I walk about campus on a Thursday like I do every weekday. As I approach the Union, I am surprised to see a crowd formed out front. Many are lying down on the pavement. Others are holding signs. Their content varies; some have slogans like “Hands up, don’t shoot!” but the most prevalent one is: “Black lives matter.”
I check my phone. I rarely use the application Yik Yak because usually I’m just not interested by what my fellow students have to say on there. For many that use it, their lives revolve around Greek life, and that is not something I personally care about.
This day, however, Yik Yak is filled with something completely different. Something frustrating, something ignorant, something uncaring. “Why ‘Black lives matter’? Why not ‘All lives matter’?” in as many possible phrasings as they could manage.
The fact of the matter is that policemen have been using excessive and deadly force on African-Americans since their entry into this country; only now, technology and media make such incidents common knowledge that spread nationally and globally.
This, coupled with the common individual having the capability to record live events as they happen—take for example the murder of Walter Scott after a policeman stopped him for driving without a tail light—provides irrefutable proof of the wrongdoing that occurs against black people by law enforcement every day.
There is no denying at this point that an inordinate number of black men are profiled by police and often killed without justification for using the most extreme of all measures, and yet my student body cannot stop saying “Why ‘Black lives matter’? All lives matter!”
Why “Black lives matter”? Because it is apparent that many people don’t think they do. Where do those three words indicate that other lives do not matter? Where does it say black lives are more valuable than white lives or the lives of other races? Why do my fellow non-black students have to insert themselves into a movement that is not about them in the slightest? Why would they take issue with people saying “Black lives matter” at all, unless they think otherwise?
If I were to say I like strawberry ice cream, that would be a simple statement that conveys one specific meaning. My student body instead would grow incredibly disgruntled with this and tell me “How dare you! All ice cream is good! And what’s more, you’ve excluded my favorite, vanilla ice cream, the most prevalent of all flavors! You always have to include it!”
It just doesn’t make sense. I have become further and further disappointed with many of my peers. I knew when I came to study here that I was in the heart of Mississippi, in the heart of the South, but I refused to believe that we as a university had not overcome our racist history. I considered the hanging of the noose on the James Meredith statue an isolated incident by some rotten apples in the bunch.
Now I am starting to realize that I was mistaken. I am starting to realize that it is no longer socially acceptable for racism to be visible to the naked eye, so now it occurs behind closed doors. It occurs when Greek associations refuse to elect minority officers for image or deny them entry into their society at all.
It occurs when students get irritated over movements that are intended to do nothing but bring awareness to and protect the lives of people of color. Closed-door racism is saying under the cover of an anonymous message board application “You don’t ever hear about whites getting killed by blacks!” and “What’s the difference between a cop killing a black civilian and a black thug killing a white civilian?” when all they have said is “Our lives matter.”
I am white. I understand that this race is the majority. I understand that, as the majority, our culture and society is primarily focused on and catered to my race. I know that there is only a single black member of the Senate, and the first president with African-American heritage only happened within the last decade. I understand that, as a white person, I and my race are included in virtually every facet of American life.
So why can’t this student body allow our black students, and further, our black countrymen to stand up for themselves and have their own movements? Why must we insert ourselves into everything? Why can’t we all just agree with them, support their cause, and let them advocate a movement the only intention of which is to help save lives and punish those who take them?
I thought racism was dying. I thought we were getting better, but maybe we are just getting better at hiding it.
Cameron Johnson is a sophomore English major from Memphis, TN.
