Everyone has heard of #BLM but what is its origins and how can we understand better what it means and doesn't mean? Listen in to hear reactions and reflections to #BLM, the death of George Floyd, and the summer of 2020.
Transcript: Black Lives Matter
Eric Every incident that I have had with the police came right back to me as saying that that could have been me.
Will: Despite having it on video, there's so much willingness by people to try to find a way to explain it away.
Penny: It's like a public lynching.
Eric: And I see all of these things, these moments of reflection and grief and remembrance as connected. And I don't think this country has ever had this type of moment.
Penny: Welcome to the Diversity and Inclusion for All project supported by Calvin University and the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship. Together, we'll listen to key prospective, build our knowledge, inform our thinking, and get a little better equipped to engage our world.
Black lives matter. I think this really became a prominent conversation topic, social media blasted topic in the summer of 2020. But it actually started earlier than that, and I'm wondering if you can outline for us a little bit the history of the Black Lives Movement.
Eric Yes, you are absolutely right. A lot of people began to articulate at least the phrase Black Lives Matter last year in light of George Floyd's murder, but also even in 2014 and aftermath of Mike Brown's death I’m not gonna call it a murder since Darren Wilson was acquitted. It actually goes back to 2012 in the aftermath of Trayvon Martin's death at the hands of George Zimmerman down in Florida. And three, three friends, women, African-American women, Patrice Cullors, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi. They go into, I think, the story that, I mean, Alicia Garza and also Patrice Cullors tell that they're emailing each other during this time. And one, I can't remember which one, but one ended her email with the phrase “Black lives matter.” And so one of the other friends started using that as a hashtag on Facebook. And that's how the hashtag movement began. But black lives matter as a decentralized organization begins right after Michael Brown, during the Ferguson protests. That's when it began, so that's that's that's just as August of 2014.
Penny: And when you say begin, you mean that's really when it took off as a hashtag?
Eric: No it took off as a hashtag before that, but it takes off, as I would say, a legitimate movement, a social political movement in 2014.
Penny: So in the summer of 2020. When the video footage of George Floyd and that event kind of went viral, I think for a lot of Americans, they sort of had that front row seat to watching something so disturbing that Black Lives Matter movement exploded in its aftermath. Do you remember your own reactions at that time?
Eric: Oh, my goodness. Well, I heard about the incident, the murder, maybe a day after it happened. So I think it happened May 27, 2020. And people were talking about it on social media and people were saying that, oh, there's the video. And I refused to watch the video. At first. And then when I did watch the video, maybe two or three days afterwards, I'm sitting on my couch watching it on CNN. And I was frozen. And then my eyes started to water, tears welling up in my eyes and they were welling up in my eyes, not simply because this police officer, former police officer and convicted murderer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, but….It… Every incident that I have had with the police came right back to me as saying that that could have been me. So. That affected me emotionally, spiritually, psychologically. It was a visceral response. So, yeah, that was that was that was difficult.
Penny: It's so important, Eric, for for me to hear that from you. You identify as African-American and and to hear you say really that you felt deep down, that could have been me. And I think that for other African-Americans, some colleagues and friends, I know that that their feeling too is: that could have been my son. Or my father or my brother. And and that... That is just really important, I think, for us non-African-Americans to really hear. That every time that's in the news, it hits it hits hard.
Eric: Yup. Every time.
Will: It seems to me that part of the story, too, is the accumulation of seeing these things on TV, you know, we talk about microaggression and that no one microaggression by itself is traumatic, but it's the accumulation of them. And, you know, it's kind of like your skin is more thin and sensitive and then a seemingly small thing is profoundly painful. And I remember at some point in the last couple of years, thinking back to when Rodney King was beaten to death by Los Angeles police, that was caught on videotape. This is like 1990 or 91. And it just happened to be caught on video by by someone who was recording it from their apartment or something like that. But people didn't carry carry around video recorders back in the 1990s. And so you didn't see these things on TV. The stunning thing was that despite the video of the death, the police officers were acquitted. What's different today is that, you know, maybe not literally everybody, but everybody's got cell phones. And so they can record these videos. And so we see it on TV so much. And I can only imagine, since I'm not a person of color, what it must be like to to see that in the way you did, Eric, that just it's a cumulative effect and that today like this Rodney King back in the 90s, despite having it on video, there's so much willingness by people to try to find a way to explain it away.
