Portraits in Black and White

Each of us is a product of our age. The particular circumstances of how we're brought up -- the family that we land in, the times we're raised in, the forces that affect us along the way -- contribute to who we become as adults.

I know that from experience. For example, I react badly to civil disobedience.

I can trace this negativity toward lawlessness to a clear and obvious source: the televised unrest of the late 1960s. Watching teargassed crowds, vicious police dogs, water cannons, chanting protesters, nightsticks, police barricades, National Guardsmen and fighting in the streets scared me. The 1968 Democratic National Convention was, for me as a kid of six, a nightmare.

I had no context for it. Couldn't source the outrage. Couldn't comprehend the issues. Saw only a bunch of crazy people doing crazy things.

And now, here we are again.

My initial reaction to the wanton looting that overtook cities across the US in the aftermath of the George Floyd death was scorn. What the hell? Since when does the death of a black man halfway across America entitle the citizens of Philadelphia or Boston or New York to an armful of boxed sneakers or a new Keurig, swiped from the smashed display window?

If anything, the wholesale theft of goods undercut the entire messaging of Black Lives Matter. The takeaway seemed to be: Okay, Black Lives Matter. But to those who rampaged city business districts, the extent that they "matter" is a value equal only to an armful of sweatshirts or a plasma TV.

A law enforcement officer's prejudice took George Floyd; I'm taking this iPhone. We're even.

Thankfully, cooler heads are now prevailing, as the protests have taken a turn for the more peaceful. My echoes of late-1960s anxiety have calmed down.

In that more level-headed space, I've thought a lot about Black Lives Matter.

At first, I was dismissive: Black Lives Matter, sure, that's obvious. As do Brown Lives, Asian Lives, Muslim Lives, Christian Lives, Jewish Lives and Unborn Lives.

But then memes like the following began popping up:

And the logic behind BLM became clearer.

I thought about this in the context of the annual MS Bike Ride I participate in. Each year, I raise funds for this charity, essentially asking my donors to support my notion that MS patients matter. Each year, I could just as well be asked: Don't cancer patient lives matter? Don't drug addict lives matter? Don't heart disease lives matter?

Don't black lives matter?

Yes. Yes they do.

My focus on one health issue doesn't lessen the importance of all health issues. Our current focus on one racial component of the US doesn't lessen the importance of all racial components of the US.

I then took the logic further: The fact that we even have to assert that Black Lives Matter -- amid police brutality and white privilege and rampant Karen-ism and inner-city crime and disparate public school funding and gerrymandering -- tells us how bad things are. How in need we are of change.

I know there was racism in my background: My grandparents (my father's parents) were highly distrustful of black people, who they blamed for many of the social ills that beset their home city of Philadelphia. I remember both my grandfather and grand mother using cruel racial slurs in casual conversation.

Fortunately, that viewpoint did not seem to pass to my father. And my mother -- as a registered nurse -- learned by necessity to treat people of all backgrounds with respect and dignity. When commenting on race, she often said things like "Everybody bleeds red blood." And "Nobody's skin color matters in a hospital gown."

So I'd like to think that my own racial prejudices were filtered out. Perhaps not totally, if I'm going to be brutally honest. But I strive for that.

Where's all this going?

I hope it leads to a more just, colorblind system of law enforcement. We will never weed out all bad apples, but we can at least stop turning a blind eye to their blatant disregard for some human lives. And take swift, just action when they do.

I also hope that this discussion on the value of life can extend to the unborn. Lives matter. All lives. Even those in utero.

I know this brings up a ton of related issues. If this stance means we also launch conversations on supporting parenthood, healthcare, education, wellness, employment, equity, opportunity, community and all the other related issues to raising a wanted child, then it's time for steps in the right direction on those fronts as well.

I get it. I see it. Black lives do matter.