Here is What I Don't Get

Here is what I do not get.

Why is the posting of a statement that supports "Black Lives Matter," and a call for eliminating racial bias on our streets, seen as an attack on the lives and safety of first responders? I do not understand the flip-side of that coin either. Why is a statement that supports first responders seen as an attack on black Americans?

I happen to support both those movements. I believe that Black Lives Matter. American culture has shamefully treated black Americans. It had been an historically broken relationship. As a friend of mine recently posted on Facebook: When one goes to a doctor for a broken ulna, it is irrelevant to that situation that all bones are important. It is the ulna that is broken. It alone requires special attention. The treatment of black Americans in our culture currently requires special attention. Black Lives Matter!

That statement does not mean that the lives and safety of first responders, police officers, paramedics, or other care-givers should be imperiled. As a society, we have got to honor those who put their lives on the line to protect us and act to save us from tragedy. Every man or woman who puts him or herself on the line for others is to be honored, respected and highly valued. As a society, we should pay them better and protect them more fully for what they do for us.

I respect and honor first responders. I believe that we can all embrace Black Lives Matter. I do not see one at the exclusion of the other. Interestingly, I think that the divisive and exclusionary emotion is fueled by media, hyperbole, destructive political and economic rhetoric, that is inteded to drive a wedge between the two communities.

Driving a wedge between those who support and protect the lives and safety of first responders and those who claim Black Lives Matter seems like an intentional act of hatred and violence. It is intentionally divisive, destructive, exclusionary and segregationist. To pit one of these statements against the other is unfair, narrow-minded and dogmatic. To pit people who makes these statements against one another is judgmental, critical and destructive.

Who is so passionate about destroying our health as a nation that they divide those who stand for the safety of first responders from those who demand that Black Lives Matter? I, for one, hold that both of those statements are worthy of our attention and dedication. One statement is not made to the exclusion of the other. Why are we being told that they do? Why can we not stand up for both the safety and respect due those who endanger themselves for our communal sake and those who have been historically victimized in our culture?

I stand for the safety and respect of our first responders. I also stand for Black Lives Matter. Do not tell me that I do not support both camps. I do. Those who engage in violence, whether in act or in rhetoric divide, destroy, segregate, and exclude. Why can we not stand for both those truths? Why can we not support both statements? What is wrong with a unified approach that fixes society's wrongs, while upholding those who work hardest to protect us?

The only solution to our societal ills is to be unified in their healing. It does not help the situation to divide ourselves into one camp or the other. In fact, division only begs the violence that further destoys us.

Stop it!