Say It: Black Lives Matter

[Although I haven't been posting lately here on the blahg, over on the Book of Faces I do still occasionally post privately to only friends, mostly so relatives who live at a distance can see pictures of our son. This is what I posted there, shared here because it's important.]

You’ve probably noticed my hiatus from posting, and it is due to the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Tony McDade and countless others that have spurred the current protests. It has been a very difficult time, not merely as a human capable of empathy, but because of my life. I’m not only one who has benefited from the centuries of white supremacy that led to the troubling society we have, but I’m also the father of an amazing Black boy and husband of a phenomenal Black woman, the two people I love most. I have an extended African-American family who through the grace of God is still with us. It’s not abstract anger about the news; for me it’s very personal.

And we’ve had to keep parenting during a pandemic.

I know many of you enjoy these photos of my son and wife. (Yes, mostly our son.) They are a source of joy in this world. But they’re also a Black boy and Black woman in this world, which you need to understand means it’s a more dangerous world for them than for many of the rest of us.

I know you care about them. I know you believe their lives are just as important as your own. But I need you to declare that not only about their lives but the lives of all Black people matter. Now.

I ask you to leave a comment on this post stating Black Lives Matter.

I need to know you are with me on this.

This is not jumping on some bandwagon. This is simply what should be an obvious view in our society, but clearly it’s not. However, I must believe that it’s possible we can get there, and I beseech you to type three little (but critically important) words below to tell me you believe it too.

Saying Black Lives Matter does not suggest that other lives don’t. It means you believe they matter just as much.

Black Lives Matter. Now and forever. Please join me so I can see who my friends really are.