RE: “Why Black Lives Matter Isn’t What You Think”

, by Dreisen Heath,

On September 16, 2015, I opened up my Facebook and saw an article reposted by many of my Wesleyan friends entitled “Why Black Lives Matter Isn’t What You Think”. My hope was that a very keen and intelligent member of the Wesleyan community was going to publicly acknowledge and affirm the existence of the collective mobilizing efforts of my courageous black and brown people, as something positive, restorative and transformative. I was entirely wrong. Instead, I took up 3 minutes of my day to read an article that would therefore ruin the rest of my week due to the gross criminalization of Black Lives Matter activists, the invalid claims of the Movement, and the question of legitimacy of a movement that fights for black and brown people’s livable existence. Throughout this message, I will not utter your name because there are so many like you that feel it is their place to speak up, when they should stand down and let history un-repeat its course.

As an alum, avid activist, and supporter/doer within the Black Lives Matter Movement, I cannot begin to express how genuinely disappointed with not only the careless construction of the piece, but the audacity to question my life and the lives of my brothers and sisters with the following:

“Is this all worth it? Is it worth another riot that destroys a downtown district? Another death, another massacre? At what point will Black Lives Matter go back to the drawing table and rethink how they are approaching the problem?”

Well, let me tell YOU. With those questions, you have endangered the lives of the black and brown students, faculty and staff on your campus. With those questions, you have tried to delegitimize the work and existence of X House, the AFAM program, Ujamaa, the Ankh, the Office of Student Activities & Leadership Development, the Office of Equity & Inclusion, and the Divestment Coalition, who continually address the same principles for which Black Lives Matter stands for. With those questions, you have created a larger gap for allies, who resemble your pigment, to participate in the Movement because we can’t afford misguided actions, lack of action, silence, or unjust/invalid words to hold us back from our Liberation.

You are asking me, is my life worth fighting for? You are asking millions of black people, are their lives worth fighting for?

Be careful when you start to group and misname “the Movement”. The coined hashtag #BlackLivesMatter originated from the formation of an organization dedicated to address aspects of institutional racism, through the lens of the disproportionate police slayings of brown and black people. #BlackLivesMatter has evolved as a revolutionized platform for the Civil Rights Movement to continue affirming and embracing the resistance and resilience of black people. Therefore, if you are questioning whether the efforts of #BlackLivesMatter are worth it you are questioning the abolishment of slavery, black people’s right to vote, black people’s access to economic security, black people’s access towards social mobility…I can go on and on.

I guarantee you that if you had to wake up like I do every morning, thankful for your life because your very existence didn’t threaten an institutional actor and leave your body dead in the streets for 4 hours before someone removed it, and still you did not receive “justice”, you would not have uttered those words.

No movement is perfect. No one person is perfect. These are facts; it’s impossible to label something as perfect. These are facts. Your article was not rooted in truth, but rather ignorance, and therefore not factual, which makes you imperfect, as we all are. And unfortunately, your imperfection was given a huge platform to be displayed on a publication that is supposed to “serve the whole Wesleyan community”. And unfortunately, it is not your place as a white person to critique or question the Black Lives Matter Movement, or the efforts of black people demanding their livable existence.

To the Argus: This is not how you serve your community. I used to pick up a paper every Tuesday when I walked through Exley; I hardly want to open the webpage now. I am sure there is a reason why you didn’t share this post through your Facebook account. Don’t become another institutional structure that buries us. Acknowledgments and apologies are simply invisible band-aids upon our bleeding wounds.

Heath is a member of the Class of 2015.

  • Cliff’s Tux-table

    Reading an article ruined your entire week? You must have the most insulated and comfortable life ever if a single article expressing a dissenting opinion can ruin your week.

    Life is going to be hard for you, because real life isn’t like Wesleyan.

    • you missed the point

      Dissenting opinion is not he problem here. The inaccurate claims of BLM is a different discussion. Questioning the legitimacy of someone’s life is not dissenting opinion.

      • Cliff’s Tux-table

        Nah, you missed the point. If one can’t read an opinion article without getting so bent that it ruins their week, than one must either a.) Live an incredibly comfy and insulated life removed from any and all dissent and conflict (as I previously asserted), or b.) Be so entrenched within the ethos of perpetual “victimization” at Wes that they can’t handle another human being’s opinion (which was not a threat or attack, but rather an editorial with very legitimate questions–despite what enraged hair-triggered reactionaries seem to thing).

