Letter re: Mayor Bob Currie’s ‘All Lives Matter’ comments

OUR READERS WRITE

Yes, all lives matter. Who said no? Some lives matter in, well, real life, other lives only on paper or words.  More than 400 years later grave pain and outcry from the same people. Who is inflicting the grievances?

Strong society like this and people have to choose their words, phrases and sentiments as if talking to babies, a suggestion that folks are so fragile they can't cope with harsh, blunt truths. Is this one reason why the problems persist? Whispering quietly at home? Then how will neighbours join the conversation and accept/offer solutions?

Some lives are coddled, crafted and celebrated in perpetuity, others used as cheap labour to facilitate that great life for the well-favoured people for whom the good things in life are never enough, nor good enough and never too much. The “lesser” ones must face permanent family separation, neglect, destruction, oppression; they must surrender homes, resources, countries, limbs, organs, lives; they must endure death, murder, slaughter, genocide over and over and over; they may speak quietly except when the privileged order them to “speak up” when they are deemed not up to par for being so meek-like, if not “aggressive.” A funny thing is the privileged, of any colour, often fail to notice that still waters run deep.

Do all lives matter equally? Some folks` sorrows come from having not had a hug since January (2021), while others have not had their basic human rights since time immemorial and are supposed to keep quiet about it for eternity so as not to inconvenience anyone.

That the simple term ‘Black Lives Matter' can be looked upon as shutting out other races comes across as hurtful and cruel misrepresentation.  What people on this earth are still suffering more than those who make up BIPOC (Maybe LGBQT+ but that's another story)? ‘Black Lives Matter' is justly a call for an end to their being killed mentally, emotionally, financially, physically and otherwise for no other reason that the skin shade they are born with.

It should not have to be necessary to tell the world that BIPOC lives matter, yet it is, and that in itself is now a battle even as `superior` people and their pets are known to have been counted to have more value than them.

Gloria Ramnath

Shelburne