Earl Smith, PhD — Angela J. Hattery, PhD
For the past week or so many, many individuals, news people, corporations have been saying–from their various platforms–that Black Lives Matter.
We disagree.
If Black lives mattered, Black people would not lag behind every race/ethnic group and definitely whites on every single measure of well-being from homeownership to education to health.
If Black lives mattered, there never would have been the system of chattel slavery.
If Black lives mattered, Black Americans would not been been assigned the status of 3/5 of a person.
If Black lives mattered, Black Americans would not have a jobless rate that is always twice as high as for white people.
If Black lives mattered, Black Americans would not have a death rate from the COVID-19 virus that is higher than the rate for every race/ethnic group.
If Black lives mattered, Black Americans would have a home ownership rate equal to other race/ethnic groups.
If Black Lives Mattered, Black babies born in Mississippi would have a great chance of survival than in the following Western Hemisphere countries (when in fact they don’t):
| Canada Mexico Guatemala Belize El Salvador Honduras Nicaragua Costa Rica Panama Jamaica Cuba The Bahamas Antigua and Barbuda DominicaSaint Lucia | Saint Vincent and the Grenadines BarbadosGrenada Trinidad and Tobago Colombia Venezuela Suriname Ecuador Peru Brazil Paraguay Chile Argentina Uruguay |
“Black Americans Have the Lowest Home Ownership of Any Group“
If Black lives mattered, Black American women would not have been captured, placed on the chain gang and forced to build the infrastructure that allowed Atlanta, Georgia to become the capitol of the New South.
If Black Lives mattered, Black Americans–mostly male–would not be disproportionately represented in the ranks of the incarcerated.
If Black Lives Mattered, Black men could go running without being killed.
If Black Lives Mattered, Black kids would have all the same educational resources as white kids and they wouldn’t lag behind whites with graduation rates as low as 60%.
If Black lives mattered, George Floyd would not have been murdered on live TV by Minneapolis police officers.
If Black lives mattered, these Blacks Americans would not have been killed by the police:
David McAtee, 5/30/2020
George Floyd, 5/27/2020
Bre Taylor (F), 3/13/2020
William Green, 1/28/2020
Stephon Clark, 3/18/2018
Michael Brown, 8/9/2014
Jonathan Ferrell, 9/14/2013
Tayvon Martin, 2/26/2012
Rekia Boyd (F), 3/21/2012
etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.,
If Black Lives Mattered, police officers who kill unarmed Black people would be held accountable.
IF BLACK LIVES MATTERED, ALL LIVES WOULD ACTUALLY MATTER!