Why #BlackLivesMatter Doesn’t Address the Real Issue of Racism

It’s very interesting that some people love what the black community produces, but despise the community itself. 

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If you haven’t already seen or read the speech delivered by Jesse Williams at the annual BET Awards, you need to catch up on reality and let go of your Game of Thrones fantasies (The BET Awards and the Game of Thrones Season Finale were aired on the same night).

There were a few parts of his speech that really stuck out that folks really need to take to mind and heart.  Let’s try to break it down…

I just want to thank them [parents] for being here and teaching me to focus on comprehension over career. They made sure I learned what the schools were afraid to teach us.

Some people get so caught up in their lives to the point where they forget how they can be a part of the solution as opposed to further contributing to the problem.  Do your research because the bias you may have against a black person was probably taught at home, through the media, or unfortunately in the classroom. Ask the right questions and don’t just accept what one textbook may have taught you. Lastly, challenge the norm, and implement this call-to-action into your lifestyle, because as always, we have so much work to do.

The more we learn about who we are and how we got here, the more we will mobilize.

As a black person, there have been plenty of times where I’ve had to really think about how much I actually know about my own cultural heritage.  Frankly, it was embarrassing to realize how much I didn’t know or take the chance to learn about.  Many scholars are putting forth the effort to preserve black history, and there needs to be more advocates involved in this cause.  So ask yourself, what are the nuggets of knowledge you want the next generation to learn about in the history books?  What are you doing to have those thoughts and ideas become a reality?

Now, this is also in particular for the black women in particular who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you.

Malcolm X once said in one of his famous speeches, “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”  That was in 1962, yet Malcolm X’s statement still reigns true in the year 2016.  You heard/read Jesse’s speech, and you drank Beyonce’s Lemonade. Now be better.

To put someone’s brand on our body when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies and now we pray to get paid with brands for our bodies.

The black community suffers from consumer fetishism, which is another tool used to degrade and divide each other.  If I don’t have the newest pair of Jordans, a pair of Beats by Dre headphones, or one of Kanye West’s over-priced t-shirts, I’m not black enough. Seriously?!  We need to stop, yet it’s our own people that promote this lifestyle.

At the BET awards, the Microsoft Theater was filled with numerous black singers, dancers, thespians, musicians, and rappers that came together to embrace each other’s talents.  However, many of them were wearing brands trying to show-off, and many of those brands do not do anything to empower the black community, and are only worn by people who are privileged enough to afford to wear their brand.  These figures of influence in the black community need to stop creating a lifestyle that cannot be easily obtained by everyone in our community. Some people get so caught up in trying to emulate this lifestyle and end up stuck in a system of continued poverty, oppression, and divisive degradation.  The black community already has a brand that symbolizes strength, faith, and resiliency, we just need to be more proud to wear it.

The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander.

Simple and plain, if you have done nothing but just say black lives being taken isn’t right, then please check yourself and be better.  We already know it isn’t right, and we’re past that fact.  Check the privileges you may possess and use them to further advance this community.

If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for black people, then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.

Need I say more?

Burying black people out of sight and out of mind, while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil — black gold. Ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them. Gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit.

It’s very interesting that some people love what the black community produces, but despise the community itself.  When the latest club banger drops, you’re there to dance to it.  When the hottest “urban” designer jeans come out, you’re there to wear them.  Yet, when those cops were acquitted for their wrongdoings, some of you were nowhere to be found. Additionally, it’s also interesting to see how some people are suddenly down for the cause because they saw Jesse’s speech while knowing some of them didn’t even know BET existed; let’s be real, some people only saw this small piece of the entire awards show.

Jesse’s speech was not the first thing that was said bringing awareness to black lives and it surely won’t be the last.  Many speakers have come before Jesse and many will come after him.  If Jesse’s speech was your first point of exposure to being “woke,” then I suggest you continue to educate yourself.  Not just for me, and not just for yourself.  Keep the families of Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, Tanisha Anderson, Sandra Bland, and so many others in mind as well.  And if you have never heard of those names, then as always, we all have a lot of work to do.

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Photo: Getty Images