Anecdotes from Seattle public transit III

"BlackLivesMatter, but then they say AllLivesMatter," pausing to gauge his buddy's response, who gave that same level gaze he was giving to most of his friend's roller coaster ride of words.

On the evening bus home from work, two black dudes came to sit down at the back of the bus with me. Both light-skinned. The guy sitting in the middle next to me had a very Seattle vibe. Mellow, down-to-Earth, de-escalating in various subtle ways, had to get his bicycle off the front of the bus when they reached their destination. His buddy was in from out of town, and I got both a friendly Midwest and assertive East coast vibe from him, which made me wonder if he was from a military family.

Out of towner (OOT) was on a soliloquy bender, pausing only to get reactions from the Middleman (MM), which MM only offered up when he had information to add to the various topics OOT bounced around on. From how Seattle was changing to real estate, OOT jumped without segue to #BlackLivesMatter.

"TransLivesMatter," he continued, "Straight bullshit."

I bit my tongue and didn't say, "Straight being the operative word." I'm not generally quick-witted, but that almost happened. OOT's that guy who likes to Know Stuff without actually doing the research, and I haven't found much value in engaging with that personality type. They're not interested in education or actually knowing, they're interested in the impression they're crafting.

MM was half responding to his buddy, but half of his attention was on me as I attempted to - rather than actually - read Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor, a gorgeous-so-far sci fi that takes place in Nigeria. He cared that I was hearing his friend talk, though in what way I'm not sure. His increasing lack of response to his friend made me wonder if he wanted me to see there was some distance there, socially, politically. I know I do that sometimes, like if I'm out with a buddy who suddenly starts frothing at the mouth over something I find gross, like a rant about how all taxes are bad or something equally short-sighted and ignorant. He was dead silent about the TransLivesMatter comment.

I agree that responding to #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter is total bullshit. The whole point of the entire meme and hashtag and movement is to clarify the value of life and point out that our current data is painting a really problematic portrait: that Americans value, that American infrastructure values, black life less. We need to fix that. It's embarrassing to recognize how far we've come and not come since the 1960s.

I prickled when he threw in #TransLivesMatter, though. Our current data is painting a really problematic portrait of that, too: that Americans value trans life less, too. These memes exist for damn good reasons. They give a voice to under-valued and under-represented groups who are, rightfully, scared, and help everyone - both the target groups and allies - find ways to fix all of the broken things in our society, culture and infrastructure (be it corporate or civil) leading to this terrible data around race, gender identity and murder.

If OOT'd said it to point out the self-centeredness of people trying to co-opt conversations about the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile for their own causes, I'd agree. When we talk about black Americans who are losing their lives for being black, we don't need to and shouldn't saturate the signal with other causes. Let's focus on black-targeted racism, identify the specific problems that lead us to this terrible data, have these fundamentally hard conversations that help us understand what we can do to make this better and safer for black Americans. When unarmed black Americans are dying, it's time to talk about #BlackLivesMatter.

We have a lot of data about women and sexual assault, but that, too, is its own thing. As a woman and a sexual assault survivor, I get how utterly inappropriate it is for me to try to turn #BlackLivesMatter or #TransLivesMatter or any other cause to my own very personal agenda. Sure, it overlaps with women of color, with trans women, but now's not the time. I don't think "what about me?" is ever a good response to civil rights movements, unless it's a representing voice from within that movement. When the Stanford rapist got off with a 6-month sentence, that was a good time to be outraged about rape culture and respond accordingly. Right? Right.

So, in principle, I agree with OOT.

However, the way he spat out #TransLivesMatter? What was conveyed in his tone was that he, like many of his fellow Americans, didn't value trans lives, didn't consider their lives to be a legitimate concern. And that made me sick, and tired, and sad.

If you could do one thing to advance the #BlackLivesMatter cause, what would it be?

If you could do one thing to advance the #TransLivesMatter cause, what would it be?

Point of curiosity: Do any of the things we need to do for either cause overlap?

That sure would be nice, wouldn't it?

It's a tricky question as I think about it. Addressing the trans panic defense, for instance, will affect trans people - especially intersex people and trans women who are either pre-op or no-op - and that includes black intersex and trans people. However, #BlackLivesMatter is largely focused on police killing unarmed black people, which has little-to-nothing to do with trans panic.

As I read various background pieces before writing this, I was heartened to see #7 "The movement does not care about queer or trans lives" on this list from blacklivesmatter.com: 11 Major Misconceptions About the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Most of the trans and trans ally activists I know - me among them - are also extremely concerned about both the violence targeting people of color and the ongoing exclusion of people of color in much of our mainstream media. Concern isn't necessarily action, though. It's something I think about pretty hard before I try to suggest that I'm an ally of a cause. Being concerned without taking action strikes me as a privilege, too. People fearing for their lives rarely have that luxury.

I think a lot of us are invested in the idea of making things suck less, for everyone who has data showing that, yeah, things are sucking in a really targeted, scary way against specific groups of people. Actually making things suck less is harder and most of us need guidance for people who are smarter and better versed in these causes than us.

Here I am writing about these causes, but I feel like I don't do enough for any of them. It does make me tired. There's a lot that needs to be fixed, and some days I'm so bone tired from the mundane daily grind, that I have nothing left to give. I think it makes all of us tired at some point. I enormously appreciate those who are focused on the single causes and can direct the energy of the majority of us: the over-worked, over-tired masses who really want to indulge in the privilege of turning off our conscience for some much needed R&R. We can accomplish much in sheer quantity, but we also - by spreading ourselves thin, or through ignorance - often fail to identify the real quality actions to take on our own.

As a follow up to this post, I'm going to try to reply occasionally with what, if anything, I'm doing for either the #BlackLivesMatter or #TransLivesMatter causes, or maybe any other cause for which I'm compelled to take greater action than social media lip service.