So Now I'm a Racist Idiot

You know that sick feeling you get in the pit of your stomach that tells you something bad is going to happen?  That's what I got when I first heard about the #BlackLivesMatter.

Not because I'm racist or I stand for inequality.  Not because I'm all about white supremacy. Not because I thought BLM implied that white lives don't matter.  And not because I believed that those who are a part of the movement were calling for any type of violence.  I never felt offended or left out. I never tried to silence a movement by saying ALM.

I was, however, concerned.  I heard the pain of generational / systemic discrimination.  And I heard the collective call to action.  I wasn't worried about the movement.  I was worried about the method.

My concern was that some people would think BLM was a call for something dangerous; that tensions would continue to rise in a tit-for-tat spiraling manner.  Especially with the increased mistrust for Blue. Especially with the ever increasing division in an election year.  Especially with increased violence in video games, social media and movies. (Yea, I said it.)  That some overzealous, extremely angry, and perhaps mentally unstable person (or persons) would get the wrong idea and take it to a violent level.  And that things could potentially escalate from there-- driving even more division.  Domestic unrest.  People making assumptions based on skin color.  Pain upon pain.

I'm pro-unity.  I'm pro-solution.  I'm pro- send a message that promotes "us against the problem."  I'm pro- knock all this violence shit off. Hmmm, enter hastag all lives matter.

I've seen posts about how ignorant #AllLivesMatter is, and how everyone who uses that hashtag is racist and/or stupid .There are clever memes for analogies involving people ignoring someone at the dinner table, yelling "all cancer matters" at a breast cancer rally or spraying water on the house that is not on fire.  Some people even tell their readers that all ALM supporters need to block them.  You find ALM offensive and you respond with name calling and shaming. 

Isn't this just increasing the whole "us against them" mentality?  Fueling more division and hate. I certainly didn't take the "idiot," "white ignorant" such and such statements as a unity hug.  

So now I'm a racist, white privileged, ridiculous imbecile because I think that we all matter and because I think that we are only going to find solutions together.  

My ALM does not say Black lives don't matter.  Of course ALL lives matter.  Is it possible to spend our time with one unity movement instead of arguing over the semantics of two?

Please don't say I have to find a new hashtag like #ImNotBlacksoIDontGetIt  #ImTooStupidToCare or #WhiteandNerdy.... or look like this chick in the photo.


I can't give a  photo credit because the website is gone.  (No, it's not really me.)  #Sarcasm and I know how to spell college.

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