“Everyone deserves equal treatment”
Everyone deserves respect. Everyone deserves to feel safe. No one deserves to feel scared when they are pulled over by the police. No police officer deserves to feel scared when they pull someone over.
As far as I know, the rule of law in the US is still innocent until proven guilty. That doesn’t mean innocent until a police officer pulls you over. That doesn’t mean innocent until the news says they heard you weren’t. That doesn’t mean only certain people are innocent. It means everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean someone matters and you don’t.
#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean police lives don’t matter.
#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean someone’s life matters more than other lives.
#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean anything other than #BlackLivesMatter.
Everyone mattering the same is the eventual goal, I know, but we aren’t there yet. We are still in a time where large numbers of people live in fear. Where a black man can get shot for reaching for his ID. Where a black man with a gun is reported to the police and may not survive the encounter, even when the gun is licensed and the man has a carry permit. Where a sniper attacks the police and a black man is blamed — even when there is proof the man was not involved. Where a nightclub full of people “should have had a gun to protect themselves” — but if any of them had been carrying, they would have been the first to be blamed.
#BlackLivesMatter because people outside your experience deserve just as much concern and protection as the people you know do. Until they do, I will keep using the hashtag.
