Your black lives matter to me

I live in a neighborhood where most of my neighbors have much darker skin than I do. I wish more of my city were like my street. Demographic maps based on census data show that my city’s neighborhoods, like most, tend not to be diverse. Even if it were not my friends and neighbors that we are talking about when unarmed black men are killed by police, I would not be able to stay silent. But I suspect a big issue is precisely that not only the “all lives matter” crowd, but even people like me saying “black lives matter,” are often making theoretical statements about other people, living in other neighborhoods.

And so I felt the need to say something more personal, to my friends, neighbors, and colleagues: Your lives matter. Your black lives matter. Your black lives matter to me.

There are no quick fixes or simple solutions for the structural evils that are woven into the fabric of my nation, my state, and my city. When you can drive around Indiana and see Confederate flags flying, you know that there is a lot of work ahead of us. Our society has a racism problem and a gun problem, and the combination of the two is deadly—a fact that will only surprise people who have not been paying attention, or who have been living in denial. Of course, in a sense there are simple solutions to this problem as to many others: everyone, stop being racist; stop loving, using, and proliferating guns; stop ongoing segregation and discrimination; and change policies that are based on racism and seek to protect white privilege. What is challenging is not recognizing what needs to happen, but finding ways not merely to bring it about, but to get people who have internalized the hatred of those whose skin is a different shade of pigmentation and the love of privilege, and of guns they hope will protect that privilege, to repent.