Penny: So I remember hearing the George Floyd incident about that last summer. And I have to admit that to this day, I have not watched that video. I've read a lot about it. I've seen all kinds of social media posts and articles about it, but I have not watched it. And maybe maybe I need to …maybe Eric needs to call me out on that. But there's a part of me that just…I… It's like a public lynching. And part of me doesn't want to watch that almost as a kind of protest.
Eric: Yeah. No, I wouldn't I would not call anybody out for not watching from a certain perspective. Some people want to see it. Oh, it can be callous, but there's another way you frame …that protest. Yeah, I get that. And there have been incidents that have been caught on video in the past, not just George Floyd that I have not watched. I will not watch. I have not even watched Ava DuVernay piece on Netflix, How they see us. I haven't I haven't built up the the capacity, the emotional capacity to watch that, because as soon as it came out, people also saw me and said, wow, it was as hard. I'm not I'm not there yet. There it in the certain books that I've had to make myself read. No, I understand that it's a trauma and for for African-Americans, yeah, as Will pointed out, you have the accumulation of these these things you have from Rodney King on down to George Floyd, Philandro Castillo. I mean, that is horrible to watch. Horrible to watch. So many other things. But I remember one thing that I did do last year in response to George Floyd, I guess I guess it went a little viral. I don't know how viral. I wrote a poem called “There Were No Cameras.” And it was a personal poem. But I listed just about every incident I had had with the police from when I was a little boy up until most recent or even not just the police, but also with white people targeting me and making what we call micro-aggressions. I listed a bunch of those things, and every every line began with “there were no cameras.” So, I listed maybe 30 things nobody saw, but I witnessed it myself. I felt it and it accumulates. You know, you do. You don't forget those things. And that's just the way that I think I think we're wired in terms of psychology memory. It was something that shakes us and is traumatic and then living in a racialized society and having racial abuse imposed upon you, it brings you to a certain place. And then to be reminded of it when something …when it happens to somebody else, And it brings you down. It can make you angry, make you sad, make you frustrated. You can be disappointed. A whole lot of things. So I understand about not wanting to engage. And now it's become… I hate to use this word, but I'm going to use it anyway... It's become theater. And there are many African-Americans who say: We are tired of having our grief publicly displayed.
Penny: When I heard about George Floyd and some of the facts or some of the chronology of events sort of coming out in the news, one of the thoughts that I had at that time, too, was this African-American man has… is on the ground and restrained. And he's surrounded by …there were more policemen there than just the one than Derek Chauvin. Right? There were other policemen there who are armed. It seems like there was no need to kneel on his neck for nine minutes, like you could have handcuffed him, and then it seemed like the the restraining with whatever means necessary, you know, leaning on a neck with your knee, that those things were part of police practices. And that was really disturbing, too, because I felt like that's really unnecessary if you're surrounded by policemen with guns and you have handcuffs and you're already on the ground on your face, …There just seems to be so many other things that could have equally restrained him and not been life threatening in that way. I just didn't understand. I still don't.
I think too what's important to take away from different things I've heard and what Eric has said…that… George Floyd was just one that happened to get captured on camera, that happened to have a very tragic end, but that those events happen all the time and have happened for years and decades and centuries. And so that cumulative effect is also part of the background of the emotional and really visceral response coming out of people, communities of color last summer and over the last year.
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. And what's interesting, though, is that. ...Here we have like last year Juneteenth. The celebration of Juneteenth became darn near nationalized and close to being commercialized, which, I will say, the vast majority of African-Americans do not want to happen. We do not want a mattress sale on on on Juneteenth weekend. We don't want Toyota and other people have… Oh, we have a Juneteenth sale.. No, we don't want that at all. George Floyd happens over Memorial Day weekend. About a month later, we have Juneteenth. And so those things are like merged. And so you have that at the time that that black folk are grieving deeply, then you have this Juneteenth commemoration and also celebration. But Juneteenth was always reflective. And so people will go, OK, OK, let's let's let's remember the history of enslavement and let's remember the the history
of oppression that continues. So it was an interesting intersection of grief, reflection, commemoration, and then it continued this year with the 100-year commemoration of of of the destruction of Black Wall Street in Tulsa. And I see all of these things, these moments of reflection and grief and remembrance as connected. And I don't think this country has ever had this type of moment. As a historian, I don't I don't I'm not offering any type of solutions. I'm not predicting the future, but I'm just saying that I don't think there's been this moment of deep reflection that this country has experienced with George Floyd, Juneteenth last year, and now even beyond. And then Tulsa.
