"Black Lives Matter." A simple phrase, sure, but one that has shown us all via social media, the news, and conversations overheard by the couple at the table text to us that racism is still stronger than ever in our free world. The two sides, ignorantly separated by church and state (and institutionalized racism as a result of the two), passionately express their differences for two very different reasons. Black people and their allies fight for justice, equal rights, and the privilege of not being shot or thrown in jail for being mistaken as someone who has a warrant out for their arrest. On the flip side, racists (also known as Trump supporters, poor hicks, and "All Lives Matter" supporters) fight to remind black people that this is a white nation founded by white principles; to convince them (and people who watch Fox News) that blacks' rights to fight for their lives is anti-white, violent, and punishable by imprisonment and death.
In 2015, nearly 1 in 3 black men killed by police were unarmed. By the end of last year, black men were 9 times more likely to be killed by police than white men. "They shouldn't have run from police!" the racists say. "They had guns! When you're ignorant and don't obey the law, of course you're going to get shot." As any competent human being can understand (if you're incompetent, check out how the UK handles people who run away from the police), running doesn't warrant being shot in the head. Telling a police officer you have a license to carry (a gun) and reaching for your identification isn't an open invitation to be murdered in the front seat of your car while your girlfriend and child watch helplessly. Yet, when a young, white college student was found doing the unthinkable, he wasn't murdered. Hell, he wasn't even shot with a fucking bullet. He was tazed and detained.
Late Monday night, Austin Harrouff, a 19-year old FSU student, stormed out of a restaurant away from his family (reportedly due to unsatisfactory service.) During his trek to who knows where, Harrouff approached a couple in their fifties who were sitting in their garage with the door open. Unprovoked, Harrouff stabbed each of them (and their neighbor, who later tried to intervene) with a switchblade. When police arrived, the horrific scene in front of them was one typically reserved for the silver screen. Harrouff was found maneuvering and growling over the dead couple while simultaneously eating the flesh off the 59 year-old man's face. But Harrouff, despite killing two people (and seriously wounding one), and, you know, eating the fucking flesh from the bones of someone's face, didn't shed a single drop of blood at the hands of the police. Instead, he was tazed and tackled by three officers. Harrouff is still alive (and in critical condition).
Philando Castile wasn't harming anyone when a shaky officer shot and killed him in front of his family. Charles Kinsey, a North Miami behavior therapist, survived being shot by police after trying to calm a young autistic boy and uneasy police who mistook the child's toy truck for a weapon. The black individuals (read: victims of racism) in these scenarios, and the thousands of others we hear about on a yearly basis all have the same thing in common: they weren't hurting anyone. They were selling CDs. They forgot to use their turn signal. They were playing with a toy gun in a park. They were literally standing there, doing nothing. Yet, this white student - who stabbed three innocent people and ate their god damn face, was not only spared, but praised in the media for "...taking advanced-placement classes...having everything going for him...[the ability to] bench-press 365 pounds as a high-school student...and having no criminal record."
Does Austin Harrouff's sick, cannibal-ass life matter? Sure it did. But so did Philando Castile's, Charles Kinsey's, Trayvon Martin's, Tamir Rice's, and the 1,130 other black lives taken by police officers last year, the years before it, and the years ahead. "Black Lives Matter" does not mean White Lives Don't Matter - it means black people's human rights, dignities, and lives should be recognized and reacted to in the same manner as every other privileged person's. Your guess is still as good as mine as to who will soon be the next President of the United States, but you better hope gun laws aren't too restrictive so you can stock up - even during the zombie apocalypse, our "boys in blue" would rather kill innocent black people than flesh-eating monsters.