Friday, June 19, 2020

logic for Juneteenth

Here's somebody else who's finally making the point that B. has been making about the slogan "Black Lives Matter" and those who object to it. The somebody else is a sports broadcaster named Max Kellerman, who said on TV,
Black Lives Matter has always meant Black Lives Matter parenthetically 'too.' In other words, we already know that white lives matter. Black Lives Matter too.
The context was a college football coach who wears a shirt reading "Football Matters." Kellerman said,
I think a lot of people think football matters -- probably too much. So to have a "football matters" shirt and play on Black Live Matters shows maybe not a tone-deafness, but a lack of comprehension.
BLM isn't some sort of ra-ra cheer for Black people, suitable to be played with by adapting it to a ra-ra cheer for anything you like. It's a desperate plea to take Black lives seriously, to treat them with respect instead of as something that can casually be snuffed out by any cop with a gun, or a knee. To put something popular (e.g. football) or well-defended ("blue lives") on that level is a studied insult and denigration, and if the coach doesn't realize it, his incomprehension is monumental.

No comments:

Post a Comment