Black Lives Matter

I am not a black man in America.

I am just a man in America who's tired of seeing black men gunned down in the streets because they were "in the wrong place at the wrong time" or they were 'walking while black."

I am tired of seeing people, and dare I say it, mostly white people shrug when they hear the news. When you shrug at the news that means you find it acceptable; it isn’t. Stop shrugging.

I am tired of The Conversation because every time this happens we have The Conversation and then we go right back to talking about the latest Kim Kardastrophe — that is NOT a misspelling — or whatever piece of fluff passes for news that day. Not having The Conversation is the same as shrugging; nothing is accomplished, nothing changes. Nothing is said until the next black man lies dead in the street.

It's time we stopped killing people in the streets, mostly black men, whether they be innocent or guilty. It's time to stop assuming that because a man is black he is automatically a threat, automatically guilty, automatically dead.

We cannot keep letting this happen, and keep talking about it, and then do nothing to stop it. That’s insane.

Racism is a problem in this country, even though we — well, some of us — pat ourselves on the back for electing a black president. We’ve seen how that’s played out over the last six years.

All I can think about is that if Michael Brown was a young white man shot by a black police officer, we’d be having a whole different reaction to this story.

That's not America, and that's not right.

Have the conversation. Do something. Black lives matter.