      • Nah

        Nah, you missed the point. What “ethos of perpetual ‘victimization’ at Wes” are you referring to here? Are you describing the position held by many Black people that they are persecuted and oppressed––the victims of institutional and interpersonal racism? Listen, I’m a white Jewish guy. Anti-semitism is definitely still alive in this country, but it’s less mainstream and culturally ingrained than anti-Black racism. So imagine the article titled “Should We Stop the Holocaust (Is It Worth It)?” appearing in the Argus in 1942. Different situation, obviously. But as a Jew, I can tell you that that article would ruin my week, not because I disagreed with it, but because that opinion––that the lives of my people weren’t worth fighting for, directly threatens me and my community. This article itself is a violent act. Would you agree with that? It’s a violent act because it implicitly supports the continuation of a murderous and oppressive system, and weakens resistance to that system by introducing the rhetoric of complacency and victim-blaming in a public forum. I get the desire to support free speech, and asking questions is important. But we all have to be aware of the effect our voices have. When Black people are being incarcerated and killed by police at hugely disproportionate rates, and are oppressed by a vast array of institutional and social forces in our society, undermining their resistance (and their ally’s support) with public, doubting rhetoric is an attack on their lives. And though I personally support Black Lives Matters, I think there are ways for allies of POC to ask questions about the methods of the movement that aren’t violent. I think if you obtain consent from someone more knowledgeable about the movement to field some potentially frustrating or ignorant questions, acknowledge the limitations of your knowledge and experience, ask your questions humbly, and truly listen to this person’s responses, you’re taking a big step towards educating yourself. Personally, I would read some articles first, taking an active role in my own education on the matter, and not putting the burden of my education on others. I’d guess many people would be happy to recommend such resources, if asked respectfully. Would others in the community agree?

      • Cliff’s Tux-table
      • Yea!

        Wow. Nah, this is a great response!

      • Man with Axe

        If you have evidence that innocent black people are incarcerated at highly disproportionate rates, that hard-working and intelligent black kids are being flunked out of school at high rates, that well-behaved black kids are being suspended from school at disproportionate rates, that companies are not interested in hiring well-spoken black applicants, that merchants don’t want to make sales to black people who have good credit, if you have that evidence I’d love to see it.

      • evidence

        Although African Americans make up 13% of our population, it is nearly three times that in prison, and over six times that in California prisons, our most populous state.
        http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp

      • Man with Axe

        I asked about “innocent” black people. One way to calculate what your 3-times statistic means is to ask, how many blacks are the victims of violent crime compared to their numbers in the population, and then, knowing that most perpetrators of crimes against blacks are other blacks, figure out how many of the blacks in prison are innocent. Let me know when you’ve figured it out. You might want to start with the FBI stats on murders, rapes, and thefts committed against blacks.

      • evidence

        You’re going to be hard-pressed to find a stat for people who are currently incarcerated and also innocent. I guess one way to never be disproven is to just demand statistics that can’t be produced?

      • Man with Axe

        It stands to reason that given that every single black person in prison has had a trial and been convicted, or pled guilty, that the burden should be on those who would argue that some large proportion of them are innocent.

      • Solo Atkinson

        Lots of low-level drug “crimes” there.

      • Man with Axe

        Is there some reason that black people have a propensity to commit such crimes? Don’t they know that they might pay a high price for such a crime? Or by “low level” do you mean non-violent, even if it involves selling crack or heroin?

      • Solo Atkinson

        They get convicted at a higher rate. Anyway the whole drug thing is a waste of time. Switzerland does it right.

      • Man with Axe

        If that’s true, and if they know it’s true, that the game is rigged against them, why do they play the game? Why not keep straight, graduate from school, get a job, get married, have kids, and do all of it in that order? Is that so hard? People who do that have very little chance of ending up in poverty, certainly not in prison.

      • Solo Atkinson

        If you want to solve social problems you have to start at the bottom. Have you ever worked with heroin addicts? They are twitching messes. Most people quite understandably leave them on the roadside to die. Some don’t.

      • Man with Axe

        I haven’t worked with addicts. Being an addict, though, is a choice that someone makes initially, in a world where it is hard to avoid learning the pitfalls of addictive drugs. That said, it would be better to decriminalize drugs and treat the addictions.

      • Solo Atkinson

        Thinkprogress had an article today about crazy overenforcement of knife laws against handymen especially when they are black. From the other side of the spectrum, Reason.com has similar articles. Unjust laws are real burdens, a game of hopscotch when you’ve got real-life responsibilities.

