Who matters? Are you sure?

“The world it seems so very small
‘Cause nothing even matters at all.” -Lauryn Hill

I spent some time in Olympia, WA recently. The state capital but with a small town vibe. Everywhere we looked…on every wall, in every storefront window, and marquis were pictures, slogans, signs stating Black Lives Matter. Everywhere. It was a lot. My partner and I remarked about the phenomena of places with the smallest number of Black citizens having the largest number of Black Lives Matter paraphenalia. Why is that?

Seems it’s easy to speak on a cause when you don’t have to live it. Now, I don’t know all Olympia residents so there’s some conjecture here for sure. But I wonder if it would be more difficult to deny personal racist tendencies if there were more opportunities. Black people are less than 3% of Olympia’s population. I wonder how they would treat their Black neighbors if they had Black neighbors.

Do Black lives really matter there? Do all Black lives matter there? The Black lives with warrants, without homes, with money, and without? I know murdered Black lives matter. George Floyd and Breonna Taylor murals were all around. What about the living ones? The ones who don’t entertain us for a living? The ones denigrated as “burger flippers” while also hailed as essential. Do Black atheists’ lives matter? Black Muslims? Black Hoodoo practitioners?

I also wondered how all this Black lives mattering played out down the street during legislative sessions. At the state patrol headquarters. Or at the medical clinic conveniently located near the transit station but curiously closed. Due to COVID perhaps. Did we matter at that antique store where we were first mistaken for the help (city utility employees) and then followed around while browsing?

Do all aspects of Blackness matter. Do I matter when my hair is in a fro or only when neatly braided? Does it matter that I’m Black with anxiety? With depression? Does my son’s life matter now that he’s 5’9″ and has facial hair and size 12 shoes? Or does he only matter because he wants to play football?

James Baldwin said, “I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.” Beyond the murals of the dead, I look at how you treat the living. So, forgive me if I’m not impressed. Such performances generally turn out to be fiction. Lucky for me, though, I knew my Black ass mattered before I ever saw it on a yard sign.

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