Black Lives, Do Indeed, Matter

I wrote one year ago, "It's SO scary being a white person these days!" During "KneeGate" that "marred" the 2017 NFL Season, I wrote in White Angst - Black Protest, "The failure here is of white people to empathize and to understand." And we're still, by and large, FAILING!

We don't WANT to understand.
We REFUSE to walk an inch, let alone a mile, in anyone else's shoes.
This is AMERICA, by God!
(built on the backs of slaves, mind you)

In the ramp up to the 2016 election, I wrote, "white privilege breeds fear and it has ever since the end of slavery." And we're seeing that play out on television and the Internet today. White (older) America still can't understand what has all these young people--black, white and brown--so riled up. It's made them fearful and they are lashing out.

Just yesterday, I got called a racist on a friend's Facebook page. BTW, you can't be a racist against white people. They invented the word. And I'm white!

The 'baby boomers' are, by and large, digging into their trenches and foxholes. They see now this is going to be a prolonged war. It's long overdue.

MLK, Jr., said 52 years ago, "This may well be mankind's last chance to choose between chaos and community." I think that ship has sailed. The minute he was gunned down by a white man in April 1968, that sent us into the chaos that persists today.

I'm only encouraged by the diversity I see in the crowds rallying around the #blacklivesmatter movement. THIS is the new millennium! It gives me hope that we're FINALLY. MOVING. FORWARD.

Which reminds me, I was told by an older white male "we have made progress" and he posted a photo of Obama's inauguration. Um...that was 2008...and here we are 12 years later with rioting in the streets because of how far we've actually regressed. I told him it was "one step forward and three steps back."

Fear not, white people, "the blacks" aren't trying to diminish your rights in anyway. They're not saying your lives DON'T matter, just that BLACK LIVES MATTER, TOO! Are you listening yet? Why does it take the burning of cities across the country to get your attention? Why do we keep repeating this cycle?

I mourn with the families of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor. I shed angry tears with my black brothers and sisters. I'm not an "ally," WE'RE FAMILY!

I'm asking my white brethren to stand for social justice and racial equality. This fight's been going on my whole life...more than half a century. It's about time that progress won out.