If Black Lives Don't Matter, Neither Does This White One
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed.
I met Isaac at his house. On the north side of Portland, which, though slowly growing more gentrified and whiter every year, still has a presence of people of color. About halfway on my twenty minute drive, I had major sinus pain. Scrambling the cabinets in my car for ibuprofen, I found nothing.
“Great,” I thought to myself. “My first night protesting in Portland since George Floyd and I’ll be in pain throughout.” A deep and severe problem, nonetheless. After we went to 7/11, grabbed some pain relief, and began walking over the Hawthorne Bridge, Isaac helped set me up with gear. He had been there before, and had sent the footage from the previous night. The tear gas, the explosions, the running, the chaos. The snatchings. I had a helmet, a face mask for COVID, and a gas mask for dispelling unlawful protests. It’s one thing to watch a viral video; it’s another story entirely to know you may or may not become a part of the next one. Especially if you’re black. Which I’m not.
Crossing the bridge, we arrived at the justice center. It was surreal. When before I had seen maybe ten to twelve people tops in any vicinity, under COVID quarantine, there were now thousands donning masks, donning hope, donning unity. Sure, there were some F Trump signs, a lot of ACAB marks strewn all over the buildings, and a whole lot more Gen Z’ers and Millennials brimming with angst, there was even more togetherness. Free water bottles were stationed everywhere. Hundreds of sanitizer bottles were close to the front of the plaza. And they were serving hamburgers, hot dogs, barbeque, all for free. Because we were standing there, in unison, to help us all be free.
The marching started about an hour later. With Isaac in tow, we got close to the front. Although a vocal person, I usually like the spotlight for seeming smart or wise, not necessarily for being the loudest or brashest. But something else surged in me while standing with thousands flanked all around. This was so much bigger than me, and I actually loved the feeling of only being one among many. Nerves be damned, I shouted “say his name,” and the echo of “George Floyd” reverberated through the black asphalt.
But maybe the crowd was wrong. Maybe they should’ve said Jacob Blake in advance. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that even though I quickly began to prepare for grad school and upcoming life changes only a few months since that very protest, black and brown people are still scrambling to make sure they and their families stay safe. And alive.
My job at the YMCA wasn’t paying enough. Searching for work wherever I could find, my mom sent me an ad that the school district was hiring. “Sure,” I thought. “Nothing could be more disorganized and chaotic than the organization I was currently working for.”
Anyway…
I passed my initial interview. By the skin of my teeth. The second one came and I drove to the school on the NE side of the city. Similar to north Portland, northeast was becoming a cool hipster spot which meant it was also becoming a ghost town for people of color. Walking into the classroom, I was interviewed by the principal, the vice principal, and the Special Education teacher. Long and very complex story made short; when students of color receive Special Education services, there’s all sorts of assumptions made about that choice. I won’t act like I’m knowledgeable, both as an educator but also because I’m not a person of color, about the stigma of such a decision, but I do know what I saw when I looked down at the photo of Darnell (not his real name).
Beaming, large brown eyes, huge, wide grin, and a baby-ish big forehead. My heart was sold instantly. Some of the best moments of my life, let alone career, were goofing around with Darnell, shooting hoops, chasing him around the playground, working on grammar and reading gains he himself made simply because someone was patient enough to find out what makes him excel. He told me, many times over the years, to make and write letters to my mom. I need to take him up on that more. But I didn’t know how much he would change my life back then. Back then, I was under the belief I’d “change his.”
Out of left field, the vice principal, who happened to be a black woman, asked me what I thought I could provide as an educational assistant to Darnell. My undergrad in Sociology, particularly classes about the Sociology of Race, seemed to vanish from my mind. Answering from the hip, I went on a monologue about my years working for afterschool programs, addressing big behaviors, and understanding the difference between bad behavior and “bad kids.” But, I thought, I just can’t skirt away from the reality that I am a white man about to serve a black boy. Looking back, said the wrong way, these words could have been the wrong answer. They thought otherwise.
“I just think ultimately there’s more about us that is similar than is different. So I’d want to know what Darnell likes, his interests and what he likes to play, and invest in that. It’s what I would want if I was him.”
Years later, there’s definitely things I’d tweak. It’s not even a perfect answer. It somewhat reeks of “all lives matter” undertones. But ultimately, even now, I do still believe there is more about all of us that is similar than is different.
We all need to be loved. We all need to be cared for. We all need to be defended.