      • Man with Axe

        I read the article. It sounds like a lot of very stupid people in charge of law enforcement. It’s much like the zero tolerance policies in schools that get a kid suspended for a picture of a gun or an aspirin tablet. Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. By the way, I don’t think the article specifically mentions blacks.

      • Solo Atkinson

        I can’t remember if it mentions blacks. And who cares if it does. Usually, the ones from the left do, and the ones from the right emphasize that it can happen to anyone. Your examples of drawings of guns(also guns made of poptarts) are what I had in mind. But the article definitely makes a distinction between poor and rich. As it should. Usually these laws hit you a lot harder if you can’t hire a lawyer.

      • Man with Axe

        The point of the black lives matter movement is that blacks are targeted by law enforcement undeservedly. If it turns out that it’s not blacks, but poor people with knives, that is a point against the movement’s raison d’etre.

      • Solo Atkinson

        But it’s often targeted at blacks and often motivated by racism. This is heavily reported by black people themselves. There are outliers, but black people are not a nation of whiners and liars. They have something to say, and when you hear it one-on-one it can be overwhelming. I am talking about people who have neither the means nor the inclination to go big with their experiences. The sociological analysis of the left is largely correct. I generally support the BLM movement. It’s when it gets mixed into some of the excesses of identity politics, a kind rolling back of the individualism of the Enlightenment, that I disagree. For example, the notion that black people can’t be racist, almost by definition. Please, you don’t want to roll back the dignity of individual agency. It is the savior, not the enemy. Frederick Douglass had a finer appreciation for the Constitution that some others who read it at the time or even wrote it. Don’t leave that behind.

      • Man with Axe

        There are a couple of points you make that I agree with. First, some of the targeting of blacks by police is motivated by racism. But most is not. Most of the targeting of blacks is by other blacks. And that is the much more urgent problem that BLM obfuscates.

        Blacks are as racist as anyone else. Not only don’t they like whites, they also don’t like Asians, just to name one. I would venture to say that more crimes are perpetrated against non-blacks by blacks than the other way around, many simply because they are not black. Recent example: the targeting of non-black owned businesses in Baltimore during the riots.

        Blacks have some legitimate complaints. But they use these complaints as a reason not to achieve. Other groups have had it tough in this country. Slavery was 7 generations ago. Jim Crow was 3 generations ago. Black kids at Wesleyan don’t have it tough.

        But I disagree with the sociology of the left being accurate. I suppose that means that blacks are poor because the man keeps them down. But even middle class black kids perform relatively poorly in school and have more discipline problems. Blacks who graduate, get married, and have children in that order will almost never be poor. That is the sociology that the left rejects, and yet it is the truth. Black families were in much better shape in the 1950s than they are today. The cause? The welfare state. Dependency has been an unmitigated evil for blacks in America.

      • Reese

        this is something overlooked about the ahmed case, kids have been suspended for wearing tshirts with an american flag, for using their fingers to form a gun etc. schools suspend/involve authorities for ALOT of stupid reasons…the ahmed thing doesn’t fall into the category of stupid though IMO.

      • Man with Axe

        I don’t disagree with your opinion about the drug war generally. I think it’s pointless.

      • Reese

        well that is a separate issue and one worth arguing that ‘low level’ drug crimes probably dont warrant long prison sentences. it should be noted though based on 2012 stats (only ones I could find) 48% of people in prison are there for violent crimes. 20% for drug related crimes with no break down as to the severity of those drug crimes. so the majority of people in prison are in there for violent crimes (http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004339).

      • Man with Axe

        By the way, isn’t arguing a lot more fun than insisting that the guy who disagrees with you should be force to shut up, thrown off the school paper, and the paper defunded?

      • Jim Scotts

        So your contention is that everyone at every level of the justice system is racist? Not only the police, but the prosecutors, the judges and the corrections systems are all racist. Or is it maybe because of socioeconomic issues, certain races are more apt to commit crimes? Lets address that instead of criminalizing the police!

      • evidence

        here is one recently very famous of a well-behaved black boy being severely mistreated and suspended in a public school

        http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34324917

      • Man with Axe

        First, he’s not black. Second, he brought a device, an old radio shack clock he had disassembled, a device that looks to the untrained eye much like a bomb, to school, where biting a pop tart into a gun shape can get you suspended. I personally know white kids who have been suspended for less. Now he’s crowd sourcing funds to sue the school and the police. He deserves a lot more punishment than he got.

      • evidence

        Dude, he is black. He’s african. read the article. He’s literally black by the definition black.

