Violence is not the answer.

After Dallas, I started hearing people say that violence is not the answer, and I heartily agree. What struck me about this is when it was introduced to the conversation. We don't say it in response to mass shootings..or in response to excessive force or deaths at the hands of police.  
It is easy for people to agree on this statement when its made broadly..just like theres a sentiment, and perhaps a good one, behind saying that all lives matter....but these saccharine platitudes are also used as billy clubs to curtail discussion of our problems of race and violence in this country.

If "violence is not the answer" is to have any real meaning then not taking up arms against the police ALSO applies to the idea that we should demilitirize the police..end no knock raids..increase penalties for violent offenses and illegal weapons. End the targeting of people of color for stop and frisk.

When we say "violence is not the answer" and apply it only to situations where the aggrieved pick up the gun, then we are really saying "their violence is not the answer", and accepting the violence done in our name towards the aggrieved.

If you really believe that violence is not the answer, then stop dropping bombs in the middle east. All we are creating is more violence that comes back to us. People who have watched their children, families and loved ones incinerated by bombs will never stop fighting. Would you? Would I?

If you believe violence is not the answer, then work towards changing drug enforcement policies - which have led to the disproportionate targeting of black communities. Have real, enforced licensing requirements for firearms. Mandatory training. Laws that enforce responsible gun ownership. End stop and frisk and racial profiling. Enforce police body cam adoption. Institute new rules of engagement that require scaled back use of firearms and tasers.

If you believe violence is not the answer, then do not allow it to be done in your name. Do not allow voting rights to be (re)stolen from those who are already second class citizens in our country. Save and create opportunities for those who have been systematically denied them.

Share power and privilege. We have created an apartheid state that is enforced at a distance we don't see, but we know exists all while pretending it doesn't. Look at our neighborhoods. There are walls of police enforcement around the areas we drive through while locking our doors. We know this is true. This separation and unspoken fear and prejudice is a quiet form of violence that we do casually and without thinking. The police we criticize are enforcing the world that we have decided we want. It is hypocrisy to criticize the police while failing to look deeply into our own souls..policing is an extension of our society and of us.

Teach your children not to fear people who look differently. Integrate our kindergartens and our elementary schools. Children who grow up playing with each other, and going to school together will change our country, and for the better. For all of us raised with the baggage of our generation, we can say, as Bobby Sands did, our revenge will be the laughter of our children, not because one group needs to create a revolt against another, but because we must have the revolutionary courage to come together and create an America that is truly better, for all of us.

When we learn to embrace the idea of building communities together, where there isn't a black america and a white america, and the police are not a tool of our unspoken apartheid, then perhaps we can say that all lives matter. Until then, we MUST repeat, loudly and with the full weight of our belief in a better world, that #blacklivesmatter.