When I think about #BlackLivesMatter #BLM one thing I always say is - white folks should really consider trying to find ways to support, participate or just speak on it if they can find a way and feel they resonate. After all - when you think of it - naturally black lives probably already DO matter to most black folks. So therefor it's really important that a lot more white folks maybe do some soul searching and try to be exemplify "[being their] brother's keeper" to coin an old Biblical phrase: that is to be ever more sensitive to and behave more honorably and faithfully towards their brothers and sister among other races. I hope not to offend anyone with it - but if I do offend - that's OK. Maybe lets discuss it off line if you feel sensitive. Maybe we can both learn something. Rather not turn this into an angry thread though. :) This is a comment I made to someone from a long discussion we have been in about the white race. Just some food for thought:
"Yeah - it's good to acknowledge the unique and contumacious horrors the race has committed and it's often perverse character. It's not the same as condemnation. Actually - I'd argue what WOULD condemn a member of a group that committed atrocities is the opposite - things like denial, a lack of contrition or what have you. I always like to point out that God didn't apparently give up on Cain after he killed his brother. He is still talking to him at that point. What sends Cain 'East of Eden' (what condemns and exiles him in other words) is his denial and contumacy - this "I am not my brother's keeper" business. What kind of a white man would I be if I ignored the suffering my race has produced? What kind of a man, if I denied the cruelty to which men have subjected women historically? What kind of a German would a German be for instance if he denied the Holocaust or sought in any way to diminish it's significance or the brutal role the culture had in the chaos of that age? It's not about self-loathing. Quite the opposite. It's about redemption. To acknowledge these things isn't to say that to be white is to be bad. Maybe some people believe that. maybe some white folks have some self loathing. That's not what I would promote ever, but yeah be real about history and justice and stand up for it."
