Op Ed: Black Lives Matter And Saying So Matters

On the afternoon of June 3, 2020, the Westwood Select Board sent a letter to the people of Westwood regarding the ongoing anti-Black actions nationwide over the past week. These events include White New York City woman Amy Cooper calling the police on Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper and George Floyd’s death while under arrest in Minneapolis.

The member of the Select Board: Nancy C. Hyde, John M. Hickey, and Michael F. Walsh are White, as are approximately 88% of Westwood’s residents. As town leaders, the Select Board could have stated that the Black lives of Westwood’s Black residents matter, but they chose to weaken their statement of Black Lives Matter by pairing it with the unnecessary and bland “All Lives Matter.” As illustrated in Kris Straub’s comic strip, all houses matter, but the ones on fire should have focus.

The Select Board later praises the “outstanding” Westwood Police Department, and claims they hold all Westwood Police officers to a high standard. An outstanding police department would follow the lead of Norwood’s police department and make a public statement against police violence. Police officers held to a high standard would have easily-accessable information on their website about whether their officers are trained in implicit bias, anti-racist policing, or cultural competency.

The letter sent out earlier today asked six questions. I will close by offering resources that our town leaders did not.

• Why does systemic racism still exist? Systemic racism still exists because White people continue to experience privilege* owing to the anti-Black history of America.
• How can we tolerate witnessing the murder of a Black man at the hands of a few bad police officers? 1. You shouldn’t and 2. One bad apple spoils the whole barrel.
• What might be all the ways to finally wipe the scourge of racism from our democracy? They are neither all the ways nor perfect, but here are seventy five ways.
• When will we finally unite and be the change that we seek? Start today: speak up to that person’s racist comment, sign a petition, read an anti-racist book, there’s a Peace and Justice vigil here in Westwood on Saturday.
• Where will it start? See above answer.
• Who will lead the change? You might not lead it, but you can fight racism in ways the Select Board’s letter did not with some of the above tools.

*A reminder that White privilege does not mean that every White person’s life is easy, rather that it is not made harder due to their race.