I grew up with my grandmother’s story of going to the South for the first time as a teenager, during the Jim Crow era. I grew up fighting racism, not just in my neighborhood but in skateboarding, punk rock and at school and everywhere in my life. I will counter any argument where “All Lives Matter”. Because regardless of where you’re going with it, it provides those that do not understand what Black Lives Matter means, with the ammunition to counter protest and maintain the systemic racist quo. If you feel I’m calling you racist. Then maybe you should look in the mirror and really figure out what part of the line you stand on. Just because you have black friends, boyfriends, girlfriends or family members doesn’t meant you understand what it means to fight racism, white privilege, oppression, systemic racism or even understand what any of that really means. You think posting a Black Man holding up an All Lives Matter sign means something? It doesn’t. That’s Uncle Tom apologist rhetoric. Look up Stockholm Syndrome and see if it applies. Trust me it does. If you feel that my argument makes you seem or feel racist, well if the shoe fits? If my talking to you about my 30 some years of views and experience on racism in America makes you uncomfortable, you might have privilege and you probably don’t really understand what it takes to fight this system and the racism that it has bred for 100s of years.
I was taught as a product of an Irish Catholic Grandmother, that our people were not treated the same as other White People in America when they came here. I’ve seen the historical signs. I’ve seen what they did to Kennedy and his fight for Civil Rights. I know my country’s history better than most. I know the history of our founding fathers owning slaves, the genocide of millions of Native Americans, the anti-Catholic people point of views of the largely Protestant founding fathers and the people that ran our country for 100s of years. I know first hand police brutality and harassment. I know first hand racism and the violence that comes with it. I know casual racism. I know silent racism. I have seen it all. And I refuse to stay quiet or give any ground to “All Lives Matter” and the bigots and racists around this country.