One of the biggest challenges facing the Black Lives Matter movement and the All Lives Matter response or reaction is that both ignore reality. The elephant in the room everyone wants to ignore is that society never has nor ever will value all lives equally. We make value judgments everyday, both individually and collectively, and those value judgments color whose lives we value more.
The Black Lives Matter movement is aimed at drawing attention to the systemic racism in our society and, more specifically, in the law enforcement system. The movement points out that black people, and young black men in particular, are far more likely to lose their lives in encounters with law enforcement than are their counterparts in the white community. The movement is not trying to assert that only Black Lives Matter, but that Black Lives Matter as much as white lives matter.
The challenge posed to the rest of us by the Black Lives Matter movement is for our society to examine why black people are so much more likely to die at the hands of law enforcement than are white people. In that sense, the movement has been very successful because people across the political spectrum are proposing explanations for the discrepancy. As a nation, we are discussing the issue, though the discussion is still at the early, defensive, rather polarized stage that precedes any substantial change.
The inherent challenge facing the members of the Black Lives Matter movement arises when predators and innocent victims are grouped together simply because they are of the same race. It’s hard to rally support for victims of unjust police violence when predators are included amongst victims.
First and foremost, our society cannot address the value of black lives, let alone all lives, until we acknowledge that we do not and never will value all lives equally. If a boat is sinking and you can only rescue one person, are you more likely to rescue a child or an elderly adult? A demanding middle-aged man or a weeping pregnant woman? A beautiful model or an unkempt beggar? A convicted murderer or an innocent refugee? (Understand – there is no right answer; there’s just your predisposition.)
We all make value judgments every day. Of course all lives matter; for every one of us, though, some lives simply matter more or less than others. We may think all lives should matter equally, but we all need to acknowledge they don’t.
So if a police officer answers a call for help from a gas station attendant reporting an armed robbery, and upon arrival at the scene that police officer reports being fired upon by a person leaving the gas station, whose life do we value more? You may be tempted to say everyone’s life matters equally, but if you’re honest with yourself, you know that’s not true. What if the person fleeing the scene is an elderly, mentally imbalanced woman or the officer is new on the job and coming off a double-shift? What if the police officer is a middle-aged white man and the suspect is a young black man? What if the suspect is a very large, tattooed, white biker and the police officer is a slightly-built Asian woman? What if the officer knows the gas station attendant is a young woman who was severely beaten, then shot by the suspect? Do you see how your assumptions, predispositions, and prejudices color the relative value you place on each person and shift as the scenario changes?
Let’s widen the perspective. We spend more public resources to treat one American child with a rare illness than it would take to treat a thousand children around the world suffering from malnourishment. What does that say about whose lives matter? Everywhere we turn, we see examples of the relative inequity with which we value human life.
The challenge facing any movement aimed at valuing life is that we don’t nor will we ever value all lives the same. We all know that an innocent child’s life matters more to us than a dangerous criminal’s. We all know we’ll expend resources and take risks to intervene in the lives of a homeless single mother and her children that we won’t expend or take to intervene in the lives of single adult males.
All of us need to acknowledge that, in any practical sense, some lives matter more than others. We also need to acknowledge that each of us evaluates the relative value of people’s lives differently. If you discuss the gas station scenarios above with your co-workers or friends, you might be surprised by the different responses you’ll hear.
When we’re asked to value all lives or all black lives, most of us feel uneasy. That’s because intuitively we know we don’t value all lives equally. We need more information. Are we talking about two innocent children of different races? Then, would we not value both lives equally highly?
Can we all acknowledge that the lives of innocent children should be valued very highly? Can we then acknowledge that the lives of black innocent children should be valued as highly as their white counterparts? If we acknowledge that, how might that affect our public and private policies?
Can we acknowledge that assault and battery is an act committed by someone who devalues the lives of others and, therefore, has made himself or herself a threat? Can we further acknowledge that we don’t value the lives of those who are threats to society as highly as we value the lives of the innocent? How might those acknowledgements color our perceptions of the men and women we charge with protecting society?
If we can acknowledge the value judgments we all make every moment of every day, we can begin to look more honestly at the prejudices that prevent us from creating a more just society. Those of us in the dominant culture can then begin to examine how our racial prejudices, when combined with power, create and sustain racism.
Black lives matter. No one deserves to be a victim of violence because she or he is black. It’s time we acknowledge systemic inequities and strive for a society where black lives matter as much as everyone else’s.
All lives matter. But all lives never have nor ever will matter equally. Parents care more for the lives of their children than their own. We all care more for the innocent than the abusive. The challenge before us is not uniformity but justice, and justice requires judgment. Therefore, we must work together to eliminate erroneous judgments and build a more just society where everyone is judged solely on the basis of his or her character.
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