An open letter to the All lives matter person by Tavonne Bowman
If there is one way to get me in an uproar it is when somebody starts to speak ignorance and hatred out of their mouths. My day was going well until I ran into an “All lives Matter” person. Like I don’t understand it, to be honest. I just feel like these types of people know the problem but are making fun of it and basically saying a word that starts with f and ends with k followed by them to our faces. It is really sad and childish. How can somebody have so much hatred filled up in the inside like that? Then I remembered that hatred is not something somebody is born with but taught. And that is what exactly I learned from this person that day.
A kid I had a class with my freshman year showed how uneducated he was and how ignorant his parents were. My favorite teacher I had was Dr.Zipp. I took him for an introduction to sociology and he told us to be prepared for deep conversations. The day he told us that I could just sense what was coming next. We were discussing Colin Kap that day and whether or not we agree with him kneeling for the flag. I was one of the one kids who answered a lot of the teacher’s question so when he called on me I gave my honest opinion. It has nothing to do with disrespecting soldiers and all to do with not standing for a country that doesn’t even want to protect you. To my knowledge, everybody agreed on this until this one kid had a different opinion. He felt that if you knell for the flag, then you are better off spitting on a veteran and that had to be one of the topmost dumbest things somebody who has a different view on race could have said to me. He exposed how uneducated he was on the situation because a solider had been the one to convince Kap to knell. His ignorance was also exposed as he continued to talk. I can’t remember all that he said but one thing he did say that was stupid is that he had been pulled over by the cops just like a black person and had a gun pulled out on him. But the reasoning on why he got the gun pulled on him was because he had a knife. He has never got one pulled on him all because the cop felt that his skin color was a weapon and feared for his life. This kid like a lot of Americans is sadly dealing with something that has to do with their inter souls.
It’s sad how people are. It’s sad that people can’t admit that something is wrong with the country that we are living in and ignore the issues that are happening. There as to come a point of time when even the one that is not being oppressed has a problem with the one that is being oppressed. And also think about how dumb it sounds when somebody yells all lives matter to somebody who is crying out black lives matters. To first start off let me say that when we say black lives matter, we are not saying that other lives do not matter. No, what we are doing is bringing awareness to why we are saying black lives matter. We want people to not only see the hurt but understand and feel where this hurt is coming from. White people do not have to fear losing their lives at a traffic stop. They do not have to feel pressure when walking into an interview because they are twice as likely to get hired before a person of color. They do not have to worry and feel attacked when shopping at stores. Why? Because they are not seen to be violent nor ghetto. They are not viewed as the one who might steal or cause chaos.
The sad part about this is that not everybody is like that. Yes, there are blacks who are like that but there are also whites, Hispanics, Mexicans, Germans, and many more people who fit into a negative category. But why are we over marginalizing groups anyways? Why not judge the individual person and stop judging them based on the culture they come from? Not everybody is the same person. Everybody is different to understand that. So, here this ALM person. Your protest to a protest is disrespectful. How would you like it if it was you and instead of others defending the tragedy that happened to you they simply start yelling well this and that matters also, basically saying you are not important. I saw this hashtag about all buildings matter on 9/11 and at first, I was disgusted because I didn’t understand at first I saw it as to being disrespectful but then I realize that the whole put was to show all lives matter, people, how disrespectful that sounded. I just hope that one day we can unite as one. I pray that we can love one other and I pray that this all lives matter person can see the hurt he caused all of the black students in that class that day. In the bible first Corinthians 13 verse 13 says “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. Love is our greatest weapon. When you learn to learn you forget to hate.
