Black Lives Matter is an activist grassroots movement that can be traced back to the July 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman in the Florida deadly shooting of African American teen Trayvon Martin. (To see photo of this writer protesting to demand that Zimmerman be put of trial, something that the establishment would have never done without the people protesting, visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/patjarrett/7012334129/#).
Recently, members of Black Lives Matter confronted several politicians seeking to be President with the demand that they address police brutality, specifically, the killing of black men and boys. They rebuked democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley who had said "Black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter." They maintain that saying "white lives matter, all lives matter," fails to acknowledge that black lives, not white lives, are often adjudged to be insignificant. O"Malley offered an apology, admitting that he had failed to give due credit to the dictum "Black Lives Matter"
On August 9, 2015, members of the Black Lives Matter Seattle Chapter took the stage and forced Independent Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders to the side at an event in Seattle and asked the gathering to join them in holding Bernie Sanders accountable for not during enough to address police brutality. Sanders acknowledged that more need to be done to eliminate racial discrimination.
On August 11, 2015, five members of the Black Lives Matter Movement who weren't allowed into a New Hampshire campaign event for Hillary Clinton got a one-on-one with Hillary Clinton and grilled her on mass incarceration and police brutality. Clinton said she was working hard to change what she called "the country"s original sin." She asked the activists to explain policy changes they wanted to see.
Donald Trump criticized Bernie Sanders for giving his microphone to Black Lives Matter activists and said that would never happen to him. During a campaign event in Michigan, referencing the activists' intrusive action he said, "I don't know if 'll do the figfhting myself or other people will." It seems that he is asking for a fight. Black activist Don Solo response, a tweet: "Trump just called us out let's make sure we take his fuckiing mic!!! Republicans are the real enemies." I don't think we have seen or heard the last of Black Lives Matter v. Donald Trump. Both parties seem to be bold enough to demonstrate, "Come hell or high water we will be heard! - and have our way."
This writer implore members of Black Lives Matter to NOT allow their name to be weakened or dismissed by adding "whIte lives" and "all lives" to their pursuit. And not let happen to "Black Lives Matter" what happened to Blacks when they were designated by the "powers that be" as "minorities" Only Blacks were enslaved and subjected to legal segregation and lynching. Their fight for freedom and equality has been a struggle that no other ethnic group or race has experienced in America. They didn't come from Africa to North America on the Mayflower. They came while schakled on slave ships. Their slave labor made America wealthy, including the Ivy League universities, Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
White lives have always mattered in America, even doing slavery and the 100 years that followed slavery when the Ku Klux Klan, emboldened by the U.S. Supreme Court's 1896 "Plessy v. Ferguson" decision that declared "separate but equal" to be constitutional.
To take the position that "black lives matter, white lives matter, all lives matter," as O'Malley originally stated, is like calling Blacks "minorities" and having in that classification, poor whites, Latinos, white women, disabled people, homosexuals and lesbians who are not saddled with a 244 years of slavery and a 100 years of legal segregation legacy. Designating Blacks as minorities has benefited non-blacks more than blacks and at the expense of blacks.
That is what will happen if Blacks fail to acknowledge "Black Lives Matter" singularly. Even worse, black lives will be considered to be protected and respected the same as the lives of non-black minorities which is not true in practice or in reality. Furthermore, to say, "the unemployed need jobs" does not require saying "the employed need jobs" who already have jobs and are often required by their employers to do overwork or overtime.
This writer who helped to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott, more than three score years ago following the arrest of Rosa Parks who refused to give her bus seat to a white person, salute members of the Black Lives Matter movement, those who will become members and those who will support the movement. I say to you, "Stand your ground." Some changes can only be achieved with direct, or what I refer to as, "up-in-your-face" action.
O Brothers and Sisters Wake Up Now
Oh brothers and sisters wakeup now,
and help save our dying race;
We are losing too many every day
who have a right to live;
Often they are young, too young to die.
Chorus
Help save our dear brothers' precious lives;
Help save our dear sisters' precious lives.
The guns, drugs and prisons are killers
of our people young and old;
We are victims everywhere we go
and it's because we're black.
We are the last hired and the first fired.
Oh brothers and sisters unite now,
and become race warriors;
We must fight if we would win; this is our fight.
and that's always been true .
O yes this maybe the final call.
Copyright 2015 by Uriah J. Fields.
Follow me on Facebook and Twitter
When a deputy sheriff was gunned down here in Houston two weeks ago there was a great emotional outpouring and the whole country seemed to mourn for one average individual caught in the rage of a disenfranchised Black man. During the great ceremonies that followed, I believe it was the sheriff that boldly stated that, "All lives matter," to great applause and media coverage. It struck me the same way it strikes you. What about all the average Black men that are caught up in the law enforcement judiciary system for minor offenses and then often beaten and brutalized or killed without any public acknowledgment at all?
Having been stopped by police and profiled for "driving with Black friends," at least five times, and see what has happened to a good friend who has had to suffer two long prison sentences and difficulty getting jobs and employment over crimes that were merely self-defense, shows me that there is a bias against people with dark skin. There is an article in the latest Stanford magazine where a researcher has proven that such a bias strongly exists.
You look great in the picture and your sign says it all. George Zimmerman has gone on to commit more crimes and shown what kind of person he really is.
Ron