What It Means to Have A Friend Who Doesn’t Support Your Right to Live

It’s a shame that I’m writing this, but I have to.

It isn’t my intention to call anyone out… or maybe it is. Maybe it is my intention to call out this friend and all the other “friends” out there that justify their racism with “it’s my opinion” or “I have black friends.”

Over the weekend a friend of mine told me that he didn’t support Black Lives Matter, and I was gutted.  I’ve been friends with this person for longer than I can remember and never did I ever think someone so dear to me would be against my right to live.

How come this movement for justice and black safety is so threatening to you?

Why is it that Black Lives Matter translates to “Only Black Lives Matter” in your ear?

Why are you so against my right to life, survival and safety?

Black Lives Matter isn’t a movement to paint all white people as racists, and if you think that you’re narcissistic and ignorant. This movement isn’t about casting white people as villans — it’s about fighting for our rights to live while being black.

All Lives Do Matter, but all lives aren’t the ones being killed in the street, bludgeoned and beaten for no other reason than their skin being darker than the ‘norm.’

All Lives aren’t the ones being called “Nigger” in class or told their hair is ‘nappy’ and their noses are too big and being cast as less than because of these differences.They aren’t the ones losing family members without reason or justice.

All Lives aren’t the ones who see the only online representation of themselves to be a viral video and dozens of images of dead people who look like them.

I just don’t know how you can look someone you love in the eye and tell them their life doesn’t matter.

Never did I ever think I’d have to spell this out for anyone, but based on past events I seems that I have to. If you don’t support the Black Lives Matter movement then you and I are not friends; because that is the most blatant way of admitting that you disagree with my right to live. It means you disagree with that fact that I shouldn’t be shot in the street or treated differently because my skin is darker than yours. It means that the images of black bodies covered in blood on the media have had no effect on you. If you think the Black Lives Matter movement is a threat to you as a white body it’s because you’re accustomed to a system that only recognizes your life as valuable. I’ve experienced far too many macrosagressions and racism in my life to settle for anyone who disagrees with my right to life. If this is just “your opinion” I’m letting you know that it’s bigoted and ignorant and that you can remove yourself from my life effective immediately.