Life matters an answer for "Black lives Matter" And division
Mich
"All lives matter."
Those words have risen as a kind of counter to "Black lives matter," the movement that coalesced in response to recent killings and woundings of unarmed African-Americans by assailants - usually police officers - who often go unpunished. Mike Huckabee raised that counter-cry last week, telling CNN, "When I hear people scream 'black lives matter,' I'm thinking, of course they do. But all lives matter. It's not that any life matters more than another."
When she tried to use it as an excuse again and challenged this U.S. Marine, his response set her straight.
Here’s the letter to Michelle Obama:
Mrs. Obama,
It sickens me that I have to take time to write you this letter. I am a Marine who doesn’t recognize color because every color has lived and died for you. You live in a free country to blame your life on the color of another man’s skin. All colors have given their lives for an educated woman to have the freedom to be so ignorant. I don’t blame black people for the ignorance that comes from your mouth.
I love all colors because I love all that God creates. I don’t have to like you to love you because we can’t always like the ones we love. Just because I don’t like you today doesn’t mean I can’t like you tomorrow. I don’t like you or your husband today because of what you’re doing to this country. Isn’t it funny how the truth always reveals itself in time. You and your husband never showed this side of yourselves in 2008 before he was elected.
You both live better than 99% of the people in this world because of this country. You said that you are for the first time proud to be an American. Well, I will tell you that most of us are ashamed of you. You and your husband have become millionaires off the people of this country, but demonstrate very little appreciation for all that we give. White, black, brown or indifferent millions have fought and died for you to have the freedom to say the ignorant things you say.
You are educated, but clearly have very little common sense. You blame past generations of Americans for the troubles of a few. Stop blaming white people for your misery and take a look at yourself in the mirror. We are responsible for our own happiness and misery. The KKK is ignorance wrapped in a sheet while the Black panthers are raised on ignorance and hate. No different from the teaching of Islam thinking their race is better than all other men.
God is love and creates every color to include everyone’s skin. To truly love God is to love all that He loves. For that I love each of you and pray that we all start taking responsibility for our own damned sins.
Martin Luther King had a dream that we would all live in the promise land. He is not remembered for being black. He is remembered for the love, and character he had within his heart. If you don’t like this country get on that plane and never come back. I will stay here and love all Americans, regardless of skin. I will love the beauty of what God created and stand tall with my American friends. Not because of their color but for the character and love they carry within. This country doesn’t owe you anymore than it owes me.
So many have thanked me for my service and I will always be grateful. I pray that one day you and your husband might cause me to be grateful for yours. You will never be remembered as the First Lady of Color but soon forgotten after you leave the White House. You nor your husband shall ever divide us. I wish you no harm, but pray you will take your troubles to a land you no longer hate. Hate shall come and go but His love shall last forever.
This is a column about three words of moral cowardice:"All lives matter."
Those words have risen as a kind of counter to "Black lives matter," the movement that coalesced in response to recent killings and woundings of unarmed African-Americans by assailants - usually police officers - who often go unpunished. Mike Huckabee raised that counter-cry last week, telling CNN, "When I hear people scream 'black lives matter,' I'm thinking, of course they do. But all lives matter. It's not that any life matters more than another."
As if that were not bad enough, the former Arkansas governor and would-be president upped the ante by adding that Martin Luther King would be "appalled by the notion that we're elevating some lives above others."
"Elevating some lives." Lord, have mercy.
Imagine for a moment that you broke your left wrist. In excruciating pain, you rush to the emergency room for treatment only to run into a doctor who insists on examining not just your mangled left wrist, but your uninjured right wrist, rib cage, femur, fibula, sacrum, humerus, phalanges, the whole bag of bones that is you. You say, "Doc, it's just my left wrist that hurts." And she says, "Hey, all bones matter."
If you understand why that remark would be factual, yet also fatuous, silly, patronizing and off point, then you should understand why "All lives matter" is the same. It's not about "elevating some lives" any more than it would be about elevating some bones. Rather, it's about treating where it hurts.
And as for Dr. King: I cringe at his name being invoked by yet another conservative who has apparently never heard or read anything King said with the possible exception of the last few minutes of the "I Have A Dream" speech. No one with the slightest comprehension of what King fought for could seriously contend he would be "appalled" at a campaign geared to the suffering of African-American people.
Whose rights did the Montgomery Bus Boycott seek to vindicate? For whose freedom was King jailed in Birmingham, punched in Selma and stoned in Chicago? In his book "Why We Can't Wait," King answered complaints that we shouldn't be doing something special for "the Negro" by noting that, "our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years."
Does that sound like someone who'd be "appalled" by "Black lives matter"?
No, that cry would likely resonate for him for the same reason it resonates for so many others. Namely because, while police abuse is not unknown in other lives, it is disproportionate in black lives. This is what Huckabee and the "All lives matter" crowd quail at recognizing. To treat where it hurts, one must first acknowledge that it still hurts, something conservatives often find hard to do because it gives the lie to their self-congratulatory balloon juice about how this country has overcome its founding sin.
That sort of willful ignorance has unfortunately become ubiquitous.