        Also, great that this is what you want to argue about, because you’re very wrong here. If your read this article, you can see that law enforcement and teachers were aware from the start that it was not a bomb. Also, not sure how many bombs you have seen (I haven’t seen any) but I would have to assert it doesn’t look like a bomb to me.

      • Man with Axe

        Okay, in one sense he’s “black.” He’s from the tribes of Sudanese Muslims that enslave sub-Saharan Africans in Darfur. His people are not the people I usually think of as black. But I’ll grant you he isn’t white.

        But look at the picture in your article. It looks just like a bomb. Try to get onto an airplane with that.

        Finally, notice the color of the policeman visible in the picture of the kid in cuffs.

      • Man with Axe

        By the way, bringing a hoax bomb to school is a serious offense. A good friend of mine was expelled from school permanently for doing that. He’s white, by the way. No one thought it was a bomb after a cursory examination. That boy ended up in the military, but they almost didn’t take him because of this offense that he committed.

      • Solo Atkinson

        Intention to commit a hoax is essential for it to be a hoax. Otherwise you get ridiculous arrests like this one.

      • Man with Axe

        Neither of us knows his intentions. But if he’s smart enough to entertain notions of going to MIT, he should have given some thought to the likely reaction of people to such a device. Was it part of a science fair, or classroom assignment? If not, all the more reason for his teachers to wonder what the heck it was.

      • Solo Atkinson

        Yet he told his science teacher what it was as soon as he came into the building.

      • Man with Axe

        That is one fact in his favor, if true.But the other teachers would not know what it was even if they looked at it carefully.

        Having said that, this episode is hardly evidence for the proposition that black children are disciplined far out of proportion to what they deserve.

      • Solo Atkinson

        The fact he told him discredits the idea that it was a hoax. The fact that the other teachers could not recognize it is a mitigating factor for them. The evidence for racism in enforcement is overwhelming; anecdotes serve only to remind us of it. This is one point where white people are often entirely blind.

      • Man with Axe

        That blacks commit murder at 7 times the rate of whites is a fact. That blacks commit an overwhelming number of rapes of white women compared to the number of rapes of black women by whites is a fact. Racism in enforcement? How can that be the explanation for the rate of black convictions for violent crime in cities where the mayor and police chief are black, and half the officers are black? I would argue that there are probably many cases in which black crime is ignored because the authorities are so sensitive to the charge of racism in enforcement. Hence the repeal of stop and frisk in New York City, which will serve to increase the number of black victims of crime. If whites are blind, blacks are deaf to the cries of the honest citizens in black neighborhoods.

      • Solo Atkinson

        It’s obviously a combination. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. But if you engage in a surgical diagnosis of the black family, for example, and your motives are not deeply kind, you will quickly be found out. This is true with black civic leaders and politicians, people who have their foot in the real world, not just with identity politics proponents from campuses or twitter mobs.

      • Man with Axe

        Motives? What are the motives of people whose careers are based on the cycle being self-perpetuating, such as the Al Sharpton’s of this world?

        One of the great ironies is that blacks think middle class whites want to keep them down. What they really want is for blacks to be just as middle class as anyone else. To be educated, hard-working, family oriented, law abiding. The difference between liberal and conservative whites on this score is that liberals don’t really believe blacks have the capability to do much of that, so they provide dependency of welfare, affirmative action, and excuse their bad behavior in school and on the streets as a reaction to oppression. Conservative whites see blacks as capable, and demand that they earn their success through hard work and study, responsible family structure, and being law-abiding.

        People live up to your expectations of them.

      • Reese

        it was none of these, he ‘made’ it on his own and brought it to school and was even told by his science teacher after he showed it to put it away after but yet kept showing it to everyone.

      • Reese

        he is neither black, nor well behaved, nor even made a clock (he took apart one and put it in another case) and by all accounts he refused to cooperate or answer when questioned about his device. besides you really going to use that as an example? its the best thing that happened to the kid, he is getting scholarships, invites all over the place etc all over something he didnt even make, a bomb OR a clock.

    • Right on, CT.

      And sorry, Mr. Heath, but BLM too often fights for false causes, and this harms any legitimate cause it supports. It’s a corrupted form of “crying wolf.”

      You didn’t even engage when Mr. Stascavage linked to articles that supported his argument. Instead, you ranted. Thing his, Stascavage presented facts, and facts, believe it or not, can be fact checked. Instead, you just “coddled” yourself as your week was ruined.