Will: It certainly feels like it's been a half a century or more, at least since something like that is if it's ever happened in the same way. The other side of the story, I think it's important …the responses by white folks to all this stuff. And I say responses because it's not a single response. Some are moved to feel shame or guilt or empathy in one form or another, and to be …to try to be allies. I suspect that the theater that Eric was describing, for some white folks, it kind of wears them down and they become indifferent. Put up a show. You don't want to think about it. You don't want to feel about it. And part of your privilege is that you don't have to think about it and you don't have to feel about it. And I think for some, it's anger, whether this is on Facebook or in some email chat groups I'm on. I see some white reactions are: stop trying to make me feel guilty. I've never done anything like this. And so when they see (news) stories about that, you know, it makes them angry because they don't want to be made, and that's how they feel that… like they're being made to feel guilty for something they don't think they're responsible for. And it makes them angry.
One of the things that come to mind, too, is white folks responded to Black Lives Matter, saying ‘all lives matter.’ In a certain sense, of course, that's true. But the point is that historically black lives have not been treated as if they matter in the same way that white lives matter. And so the Black Lives Matter slogan, as I've always heard it, is about equity, which is to say we need to pay more attention to these lives, because historically they don't seem to have mattered as much and they're not talked about as much. In the same way that you don't need a white history month in the way you need an African-American history month, because
Penny: Amen. Amen.
Eric: [laughing]
Will: Same thing with women’s history, and example after example , right?…. I think what people experience as somebody else getting privilege. And then I'll speak as a white man here, what some white men feel as … wait, why do (women) they get privilege with their own history or African-Americans get their history month.
Penny: HER-story. Herstory.
Will: Yeah. They’re experiencing others getting something, right, not yeteven equal but at least more equity as being taken away from them.
Penny: Yes. It's that potential is the perception of some loss of something that I've gotten used to having, even if I've having it means other people have never had it.
Will: I remember reading about a study. This was, you know, 10, 20 years ago, maybe even where faculty in classrooms started deliberately answering questions or reaching out to students to answer questions and give their opinions in ways where men and women got equal amounts. Whereas before …there was that deliberate effort to make sure that men and women got to talk equally, either being called on to answer a question or when the hands go up. And males in the classroom felt that they were being treated unequally. When the fact was that they were finding was happening was they were being treated equal - proportionally. Part of what's going on is that the difficulty of people in Europe thinking white people and white men, especially whether the issue was gender or race, not experiencing themselves as privileged and reacting harshly when privilege is pointed out and reacting harshly when they're prompted to and maybe at some level even do feel a little bit of guilt or at least emotional turbulence at the privilege being called out or at seeing the historic black lives not mattering when black lives are being ended in ways that white lives aren’t, whether it's with lynching in the Jim Crow South a century or more ago or in the current context.
Penny: I think it's important to recognize when some people feel like you're trying to make me feel guilty, that that we have to understand where they're coming from. And I think I do a little bit, like it's not my personal guilt for all the wrongs that exist in society right now or for the fact that there's mass incarceration of African-Americans. But the fact that I'm not personally guilty for the wrongs of my society right now doesn't mean that I'm not responsible for doing things now so that my society is a place where there is more equity and equality and recognition of what has happened in the past. Right. So that's like my aspiration to keep learning and understanding and asking the questions, even if the answers are hard to find.
Will: Yeah. And one of the ways that it's often framed as “collective guilt is a bad thing.” Or “collective responsibility is a bad thing” was I think whether I'm thinking as a citizen of a country or as a member of a church, that part of those statuses of citizenship and membership means that you're not just yourself, but you're part of something that's larger - institution, community. And and when you're part of a privileged group in that institution or community, you may not bear individual guilt and you may not be individually responsible but as part of the group, you can be responsible. And it's important, it seems to me, in those contexts that as much as has changed in the past 75 years, men and white folks, white men especially, bear privileges and that, that other folks don't yet have. And it's only when when those things are equitable, then they won’t be privileges any more, but just rights and opportunities that we all share.
