Hashtags and uninformed opinions

Is it okay to say, ‘Black lives matter’?

The short answer is,

of course it is!

Is it okay for people to respond back with the hashtag, #ALLlivesmatter?

I can give you the short answer to that as well,

Heck no.

I could simply stop here but I can’t. This has heavily come back in the news after Jesse Williams gave an acceptance speech at the BET awards and a petition was started to fire him from his job as character Jackson Avery on Greys Anatomy.

*scoughs*

I have so many reasons as to why this is ludicrous but before I do, an emoticon is in order,

Now to express my views on the situation:

This is the BET awards, and a person has just won the humanitarian award. I guess it should strikes us as odd if the speech given talks about fighting for Black rights in the U.S.A. Hmm. What I found frustrating was the petition started to fire Williams for ‘hate speech’. Really America? How disrespectful. If black people in America had equal rights, I would be signing a petition screaming, ‘yeah! Stop complaining black people!’ but evidently that is not the case. When black men are killed mistakenly but white men are not, it doesn’t take a highly trained nose to smell that fish.

Something Williams acknowledged in his speech is his background. Williams is mixed race. He has a white mother and a black father. Essentially to some black people, he would be regarded as potentially having only ‘half’ the responsibility a black person has to defend and fight for Black rights in the USA. But really I think in some ways as a mixed race person, Williams is in a position where he has most probably been witness to prejudice and injustice. Frankly, he has enough experience and knowledge on the subject to speak. The matter is raising awareness for the stupidity taking place.

For those who think it’s cool to walk around using terms like ‘reverse racism’, in the kindest way, please stop saying that. Apart from the fact that it makes zero sense, it just makes you sound ridiculous. Like Mr Marley sings, “if you know you’re history then you will know where you’re coming from.” This applies to everyone. And in this case white people. This means every white American even if you support the movement. You have to appreciate or in the slightest acknowledge what the history is. In the USA, black people were not powerful, they had no rights for a long time, neither where they highly regarded, they were hated, despised, lynched. So it’s not a surprise to see which group of people in America are more dominant. As long as you are white you won’t fully understand the issue but that doesn’t mean you can’t support it. What it means is, instead of telling your friends who are black that you support them – they’re your friend, they know you love them, you have to tell other white people who don’t understand or can’t manage to see how serious the situation is. Some people think it’s all in the past; it’s all history – Do not underestimate how that history effects 21st Century USA.

I’ve heard this comment, “We have a black president. We are not racist.” Give me a break USA. Why must you make yourselves appear so ignorant and idiotic? After this year, you can’t use that excuse any longer.

I think that for one, Jesse Williams is a man fighting for what he believes in and freedom of speech applies to him, it applies to ALL of us. He is entitled to his words and his beliefs. Under no circumstances do I believe – and neither do many actually believe that this could be rendered as “hate speech” but it won’t stop people from thinking otherwise. It won’t stop people from making misguided, uninformed comments as such.

When it comes to #Alllivesmatter vs #Blacklivesmatter, whoever sends back #Alllivesmatter, your missing the point. Of course all lives matter! Everyone matters. But when you can’t go a week without hearing about Police brutality towards black people I think it’s still a little strange that one wouldn’t try to raise awareness on the subject.