But what has been said already, I’ll say again: we can’t say all lives matter, let alone “believe” all lives matter, until we say black lives matter. And even when we say it, we still need to believe and act on it for it to become true in reality before we can even think let alone say all lives matter.
That friend of mine who I went to the protest with? Who showed me where to go, brought extra gear for me to handle the teargas, who frequently checked up on me to make sure I was ok when the feds started shooting?
He’s not black. But he is brown. His name is Isaac.
I remember when the feds donned in black stood outside the justice center. Strange to think they dressed in black while we chanted “Black Lives Matter.” Around 11pm the tensions rose. Younger protestors began shaking the black gated fence. Water bottles launched inside the ground near the feds. Loud booms erupted but we didn’t know the source.
And then they started shooting. But Isaac saw it coming, and we rushed away from the justice center and toward the Hawthorne Bridge.
Reflecting on the scene we left, we discussed things. Big things. Policy changes. Who those feds in black were protecting and serving. What sort of changes might actually come, if they even would come at all.
After I got to my car and drove away, I decided on a few things.
One, this whole issue is far too big for one person to hold, let alone one people group. What I mean is that racism isn’t solved in a protest. I say this as someone whose very people group perpetuates and sustains the problem. In other words, I can’t presume that because I went to a protest and am on the good or “moral” side of this issue that that somehow absolves me of my own prejudice. Eradicating racism takes a lot of work; just ask people of color. The toll for them has cost their very lives, and the only part they have to play in it is the pigment of their skin.
Two, with that grim reality above in mind, what matters is a refocus on who matters. We in the west, the post-modern, white, enlightened west, love thinking about, talking about, and arguing about ideology. Obsessed with the mind at the cost of our hearts, we constantly dwell on the what. What policy. What government. What financial system. What agenda. When you defend your “what” at all costs, there are a lot of “who” objections that are never acknowledged, let alone considered legitimate. Jesus said what you do unto the least of these, you do unto him. What matters more is who matters more. Our politics, particularly politics of those who follow a brown savior, should be motivated by what, or, rather, who, mattered to him.
Third, a huge issue with us misplacing value on what questions instead of who questions is that what questions derive from a self-centered place. What does it cost, really, to merely utter “black lives matter” as a white person? Why can’t you say, if you are opposed to some or even most of the ideas within the BLM movement, “I agree that black lives matter but…” Sure, the “but” itself is still telling, yet the fact that you can agree that people made in the image of God with a particular pigment matter, at least with your words, proves that you are attempting to resist racism. But the insistence, sometimes aggressively so, to not say black lives matter points to an ideology and theology that is white centric bare minimum yet in actuality is soaked in white supremacy. And white supremacy has no place in America and, more importantly, has never been nor will ever be an element of the kingdom of God.
Fourth, if you won’t say black lives matter, if you say all lives matter, if you are so fixated on ideology over and ahead of people made in God’s likeness, then you really believe that this white life doesn’t matter. That your white life doesn’t matter.
Decades from now, your social media arguments won’t matter. Your airtight and consistent theological perspective won’t matter. Your egoic persistence to defend your perspective at all costs won’t matter. Decades from now, the death of George Floyd will matter. The death of Breonna Taylor will matter. The paralyzing of Jacob Blake will matter. The NBA players, mostly composed of black men, boycotting games will matter.
All that matters in our lives is what we do for others, particularly those in society who are “othered.” The doing is predicated on the people we are doing it for. Jesus spent most of His time in ministry focusing on who He was ministering to. The ins and outs of how we do it is very important, but the people we are supposed to be ministering to matters more. It’s almost as if the people Jesus mentions in the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount are the type of people who are closer to the heart of God than those who think all the “right” thoughts and ideologies about Him.
It’s almost as if Jesus cares more about the hearts of the oppressed than the thoughts of the oppressors.
Black lives matter because all lives matter. Black lives matter because God made them in His image and He made them black. This isn’t a controversial hot take; this is the Bible that I read and cherish above all other books.
Jesus Himself was brown. So is my friend Isaac. It’s how God knitted them together in their mothers’ wombs. Wombs that were brown too.
I am white. Many of my friends are white. We are beautiful, too. But right now, right in this moment, right in this crazy and polarizing 2020, I will try (and often fail) to live as if Isaac, as if Darnell, as if Breonna and Ahmaud and George and Jacob and Michael and Trayvon and Andre and Mondo and Patrick and Kimberly matter more than an ideology.