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Black Lives Matter message deserves to be heard

I have many friends who tell me that white lives matter, or police lives matter.
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I have many friends who tell me that white lives matter, or police lives matter.

With all due respect, I encourage you to consider my thoughts on this.

The first question I ask you is why you feel it’s important to express the fact that your life matters too?

What is it about the Black Lives Matter movement that threatens you, or intimidates you, or scares you?

Think about that for a second before you respond.

I have to assume you grabbed on to the white lives matter moniker for a reason. What is that reason?

Once you’ve determined the reason, then I have more questions for you.

First, let me state that the Black Lives Matter movement is in no way intended to diminish or devalue your status in society. Let’s be clear on that.

It’s intended to elevate the black race to an equivalent status, wherein most religions affirm that all men were created in God’s image.

If you ask why blacks need a movement such as this, I put to you the following questions.

Was your race subjected to hundreds of years of slavery, where your person was considered a chattel to be bought, sold and bartered?

Because my black brothers and sisters were.

Did you ever have to deal with the sight of your grandfather or great grandfather being hung from a tree with a noose around their neck until they were dead, and then their remains desecrated by being tarred and feathered and left on display for days ?

Because my black brothers and sisters did.

Were any of your race, simply because of the colour of their skin, prevented from obtaining a mortgage to buy a home through a federal law that specifically was intended to keep you from doing it?

Because my black brothers and sisters were.

Did you receive robo calls as recently as the 1980s telling you that mixing your race with blacks was an abomination and that you were condemned to hell?

Because I did.

Black Lives Matter isn’t about you, or police officers. It’s about them and why their voice needs to be heard.

I plead with all my white lives matter friends, give them that. This is their voice, this is their time, and it took eight minutes and 46 seconds for them to gain their voice.

It took one black man — defenceless with his neck pinned to the asphalt for nearly nine minutes … pleading for his life … gasping that he couldn’t breath … and begging for his momma — to bring his nation and the world to its knees.

Stafford Gorsalitz, Red Deer