Lives That Matter

 

TLDR; Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter are equally true, but Black Lives Matter needs more attention right now. Most cops are good, but systemic reform is clearly needed. And Black Lives Matter has a second spiritual meaning.

This will be an unusual post; a long and twisted road, unlike all the others.  (That was a joke).

I will try to discuss Black Lives Matters under two very broad contexts: the politics of today in the material world and then, if I am able, the reflected meaning in the spiritual world.

First, the material world.

Yes, all lives matter.

While all lives matter, some lives are not currently treated as if they matter as much as others.  It has long been the case that certain groups wield more power than others.  Today this is males more than females, the rich more than the poor, people of light skin over people of color, heterosexuals over any others, and so forth.

This is not to say some women are not more powerful than some men, only that most men are more powerful than most women.  This is not to say some poor people are not more powerful than some rich people (especially during certain revolutionary periods of time), only that most rich people are more powerful than most poor people (during most of history).  And this is not to say that some people of color are not more powerful than some people of light skin, only that most light skin people have more power than most people of color.

If you don't believe me, ask any demographics statistician who is not funded by a biased institution.

We are again seeing a mass movement to distribute the wealth of this power away from just the few groups and into the hands of many groups. As to be expected, there is an angry backlash, as power usually does not like to yield. It does not usually like to give up its privilege. This of course is selfish, but I also think some are afraid of change in general, as everyone is to varying degrees, and some are afraid of the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction. That is a valid fear. The pendulum usually must swing a bit in the other direction before it can find the center again.

Power in and of itself is not evil, but power, like some systems of energy (living things are just complex energy systems), seems to have a natural tendency to consolidate and grow.  For a while, this seems to have advantages, such as the ability to acquire a stable food supply, but after a certain optimal point in many people or societies, the amount of consolidated power tends to have harmful consequences for many, such as slavery.

The reason is that power tends to dominate and subjugate, even if under a misguided belief of righteous stewardship.  That is evil.  This is often an insidious growth that power and those who are powerful are blind to seeing.  Also, few want to believe themselves to be evil, so the powerful never see it coming as it grows within themselves.  However, this is all too often what is bound to happen: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  It is hard to drink a lot of wine and not get drunk.

Power is the means to influence.  It can be accomplished through beautiful inspiration to influence by example or by brute force of fear and coercion, and a number of other tools and tactics.  However, it only works for as long as the subject believes in and gives credence to the power wielder.  Once the subject gives up or sells their stocks in the power wielder, no enticement or threat can be used to control them anymore.

So, is it possible for power to grow and not corrupt?  Possibly.  But it would take the right balancing act.  It would take the right amount of distribution of power within the pyramid so that it is not concentrated too much at the top, else it become too top heavy.  Power would have to be fairly distributed down the societal demographic, so-to-speak, so that every segment of society would get a fair share of power participation, and feel like a fair participant.  There is no one right way to do this, especially when what is fair to one segment of society may seem unfair to another.

Another thing to consider is that too much distribution of power may have the opposite problem posed at the beginning, leaving no one in charge.

Now let's circle back and look at how this relates to Black Lives Matters.

People of color, as a group, have less power in America and most of the world.  Some individuals have more power than some light skin people, but as a group they earn less, have worse educational opportunities, grow up in poorer communities, are convicted more often for the same crimes, and are given harsher penalties for the same crimes, etc.  These are statistical facts.

Most have also been viewed with biased suspicion by the police and store owners and public much of their lives.  Few people choose to be racist, but we are in some aspects like computer operating systems awaiting software programming.  Racism is built into the fabric of our society in obvious and especially subtle ways.  We learn this since childhood in the behavior of others and mimic it subconsciously, passing down this racism generation to generation.  We are all perpetrators of it.

But it has come to a point when the community of people of color has had enough.  It comes in waves, like many cycles in nature.  This is maybe a second Civil Rights Era (and there is a greater effort now to be intersectional).  The senseless killings and beatings lately have too far, and they are only some of the more salient cases that have made national headlines.  There are countless other cases of being pulled over for no reason, or drugs planted by corrupt cops, or other beatings or killings that do not make headlines.

It is time for the pendulum to swing back the other way, towards the center. 

Therefore, while all lives matter, attention should be given to the mistreatment of some.  The way I see it, the Black Lives Matter movement is not trying to say Blue Lives Do Not Matter, but rather that Black Lives Also Matter, even though they have not been treated as such.  This is about moving the pendulum back towards the center, towards fairness and equity.

In other words, Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter are not mutually exclusive.  But Black Lives Matter is the matter at hand that deserves the greater attention right now.  Supporting one idea or cause, etc does not necessarily mean that you are against opposing ideas.  This is the fashion of today's polarizing zeitgeist.  In other words, if you are for Black Lives Matter, some say you must be opposed to Blue Lives Matter.  What nonsense.

But no need to push the pendulum too far or too hard.  No need to destroy downtowns, as valid as the anger is.

Obviously not All Cops Are Bastards.  That is reactionary and based in anger, as valid as that anger may be.  It is important to remember that, while any mistreatment by the police--in whom we entrust with legal lethal force to protect the public--is a terrible crime, at least the worst of these beatings and deaths are a small fraction of the police force that are highlighted in the media.  That is not to say that there are not a lot more that never make media attention, or many more less egregious abuses of power everyday, but it's important to keep things in perspective.

There may be problems with recruiting and training and internal discipline and documentation.  The police may have been wrongly militarized and asked to do too much.  Some departments may have lost the culture of a mission that was to protect and serve, to be community ambassadors.  And so there is a lot of opportunity for improvement,  Most people can agree that reform is needed.

But most cops are well-intentioned and are willing to put themselves in harm's way to protect and serve the public.  Recruit and train better, refine the roles, delegate some responsibilities to other roles, demilitarize, and rebuild trust as the community ambassadors rather than the image of draconian enforcers.

And if you didn't think this was weird before, hold on to yer britches.

The material world reflects the spiritual and vice versa.

Words sometimes have two meanings.  The analogies relate to the words they pun, but they do not usually translate one-to-one.  The spiritual world is non-linear and multi-faceted, and so multiple meanings can arise from the same symbols simultaneously.  Things can seem contradictory and not be so.  Welcome to the spiritual world.

Black, in the spiritual sense, does not mean people of color.  People of color are not spiritually dark (or, not any more or less than light skin people).

But spiritually, there are light and dark forces.  And there is, spiritually, a white supremacy.  The light has a "top" advantage that gives it a sense of righteousness.  The light assumes a position of dominion over the darkness.  We see it in most of our religions and myths.  The light overcomes the darkness.  Dark magick is evil, etc.

But really, this is a supremacist view from the perspective of light.  The light and dark are like at a war, an unnecessary war.

Neither is better nor worse than the other.  They just are.  They are both created.  They are both valid and beautiful in their own right.  Both can be good.  Both can be evil.  Just in different ways, in different domains.

And I think what we are seeing in Black Lives Matter is a reflection of that.  Again, not that people of color are of dark energy.  This is not how these spiritual analogies translate at all.  But the reflection of spiritual meaning into the material world comes in unusual and sometimes surprising ways.  What I see here is the message that spiritual beings of the deep, of dark energy, are calling out to be recognized and treated fairly by a power structure of light that has ruled unfairly or cruelly.

There is the yin and there is the yang.  The one cannot exist without the other, and they both have the other within themselves.  To deny either point is to deny reality.

I might not be seeing this accurately, but as I practice my vision into the spiritual dimensions, this is what I have found.