All Hate Is Not The Same
I have never condemned the non-fatal violence that has (very rarely) broken out as a result of Black Lives Matter protests.
Yes, there have been occasional riots. Yes, there has been fighting.
(No, actual Black Lives Matter protesters have never killed cops. Deranged individuals in no way associated with the movement, have.)
I do not support violence. I do not condone it. But I have never been one to leap up and verbally attack our citizens who occasionally participate in it, even when I do not agree.
White Americans should always be reluctant to quote Martin Luther King, Jr. Too often his words are cherry-picked in a vile effort to silence the very Black Americans he fought for during his lifetime. But I will cherry-pick a quote of his in this case:
“A riot is the language of the unheard.”
What is the difference between the rioters and the police who exercise brutality on the citizens they are sworn to protect?
It is very simple: rioters are punished for their crimes, while time and again we have seen police officers escape from clearly unjustified killings without so much as a slap on the wrist.
I will not leap up to condemn those whose frustrations spill into destruction of property. Enough people attack them for this. Our society itself attacks them. It beats them, it tazes them, it locks them in prison, it kills them.
All hate is not the same.
The victim of the bigot and the abuser may hate their abuser because of what they did. That hate is still a dark thing. It is not healthy for an individual to hold on to that hate, no. But at least that hate makes sense.
Abusers hate their victims because of who they are. They hate them for no other reason than the color of their skin—which they could not control—or because of their gender, or because of who they chose to love.
And too often, these abusers and bigots are allowed to freely express their hatred without punishment. A hatred that does not make any sense at all.
It is true what John Lennon said, that the government only knows what to do with you once they’ve got you violent. That they flick your face and bait you until you get violent and then they know how to deal with you.
But he began that statement by saying that violence is the system’s game. And he ended that statement with:
“The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor.”
Violence is the system’s game. Why, then, do you not decry the system as ardently as you are willing to decry the protesters who have had enough?
I think I know. It is because the system’s violence is racism, and you never see that. It is because the system’s violence is misogyny, and you want to pretend that does not exist. It is because the system’s violence is an assault on the disabled, and you try not to have “those people” around you very often.
When you express your disappointment in me because I am speaking out against bigotry, but you do not speak out against our mutual friends who support bigotry, I know why.
It’s because my actions affect YOU.
But that is the entire point.
The actions of your friend the bigot devastate others, but you never have to see any of the consequences.
I don’t blame you for wanting unity and peace and nonviolence. I want those things, too.
Please try to realize that there are people in this country who have never experienced unity, or even the social veneer of peace. People to whom this country has never shown anything but violence.
If you really care about the hate being spread in this country, fight that, not my protest. Fight that, not the protesters who are occasionally pushed beyond the bounds of human endurance by a system that hates them.
Until that violence has ended, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing. And I will speak against the violence that is unjust, and has gone unpunished for centuries.
