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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBlack Lives STILL Matter
They mattered 300 years ago when European merchant imperialists fetched up on African shores, massacred those who resisted, and hauled the rest off as cargo, because people who looked like that couldn't possibly be as human as the greedy shitheads killing them.
They mattered 250 years ago when Africans were brought to American shores to be sold as property, beaten, abused, separated from family members and killed with impunity.
They mattered 200 years ago when the people who'd penned the words "All men are created equal" and fought a war to prove it, decided that the ones with dark skin were only 3/5 as equal as all other men.
They mattered 150 years ago when Confederate veterans formed terrorist organizations to harrass and kill newly-freed slaves and prevent them from holding the lands, jobs, and benefits promised as part of Reconstruction.
They mattered 100 years ago in the Jim Crow era when lynchings, beatings, home-burnings, and 'separate but (certainly NEVER) equal' were used to keep black Americans from presuming to the rights of citizens and equal status under the law.
They mattered 50 years ago when black churches were bombed, black schoolchildren were killed, dogs were set on peaceful protesters, and activists working for Civil Rights were assassinated.
And they matter today when law enforcement officers constitute themselves judge, jury, and executioner for anyone with black skin they consider any kind of threat-- and GET AWAY WITH IT.
So when you're tempted to remind us piously about how "all life matters," just stop and think.
The reason it's important to keep reminding everyone in America today that Black Lives Matter is because it's a lesson we apparently have failed to learn, for THREE HUNDRED (plus) YEARS.
It's the lessons we DON'T learn that have to be repeated over, and over, and over.
wearily,
Bright
Response to TygrBright (Original post)
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TygrBright
(20,755 posts)BumRushDaShow
(128,732 posts)TygrBright
(20,755 posts)loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Mostly just other bllack lives. I would substitute FINALLY or TOO for still. After a few hundred years of being viewed as expendable, it has reached a critical mass and people are finally saying it explicitly.
We are in a place where these killings and injustices are on full display and not nearly enough people are outraged by it. Worse yet, a whole lot of people dismiss and belittle the people who are begging for their own, and their family and friends lives.
That fact is why BLACK LIVES MATTER needs to be said over and over again.