All Lives Matter!

All lives matter. This isn’t a rebuttal to the current ”Black lives matter!" hashtag/chant recently added to the national debate about race and public safety.

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It’s a reflection upon the basis of my anti crime activism, which is summed up by another phrase, this one of my invention: Your safety is my happiness While I faced my share of bias growing up, I can’t honestly say in 2014 that we face potential racist violence on a par with what my grandparents and parents faced in the Jim Crow South. This doesn’t mean, as some critics will surely conclude, that I ( somehow lol ) feel Black lives don’t matter, despite having been Black for ( tick-tick-tick ) 47 years and counting. The civil right of safety is color blind. I don’t bring the baggage of America’s Apartheid past into current situations where a racial one-size-fits-all assumption of bias colors, pun intended, every self defense, private security or law enforcement encounter. The country of my adult-hood isn’t the nation of my youth. While the road away from past prejudice has miles more to go, assuming every Black person is an angel and Whites are demons ignores legitimate progress. I take matters on a case by case basis and hope the snivel rights industry may one day choose to do the same. As the next police or private use of force issue hovers on the edge of national awareness, I suggest those stating ” Black lives matter ” also hash tag and chant, ” All lives matter!,” too. Black folks don’t have the market cornered on human suffering. Our history should make us the first ones to denounce harm which befalls fellow Americans, regardless of pigmentation. If you agree, please consider joining my Facebook group, ”American Brothers Against Crime. “

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