      Hey, if you want to join BLM and get behind guys like Michael Brown (he’d be prosecuted for felony assault if he’d survived) or the two Olympia thieves (currently being charged with felony assault), that’s your choice. But it’s a choice that deserves examination and, ultimately, excoriation.

      Listen to Richard Sherman, he sees both sides, and gets it straight:

      Richard Sherman on Black Lives Matter

  • Cthulu

    NO LIVES MATTER

  • Solo Atkinson

    “And unfortunately, it is not your place as a white person to critique or question the Black Lives Matter Movement, or the efforts of black people demanding their livable existence.”

    Oops, you just lost solidarity there.

  • Man with Axe

    “I guarantee you that if you had to wake up like I do every morning, thankful for your life because your very existence didn’t threaten an institutional actor and leave your body dead in the streets for 4 hours before someone removed it, and still you did not receive “justice”, you would not have uttered those words.”

    You are obviously referring to Michael Brown. Did his “very life” threaten an “institutional actor” or did he try to grab a policeman’s gun? Did he commit a strong-arm robbery at a convenience store which drew the attention of that policeman? Did he not receive justice when the US attorney general, a black man, concluded that there was no civil rights violation in his death?

    No movement is perfect, as you say, but if you want to gain the respect of people who are not inclined to believe everything you say just because you are black, then you should base your movement on legitimate grievances.

    If you do not have the courage to read criticism and questions about your movement you should stay out of the public sphere. If you can’t take a bit of questioning from a college student without retiring to your fainting couch, how are you going to change the world?

  • Wickedwebsweunweave

    Jesus Christ this article harms people’s perception of the Black Lives Matter movement far more than the first article ever did. You don’t only equate questioning a movement’s practices with supporting the opposition, you equate questioning the movement with supporting black people’s return to slavery. Step outside of yourself for one minute and look at how asinine and pathetic your argument is for a legitimate movement that would be better off without your support. And make sure to tightly bandage your bleeding wounds and check yourself for splinters when you step down off your cross.

  • Anonymous

    Liberal fascist snowflakes can dish it out, but not take it.

  • CoryIntheHouse

    The person that wrote this is mentally ill and clearly has no place in a university environment or for that matter any environment that doesn’t include padded walls, and a snack with juice before lunch time. Grow up.

  • NoNonsense

    What a hyperbolic, meaningless rant. Barely intelligible. This is a product of Wesleyan? Sheesh!

  • Anonymous

    Mr. Heath, it’s just too darned bad that not everybody agrees with you. Hate to break this to you, but having people take opposing views is just part of life.

    Your attempt at melodrama is a big yawn. No, an op-ed that raises “questions” about BLM does not “endanger[]” lives. Nor does raising questions about BLM amount to “questioning the abolishment (sic) of slavery.” Really, that kind of claim is simply lame.

    The bottom line is that you have too thin a skin to deal with people who don’t share your views. Hence, your crybaby tantrum.

    Good luck with your “movement” if you go into fits when someone writes an op-ed that doesn’t fit your views. If you can’t handle a few words, you don’t seem exactly suited for any kind of difficult struggle. It’s not much of a fighter who curls up in ball at the first whiff of opposition.

  • James Mariani

    Mr. Heath, handling and responding to constructive criticism is all part of life and part of becoming an adult. Bryan had every right to write what he did and he did it in a respectful and constructive way. A problem that you don’t seem to understand is that if you are going to go public with something you seriously need to learn and be prepared to deal with and respond to Criticism. A “white person,” as you put it, actually has every right to question or criticize a “black lives matter movement” just like every black person has every right to criticize or question a movement defending white people. This is America and the first amendment does not say anything about being sensitive to people that are mentally isolated and narrow minded last I checked. If you are too sensitive to this kind of feedback I strongly suggest you find something else to do other that be an activist for a very controversial movement. I also recommend you start figuring out new ways to explain and defend some of the actions of the black lives matter movement that are drawing critizism instead of deflecting from it.

  • Reese

    sounds like you read the article but didnt understand it, especially if it ruined your week. you are laying the melodramtic nonsense on thick too wake up every morning thankful you werent killed and left in the streets? please…please..its this type of nonsense that invalids the BLM. As far as I can tell the entire BLM is made of up a bunch of melodramatic children. A white person has EVERY right to offer critical observation about the BLM, especially when it is hypocritical and misguided and ignores the real threat to black lives, other black people. I suppose we’d take the movement more seriously if didnt put all its effort into one area and addressed the systematic, cultural problem of blacks killing other blacks.

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