Which is why, for me, at least, the most inspiring sight to come out of Charleston following the racial massacre there was not the lowering of the Confederate battle flag, welcome as that was. Rather, it was a march through town by a mostly white crowd chanting, "Black lives matter! Black lives matter!" To see those white sisters and brothers adopt that cry was a soul-filling reminder that at least some of us still realize we all have access - connection - to each other's pain and joy by simple virtue of the fact that we all are human.
God love them, they did not slink guiltily from that connection. Instead, they ran bravely to it.
And you know what, Mike Huckabee? Martin Luther King would have been pleased.
"Elevating some lives." Lord, have mercy.
Imagine for a moment that you broke your left wrist. In excruciating pain, you rush to the emergency room for treatment only to run into a doctor who insists on examining not just your mangled left wrist, but your uninjured right wrist, rib cage, femur, fibula, sacrum, humerus, phalanges, the whole bag of bones that is you. You say, "Doc, it's just my left wrist that hurts." And she says, "Hey, all bones matter."
If you understand why that remark would be factual, yet also fatuous, silly, patronizing and off point, then you should understand why "All lives matter" is the same. It's not about "elevating some lives" any more than it would be about elevating some bones. Rather, it's about treating where it hurts.
And as for Dr. King: I cringe at his name being invoked by yet another conservative who has apparently never heard or read anything King said with the possible exception of the last few minutes of the "I Have A Dream" speech. No one with the slightest comprehension of what King fought for could seriously contend he would be "appalled" at a campaign geared to the suffering of African-American people.
Whose rights did the Montgomery Bus Boycott seek to vindicate? For whose freedom was King jailed in Birmingham, punched in Selma and stoned in Chicago? In his book "Why We Can't Wait," King answered complaints that we shouldn't be doing something special for "the Negro" by noting that, "our society has been doing something special against the Negro for hundreds of years."
Does that sound like someone who'd be "appalled" by "Black lives matter"?
No, that cry would likely resonate for him for the same reason it resonates for so many others. Namely because, while police abuse is not unknown in other lives, it is disproportionate in black lives. This is what Huckabee and the "All lives matter" crowd quail at recognizing. To treat where it hurts, one must first acknowledge that it still hurts, something conservatives often find hard to do because it gives the lie to their self-congratulatory balloon juice about how this country has overcome its founding sin.
That sort of willful ignorance has unfortunately become ubiquitous.
Which is why, for me, at least, the most inspiring sight to come out of Charleston following the racial massacre there was not the lowering of the Confederate battle flag, welcome as that was. Rather, it was a march through town by a mostly white crowd chanting, "Black lives matter! Black lives matter!" To see those white sisters and brothers adopt that cry was a soul-filling reminder that at least some of us still realize we all have access - connection - to each other's pain and joy by simple virtue of the fact that we all are human.
God love them, they did not slink guiltily from that connection. Instead, they ran bravely to it.
And you know what, Mike Huckabee? Martin Luther King would have been pleased.
“We Are All Human"
It should not matter
That we grew up
On opposite banks,
On opposite streets,
On the opposite
Side of the tracks,
Or on opposite ends
Of social ranks.
It should not matter
What your father does for work
Or what race is in his blood,
As long as you are good
And full of love.
It should not matter
That you have more than me
Or that I know more than you
Or what my job is
Or where I went to school –
For we are all equal
And it's only our polarities
That make each man unique,
Resourceful,
And every human useful.
It should not matter
That the media wants to
Keep dividing us
By constantly reminding us
That we are from different sects,
With labeled and typecasted
Stereotypical characteristics
And racial defects,
And that there are rules
For every age,
Religion, class and sex.
"Sign over here.
Put an X in the box.
Then step to the left
So I can see
Who's next."
Nobody should ever feel
Like just another statistic.
And nobody should ever feel
Above or below the rest.
Remember to stand up for yourself
Before you stand up to rip the test.
Stand up for all that's fair
And always speak out for what's right
And best.
It should not matter
If you are Chinese,
Arab, Israeli or Cuban.
If you seriously do realize
That we are all just human.”
It should not matter
That we grew up
On opposite banks,
On opposite streets,
On the opposite
Side of the tracks,
Or on opposite ends
Of social ranks.
It should not matter
What your father does for work
Or what race is in his blood,
As long as you are good
And full of love.
It should not matter
That you have more than me
Or that I know more than you
Or what my job is
Or where I went to school –
For we are all equal
And it's only our polarities
That make each man unique,
Resourceful,
And every human useful.
It should not matter
That the media wants to
Keep dividing us
By constantly reminding us
That we are from different sects,
With labeled and typecasted
Stereotypical characteristics
And racial defects,
And that there are rules
For every age,
Religion, class and sex.
"Sign over here.
Put an X in the box.
Then step to the left
So I can see
Who's next."
Nobody should ever feel
Like just another statistic.
And nobody should ever feel
Above or below the rest.
Remember to stand up for yourself
Before you stand up to rip the test.
Stand up for all that's fair
And always speak out for what's right
And best.
It should not matter
If you are Chinese,
Arab, Israeli or Cuban.
If you seriously do realize
That we are all just human.”
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