"Black Lives Matter"

I am, very cautiously, going to say something here. Black Lives DO Matter. Everyone's life matters and to single people out because of the colour of their skin and subject them to violence for that reason is abhorrent. Do it around me and you can forget any chance of friendship. I'll be prowling off with my paw in the hand of the person you singled out.

I am strongly opposed to the use of violence. Although I do not like it I can understand that there is sometimes a need to use force commensurate with a situation. There is however a vast difference between that and using violence. Violence is unnecessary action. It should never be used.

There are people who face discrimination on a daily basis because they look "different".  It has been this way for my friend M.... for all his life. He will shortly be retiring from his role as a senior social welfare officer working with indigenous youth in trouble. He's been very good at his job, so very good that they wanted him to stay on as a consultant. He has refused. I know why and he's right. Part of his success has been the way he looks. He's "one of us" to at least some of the boys with whom he has worked. 

In the normal way if I see M... out and about he will give me a bear hug - and I will hug him back. He's like another brother to me. His mother was like another mother to me. I have met many indigenous people through them and through M...'s sister. I have occasionally met with suspicion but, for the most part, it has been, "That's M....'s friend. She's okay." 

The response from the other side, the so-called "white side", has not always been so positive. I have been abused for hugging M... in public. There have been disapproving looks even if I am just standing there with him and talking. I know it is quite likely that some of those who give us those disapproving looks are people who have done far less good in their working lives than M... has. All either of us can do is ignore it as much as we can.

We also know that there are other groups in the community who face discrimination - on a daily basis. A friend of mine has rather severe  ataxic cerebral palsy. He moves like a person who has had too much to drink. When he speaks he sounds like a person who has had too much too.  More than once he has been manhandled by the police who have mistakenly believed he is drunk. Too often, when the situation becomes obvious, he has been simply abandoned without as much as an apology.  On one occasion he found himself outside the city police station at two in the morning - and no, he had not "sobered up" in the six hours since his "arrest". There was no public transport home at that hour.  Attempting to take the arresting officer to court would have been a waste of time. He's told to "carry something" explaining his condition. Last week a member of the police force told him, "You shouldn't be out on your own like that."  He's been hospitalised more than once for severe depression.

I have female friends who wear the hijab and they are subjected to racial and sexual comments on a daily basis. They try to ignore it but they find it distressing, of course they do. You don't "get used to it". Any suggestion they should report it is met with the hopeless expression of those who know that nothing will be done because "all they need to do is stop wearing it".

 Several years ago a Jewish friend of mine was badly beaten. He was in hospital for some time as a result.  The incident was caught on camera but nothing came of it. He was interviewed and told by two members of the police force that he was to blame - that he should "not wear that silly little hat".  My Jewish friend committed suicide on leaving hospital.

It might not be physical violence but it is just as harmful and can even be deadly.  The lack of support from those in authority is a different sort of violence. People can lose their sense of self-worth and that is just as harmful.

So I want to say here Black Lives DO  Matter. When you hear or read those words think about where they came from, think about  young Trayvon Martin walking down a street and then think about everyone else who faces negative discrimination. It takes many forms and it is wrong.