Eric: Yeah, that's a good point. There's a missing point in the broader discussion about black lives matter, and this is the gendered nature of the entire movement, because the three women who began the hashtag and also began the movement, I believe two of them are… self-identify as queer women. And they were adamant and intentional about putting issues of black and queer people central. And women, regardless of this, how they identified sexually or gender is putting, putting, putting that central. That rubbed a lot of people the wrong way within African-American communities because, you know, people who have certain sensibilities, you know, coming out of the social contexts or religious contexts felt as though this movement was a little bit too progressive. But definitely. Believing that, yes, this is something that that needs to be addressed in terms of the the whole phenomenon or phenomena of anti-black racism and racist police... racist policing. So, yeah, I mean, Black Lives Matter has hit some people really hard, whether they are white or black, in terms of how they have centered issues dealing with being black and trans and being black and queer.
Penny: I have heard students in my classrooms actually have this reaction to the Black Lives Matter, where they basically are saying “all lives matter.” And one thing that's helped, I think, when I'm talking with students about it, and I admit that I come from a different space. Right. I identify as Asian-American. But I, I co-taught a couple of classes with an African-American. So these students had me, the Asian American, and the African-American, talking about the Black Lives Matter movement together with them. Just to set the context. And one thing that helped us is sort of drawing this analogy, which which has also been on social media, too, where someone's house is on fire and they're saying, help me, my house is on fire. And then a group of people standinh there going, well, my house is important too. And and so that's the metaphor that people go: “oh.” And so the idea that the Black Lives Matter movement is not saying that your house isn’t important. But I really need you to help me put out the fire in my house right now and standing there and saying my house is important too, is not what we need to do as a community, it’s not what we need to do as a fellow human being. Right?
Eric: Yeah, definitely. So, you know, when Martin Luther King was assassinated April 4, ’68, he was he was in Memphis and he was in Memphis just sightseeing on Beale Street, eating barbecue ribs, the blues. He was there because of a Labor Day labor strike and labor movement of African-American sanitation workers. And one of the symbols and their movement was “I am a man.” Not a black man. Or a term would have been used then “a Negro man,” but “I am a man.” Respect my humanity.
Penny: Mm hmm.
Eric: Give me more money that is equitable or equal to my white counterparts. Make sure that my working conditions are humane and I'm not dying because of accidents or my my my my hands are maimed or my limbs are maimed because of this un-protective measures, on my job. So “I am a man.” And it really …that goes all the way back to the abolitionist movement. I am a man and I'm a brother. Or I'm a woman and I'm your sister. So there's a long history of, what I would say, Black Lives Matter slogans. And that's one thing that I emphasize teaching by cross-cultural engagement course over the last few years, was that this is nothing new, nothing new at all. And they've always been white folks who have come alongside enslaved, formerly enslaved Africans, and African-Americans and African-Americans in general throughout the years, who come alongside and walk with with with with folk for movements of inclusion and equity. So it's nothing new.
Penny: Is it Beverly Daniel Tatum, maybe, who uses this metaphor of the people mover in an airport? Right, and if you're if you're just standing on the people mover, you move. You go in a direction. And so if you're just sort of hanging out and living your life in society, you're going to be part of what the society is, which is Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and George Floyd and those kind of events that are happening and do happen every day. And so you …actually to make a difference and to change what are the bad things that are happening in our city… You actually and the people mover, right. You have to turn around and walk backwards. Or you're just part of the whole system.
Eric: Yeah, and that's that's the thing, folks are failing to look at themselves as part of a larger framework, part of institutions. Part of …really part of history. We're all not equally situated in history. I mean, there's only one group of people that have experienced sustained enslavement in this country. I mention ‘sustained’ because there's a history of indigenous folk who were enslaved. But African-Americans have that that experience in this debate. And even among among psychologists, whether or not we have inherited the trauma of enslavement. I think I think there's a compelling argument that that we have. Yeah, we're not we're not situated the same way. We…our context then, even if even we're talking about Christian folks in the same church. If we have a church that's that's that's multicultural, cross-cultural, everybody … everybody's experience in terms of living out the Christian faith and thinking and applying the faith is different. It’s different. We have to recognize that. And we can't just throw out blanket statements. And I think I think I think I must say, we in terms of of of of the church and especially reformed churches and reformed bodies, we have been horrible in terms of of of of being nuanced in how we live out the faith and how we think about the faith, especially especially in an American context, just horrible. Not not recognizing that, you know, we we all contextualize our theologies and we come with different experiences and they play out differently. I think there's a reason why spirituals exist from enslaved African communities. And not to say a Dutch immigrant community.
