Editorial voice from elsewhere
Black lives matter. White privilege exists.
Please don’t stop reading if those sentences made you bristle.
Hear us out. We write today because we recognize the need for honest, heartfelt change.
George Floyd’s death in Minnesota was a tragedy, prompted after he supposedly passed a fake $20 bill. And for that, Lloyd paid with his life, according to Minnesota prosecutors who charged the officer that kneeled on his neck, staying there even after he stopped breathing.
It’s caused public outrage. There have been protests across the nation, even in Washington and Fayette counties, asking people to recognize there is a need for things to be different.
Most have been peaceful, hoping to amplify the conversation that black lives matter.
In response to that, there have been a crush of voices shouting back: “all lives matter.”
All lives, indeed do matter. But to shout that in the face of the black lives matter movement is just plain wrong.
Think for a moment about going to a rally for breast cancer awareness. You’re there to support a singular cause: the fight against breast cancer.
Would you think to say, “all cancers matter”?
No, that would be a given.
Why, then, would anyone marginalize the black lives matter movement?
No one has asked you to put one skin color above another; rather, we believe, the movement is asking people to begin understanding, accepting and changing the thought process that the amount of melanin in someone’s skin somehow makes them automatically worthy of suspicion.
And to that end, as hard as this might be for some people who are white to acknowledge, privilege exists.
That is not to say that your life wasn’t or isn’t hard, rather to say that it’s not made harder simply because of your skin color.
You are less likely to be the reason someone locks their car doors as they drive by. You are less likely to be followed in a store because they think you might be stealing. You are less likely to be George Floyd.
White skin means you have an advantage in life just by that, and that should make every one of us angry.
Race is a sensitive subject, and too often, an avoided uncomfortable conversation. But it’s one we all need to have.
First, with ourselves, addressing overt or covert biases we may feel; then with our families, especially our children, so that they do not inherit those biases.
We need to get into a place in our country where skin color does not equate to conscious or unconscious judgment.
We need to get into a place in our country where opportunities for advancement are equal.
We need to get into a place in our country where people are not deemed lesser than because of their skin color.
A temporary shift in a moment of public outrage is not enough. We need a permanent change and an alteration of attitudes for all future generations.
To get there, we all must open our ears, our hearts and our minds, and we must do it now.