Black Lives Matter

The first thing the white woman standing behind me in the voting line asked me was, "Do you have any black friends!?"

It was one of the neatest conversations I've ever been invited into.

I'm kidding. It was a fucking nightmare.

Everyone around me (mostly African Americans) did not believe me for one cracker of a second when I blurted out, "Yes!"

To this day, I'm not sure why she asked because she wouldn't tell me when I asked her why she asked, but you better believe that I've been obsessing about it for more than a month.

I've finally decided that she is my neighborhood incarnate.

A distant (in time and space) friend once posted on Facebook something like, "If you're white and surrounded by other white people in your neighborhood, you're part of the problem."

Whew! Not me says I! Look! There's a black guy walking home from work! Over yonder in the park is a black family playing on the swings. The charter school directly across the street buses in a greatly diverse student body!

Blessed are the peacemakers (me).

I chose to live in our neighborhood because Jaime didn't know the city. I knew we could walk to locally owned bars and restaurants and hoped maybe (just maybe) Jaime would get a job at the hospital nearby. But mostly I chose it because I knew it was safe. Safe. SaFe. SAFE.

For those of you who have never lived in Kansas City, I'll share a secret with you that everyone who has knows...Kansas City is segregated.  There's a wall that's disguised as street called Troost, and it indisputably separates the city by race. Nearly everyone living to the east of it is black, and I live well to the west.

Of course we've got some neighbors who are black, Latino, Middle Eastern and Asian, but I'm willing to guess that most of my white neighbors, like me, chose to live here because it's "cool," "diverse" and "safe."

Let's face it. Safe means "people like me." I'm comfortable here because most people look like me.

But I don't deserve to feel "safer" than anyone.

How safe did Trayvon Martin feel walking through that gated community? How safe did Ryan Stokes feel in the Power and Light District while conforming to its racist dress code before he was shot in the back running for his life?

This entire fucking country isn't safe for African Americans and other minorities, and I'm tired of pretending it is. I'm tired of defending it. I'm tired of being part of the problem.

Systematic, subconscious and overtly conscious racism has to be stopped now because at its most benign, it makes us the laughing stock of the world, and at its most malignant, people are murdered.

Don't tell racist jokes. Don't laugh at racist jokes. Don't overlook an application with a certain type of name. Don't pretend racism magically disappeared in the 60s. Don't pretend everyone has the same opportunities as you. Don't forget for one second all the privileges you have. Don't accept that this is normal.

Black Lives Matter matters because black lives here have never mattered. White lives, on the other hand, have always mattered and have always held more value in our government and courts, in our media, in our economy, in our education system, in our society. We can't pretend otherwise because to do so would even further diminish the value of all the black lives lost to racism...so far.