Will: White immigrants experienced discrimination, but not not in any way at a level and enduringly comparable to (whether native born or immigrant) populations of color.
Eric: Hmm. All right. And that that gets in. This has already been intimated. but this gets to the whole bad phenomenon of “What about ism” And then we all tend to do it, I mean, we've even more in lower level when you're a kid, you know, you you you feel that sense of unfairness. Sometimes your parent might punish you differently than than the brother And you say, What about him? You know, so you put that on the societal level. And is is this “what about ism.“ This whole…I remember a few Juneteenth ago, and it threw me off a little bit. I was on Fulton [street]. I was on Fulton go to our downtown and I passed that on. I can't remember the Irish pub, but the Irish pub was like celebrating Juneteenth. And I was like, oh, that's nice. And then I started thinking it took me a year to think about this. Well, wait a minute. Oh, I forgot. The Irish are saying that they were enslaved, too, in this country. It’s a Juneteenth was for them too. (I’m saying) whoa. I said, Oh, my goodness. So, yeah, it's this “What about ism?” That's an issue. And I think that drives what we call white guilt and even white rage. Is this “what about ism” and zero zero sum game mentality.
Penny: I don't really want white people to feel guilty. I want white people to feel responsible for making now as good as it can be for everyone and not just for them. I think, too, perhaps another metaphor can help us, I think when we see or hear about hunger in the world while we're having our second brownie. I'm just saying. But at the same time, like, is it my fault that children are dying, actually dying of hunger in parts of the world? No, not exactly. Not specifically individually, maybe. And yet. Am I doing something to address this? Am I becoming more aware? Am I even aware as I, you know, I look at the scale and wonder how much weight I should be putting on this week or whatever and having that third helping of whatever. Can I live in a way that recognizes that things are not equal and that perhaps… baby steps, baby steps. There are things I can do to make the world more equitable so that there are perhaps in the future as we move forward, just different ways to deal with that issue. And I feel like in some ways, race and racism is like that. I don't don't necessarily want to point a finger at another individual and say you're guilty or responsible for the racism in America. But I think it is good to call out people and say we need to understand race in America. We need to be more aware of our past and our present and what our brothers and sisters and fellow human beings have experienced and are experiencing because of the color of their skin and the perception of them as being suspicious or being less than or being from a bad family or a bad (community), I mean, we have all these things and we just need to become more aware. And I think that that is something that we can feel responsible and called to do without necessarily laying a guilt trip on anybody.
Will: At …at the very least, the beginning point comes in recognizing where you have privilege and how you benefit from. And that that has a history. And those who don't have those privileges that have been discriminated against that that, too, has a history and they both have a weight in the present.
Penny: Yeah, and just recognizing that and understanding that and I'm talking to two historians, but I feel like we need to understand what has happened, what is our history. And, you know, I, I bought a Black Lives Matter movement during Covid because I had so little contact with people and I felt like I just need to do something. So I bought a flag and I have a flag pole and I put it up there and I hope it's OK. But I just feel like saying: I see you. I am trying. I don't have all the answers, but I am trying to see the hurt and see the history and be responsible for the now and making it as good as it can be for as many people as possible.
Eric: No, that's that's meaningful. I'm just …if I'm walking in my neighborhood and I see a flag or something like that. That’ll make me feel more comfortable. You'll definitely make me feel more comfortable then with that. Than when I see that, is that that blue, that blue flag, American style blue flag. I think I think that's what all of the blue lives matter now flag or something like that. I get nervous when I see that that people fly. Symbols …Symbols mean something and they're not empty. I don't think they're empty gestures. They definitely make me feel one way or another.
Penny: Well, thank you so much for the conversation. It's been really rich, and I, I always learn when I listen to you guys have these conversations, and I hope that we've maybe taken a small step in understanding race in America just a little bit better.
Eric: I hope so.
Will: Thanks, Penny. Thanks, Eric.
Eric: Hey, you’re welcome. Thank you.
Penny: If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe to our podcast to stay informed about future episodes. Do you have a friend who would be interested in today's topic? We'd love it if you'd share our work with them. Our hope is that this project will spark good conversations and provide learning resources that inspire diversity and inclusion work. All views and opinions expressed in our episodes are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of Calvin University or the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship.