I have a problem with #BlackLivesMatter.  There.  I said it.  Take back my black card.  But hear me out.

Does the loss of unarmed black men at the hands of the police – or any other white person – have to stop?  Absolutely.  Is there racial injustice pretty much everywhere we can look?  No question.

Here’s the thing, though: The last time a black life mattered to a lot of white people in this country, really mattered, was when it could be bought and sold.  A lot of work has gone into making that clear even in today’s wacky world.  And no one knows that better than those very same black lives.

For 250 years, much of this country was built on the concept that the only possible way that a black life mattered was as a commodity, and naturally, always as a  servile commodity.  As long as that was the case, it was tough even for non-slaveowners to value those lives.  Abolitionists may have thought slavery wasn’t right in principle, but they weren’t exactly rushing to adopt what are now called DEI measures.  I’d like to say that this begs the question “Why?,” but I already know the answer.  We all do.

Think about it – White people, this means you: What would you do if you suddenly realized that your life didn’t matter?

Option #1: Give up.  Drugs work well for this.  Alcohol too – in nips, maybe, because, thanks to institutionalized racism, you’re too poor to buy big bottles.  Having a life that doesn’t matter is enough to make you crazy.  Did you know that a “disproportionate number” of black people are affected by mental illness? And that’s only the ones that we know about: many more go undiagnosed due to community stigma and well-documented disparities (surprise!) in health care.  A lot of us just can’t deal with not mattering.  It’s tough.  Even if you somehow manage to stay sane, though, what is the point of going to school? Of getting a high school diploma, let alone going to college?  The “system” is against you.  Seriously, why work?  Why subscribe to “healthy behaviors?” Keep puffing away on those cigarettes – yep, right in front of your children in strollers.  And why on earth would you put your trash, including those nip bottles, where it belongs as you walk down the street in your own neighborhoods?  Why care?  

Option #2: Do something, anything to make you feel as though you do matter.  That you have a certain, undefined power.  Curse as often and as loudly as you can, especially using the N-word.  Dress provocatively.  Raise a nasty pit bull.  Join a gang.  Carry a gun.  Use it.  Have you ever noticed how many public, too often violent, disputes involving Black people are attributed to “disrespect?” Sure, respect is a virtue to have and to give, but if you don’t have anything else…

Option #3: Get mad.  You know, like we used to. Some, but not enough of us, remember the “I am a man” campaign from the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968.  Think about that: people had to carry around signs to remind the white people in charge – and sadly, themselves – that they mattered.  And then what?  When the load gets to be too heavy, many take the road back to Option #1.

Getting back to the murderers of unarmed black men…In almost every case in which an unarmed Black man is killed, and the charges – if there ever are any real charges – ultimately dismissed, the defense is the same: They just didn’t know what that Black man – and, let’s face it, more and more that Black woman – was going to do.  We may like to think that police officers are brave, but the reality is that they watch the same television shows and newscasts as the rest of us, and in all of them, the criminals are inevitably Black.  

Let’s face it: there are some bad eggs out there.  Quiet as it’s kept, Black people can be afraid of Black people.  Back to Option #2.

Meanwhile, how did we get here?  Those passionate young Black Lives Matter organizers, bless their hashtag hearts, have missed one single fundamental fact: Black people, young and old, are weary of not mattering. Spend an afternoon in a predominantly Black neighborhood and listen to how parents talk to their children – or not, because they’re so busy cursing to someone else on their phones. I know. I hear. And I have cried.

For centuries now, much of American society has been built on Black lives not mattering.   So, says the all-too-prevalent racist, now Blacks want their lives to matter?  Hell, yeah!

As heinous and unforgivable as all of this is, it’s only part of the problem: until those very same Black lives can truly feel that they matter, we as a nation – and above all, African-American people – have a very long row to hoe.  Maybe we should focus on that.  

Bottom line and what I learned from my mother: You must love yourself before others can be expected to love you.  Dear #BlackLivesMatter people, time to spread the love amongst us.  Get to it!