Editorial

On Black Lives Matter, let’s opine less, listen more

Posted

The Black Lives Matter movement continues to be hotly debated, as it has been since its inception. Many of its detractors criticize its use of protests, its language, its focus on black lives and their relationship to the rest of society, even the movement’s name.

Its appearance in 2012 and growth since then are significant to our unfolding history. So are the reactions to it. Proponents and supporters repeatedly voice the movement’s central message — that black people are routinely mistreated, and sometimes even dehumanized, in our society. Critics dismiss the charge, often pointing to problems in black communities as evidence that the supposed mistreatment is really something else, part of a larger context that activists ignore.

Sometimes the criticisms are less reasonable. In response to a recent story in the Valley Stream Herald about a small demonstration in the village earlier this month, comments on the paper’s Facebook page included accusations that the demonstrators, who were organized by a local high school student, were inciting hate and division. The marchers were peaceful and escorted by police, but were criticized for being anti-police. A few commenters said they should get jobs.

Reached by the Herald after they had seen the comments, the organizer and her mother said they doubted whether many who posted negative comments had even read the story. They said they were encouraged by commenters who voiced support, and they didn’t express any negative feelings for those who criticized their march. They simply said they wished people would read the story before commenting.

That’s a reasonable request, and it should be applied to the larger debate that’s happening in our communities. Collectively, we can do a much better job of listening to what the movement is about and what it is a response to. We should make ourselves aware of the experiences of those who are a part of it. We can ask our friends and neighbors who are black whether they’ve experienced what others have grievances about. Yes, these can be uncomfortable conversations, but the condition of so many black people in America is and has long been uncomfortable, to say the least. We owe it to our friends and neighbors to listen for the pain they describe.

It’s far too easy to allow social media and our familiar social circles to reinforce our preconceived notions. We can watch the news as we prefer it to be presented and reinforce our opinions with like-minded commentary. Then we can opine with like-minded friends and acquaintances about it. What we should be doing is testing our perceptions against those of others. By broadening our sources of information, we gain a better approximation of the truth.

Where do we look? We can follow social media pages and users who we don’t agree with, or who have insightful things to say about things on which we’ve already made up our minds. We can read things like the Facebook post that black Baton Rouge police officer Montrell Jackson wrote days before he was shot and killed this month, the July 11 New York Times Op-Ed by Brooklyn Borough President and former NYPD Capt. Eric L. Adams, or any of the other pieces written by black police officers who attest to feeling others’ prejudice.

The dismissive reactions to Black Lives Matter echo the sentiments faced by the civil rights movement that we revere today. According to Gallup polls in the 1960s examined by The Washington Post in April, a majority of white Americans thought that the Freedom Riders, sit-ins and demonstrations were disruptive and not helpful to the movement’s goals. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is held up as an American ideal of nonviolent protest, but his challenges to the system were met with widespread indifference and resentment in his time. What irony that BLM activists are criticized for using methods similar to his.

African-Americans across the country are doing everything in their power to air their grievances and be heard. Those grievances are nothing new, but this level of organization in airing them hasn’t been seen for 50 years. We owe it to our fellow citizens, and to ourselves, to truly listen. We should strive to understand them better, because if we don’t do the work to get outside our perceptions, we’re guilty of more than not knowing.