not actually justice. What this was is accountability. What needs to follow is reparations, deep systemic change, and the birthing and strengthening of a profoundly different and evolving level of consciousness, politics, policies, and practices. One that understands that accountability is just a step towards justice. Just a step.

It hasn't been all that long since I've been able to integrate and more deeply understand why it is that we need to refrain from saying "all lives matter" and instead affirm in every way possible that BLACK LIVES MATTER. 

I began to get this in my bones as I participated in Black Lives Matter rallies and protests. And again and again a Black man or woman would yell into a speaker: Whose lives matter?? And we would repeatedly and passionately respond: Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!!  

And I began to get it, I mean really get it that Black lives have never mattered. And my heart ached and broke open. It hurts to come to see with the eyes of our hearts. And I weep now with my ever growing empathic consciousness of the soul-crushing suffering of my Black brothers and sisters that has always, always, existed in America.

If we all were to deeply listen to the voices and experiences of Blacks in our country and come to understand the trauma and tragedy of 400 years of systemic racism and white supremacy, then we would come to understand something that I have only recently actually grasped — Black lives have never mattered in our country.

All lives will come to matter but only after we first affirm in the strongest ways possible that Black Lives Matter — through our politics and policies, through restoration and accountability, through economic and environmental justice, through radical policing and criminal justice reforms, and through totally transforming ourselves individually and collectively so that we are no longer blatantly or unknowingly complicit with the pervasive racism and white supremacy that permeates our country.

Those of us who are white need to listen to the voices and experiences of Black Americans and all who’ve been victims of racist violence and all forms of violence, oppression, dehumanization, and inequity. Until we listen and understand and become accountable and committed to standing with our Black sisters and brothers, the extreme trauma of systemic racism will persist.

 

Black Lives Matter!

— Molly 

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These are among many other excellent 

resources that I would recommend:

• Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons For Our Own by Eddie Glaude — https://www.amazon.com/Begin-Again-Baldwins-America-Lessons/dp/0525575324 and https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/18/begin-again-by-eddie-s-glaude-jr-review-the-us-through-james-baldwins-eyes
  
• How To Be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi — https://www.ibramxkendi.com/how-to-be-an-antiracist
  

• The documentary 13th — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8

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At a Black Lives Matter protest. My sign reads: Replace the Capitalist Globalization of Racism, Greed, and Violence With the Globalization of Generosity, Equality, Justice, Truth, Wisdom, Compassion, and Love.