I wrote an entry last week, attempting to draw a distinction between a virtue that might believe that “black lives matter” and the political movement, Black Lives Matter. The movement is progressive-extremist, Marxist, and according to their own web site, intent on disrupting the western nuclear family. Many have been pointing this out for some time. The previous article was just my own take on the matter. Suffice it to say, I am pleased that many people are beginning to recognize that while the slogan is innocuous enough, the organization is dangerous and treacherous. Thinking people are able to delineate between an okay sentiment and a not-so-okay organization.
Here’s the sticky wicket. The movement coined the slogan and foisted it upon us. The two are conflated by design. The mantra was birthed in demagoguery. It is no accident that if a person refuses to recite the mantra, “black lives matter,” because he does not want to even hint that he supports the organization, he can only be racist. Inevitably, he will be accused of “speaking volumes” with his silence, suggesting that such silence can only mean that black lives do not matter to him. (Perhaps, you have followed a certain NFL player trying to shame a certain NFL owner into jumping on the BLM bandwagon.) Insisting that everyone must recite, “black lives matter,” lest silence renders them racist is a naked manipulation ploy.
So, if a good slogan is the fruit of a poisonous tree (the BLM organization), it appears that social justice warriors who are not out to disrupt the nuclear family have one of two options. They can either try to wrestle the slogan away from its mother and appropriate it for good, or, they can rally around a new slogan, one birthed in less sinister soil. An old friend pointed me to Albert Mohler’s podcast page. A scholar in the Southern Baptist movement, he has dealt with this issue very similarly to me, but his concluding “advice” differs subtly. His conclusion is basically, “Embrace the slogan, but reject the movement.” I prefer, “Embrace the sentiment, reject the movement, but know that if you recite the mantra, you risk identifying yourself with some folks, some ideas and some agendas with which you may not wish to be identified.
Slogans are not my strong suit. “Working Together to Elevate Black Lives without Insisting that White People Must Loathe Themselves and Actually Trying to Work Together for a Degree of Racial Harmony … ‘Matters’”. A little cumbersome for a hat or T-shirt, I suppose.
A fellow who recently circulated a meme defended his effort when called out with an argument that really settled nothing. The premise of the meme was that if one is not willing to say, “black lives matter,” preferring to say, “all lives matter,” then, that person is not paying attention to Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep in Luke 15. You know, ninety-nine were safe; only one was lost. Therefore, the one must matter to a degree the others do not. While the one lost sheep did require a different degree of urgency, what the author leaves out is that Jesus brought the one home and rejoiced. The text is about salvation. But, even if one allows for such a tortured application of a Bible story, the idea is that the lost sheep is restored to the safety of the fold. We see no evidence that the shepherd intended to “disrupt” the existing safety paradigm for the whole one-hundred by tearing down the fold, because the one had a difficult experience.
The meme author’s defense was that Jesus would never respond to a person’s pain with a cliché such as “all lives matter,” that effectively dismisses that sufferer’s pain. I can accept that as far as it goes. However, drawing upon one’s own subjective assessment of what Jesus may or may not say or do carries no more biblical authority than the original mishandling of the text. Apparently, if someone said to Jesus, “black lives matter,” He would only answer, “Of course they do,” so as to not cause greater pain.
This is what we can know: Jesus, the embodiment of Truth, would say the right thing at the right time in any and every circumstance. Indeed, He would never cause needless pain; “a bruised reed, he will not break.” But, if someone came to Jesus, trying to enlist Him into a cause, He might say, “Who made me an arbiter between you and your brother?” Or, He might draw that person into greater eternal truth with a parable. If He knew they were being manipulative and insincere, He might completely disarm them with a brilliant question. Jesus knew what was in a man AND He embodied all truth. That is quite an advantage when responding to situations on the fly. All we can do, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves, is to try to balance whatever wisdom and compassion we have, while crying out for divine help in regard to the compassion and wisdom from above that we need.
Having said that, I have never heard one of the victim’s survivors in one of these recent incidents plead with people to support BLM or to even take up the habit of reciting the slogan. It may have happened, but I would suspect exploitation if it did. The insistence that people embrace that slogan at the exclusion of any alternative tends to come from activists (black and white), celebrities, athletes, panderers as well as some genuinely good-hearted folks and loved ones who cannot quite trust others to think for themselves.
If, for you, saying “all lives matter,” is intended to be a dismissal of another person’s pain, then, do better! That is not why I prefer it. If black lives must matter at the exclusion of other lives mattering, that’s a problem, and I won’t sign up. And, if saying, “black lives matter” or “all lives matter” is the only option I am given, then until a better slogan comes along, I will choose the latter because I want nothing to do with a political movement that advertises some very hellish values. I choose “all lives matter” because it is inclusive and because it is true. Relegating every individual to either Team Villain or Team Victim is of no value at all. It only fuels the resentment, destroys dialogue and renders genuine reconciliation impossible.
