I think women should more easily understand what blacks are trying to say when they say Black Lives Matter.
For example, can we imagine a man who loves his wife, loves his daughters, loves his mother, respects women of achievement - and yet is still sexist? still chauvinist? Of course we can imagine that. Women have been telling us that for decades, or more. For a man to love some women does not mean that he does not automatically diminish women, that he does not think women are too emotional, or at the mercy of their hormones, or not as smart, or as dedicated, or as capable of leadership, or don't belong in the workforce, or don't belong in management, or are too soft, or too nice, or toooooooooo….. or not enoughhhhhhhh….fill in the blank.
Loving some women, and admiring some women does not let sexist and chauvinist men off the hook. They can be and usually are to at least some degree sexist and chauvinist. We are raised in and surrounded by a world that diminishes women and the feminine. We carry it in us and have to free ourselves from it. It requires a conscious choice, and the first step in that choice is to know that a choice needs to be made.
So too with Black Lives Matter. We can fool ourselves into thinking that we are not racists because we have black people in our lives that we admire, trust, and love. OK, great, that is wonderful. But it does not mean that we don't have centuries of racist biases in us - and have to overcome those deeply ingrained biases - not smart? lazy? dangerous? promiscuous? uppity? pick a word, it is hard to continue with these pejoratives.
Or we can dodge the issue by just saying that we love all people, that All Lives Matter. But that just lets us not examine and make corrections to the centuries of bias baked into our country and our world and into ourselves.
Black Lives Matter is a scream of anguish from the black community saying that in this country black lives don't matter - you can tell by the endless shooting of unarmed black men, by the social snubbing, by the fact that every black parent has to train their children in how not to get killed by a cop, etc. etc. etc.
So, in the same way that women know that they have to make sure they don't get raped - for which they will be shamed and blamed - blacks know they have to make sure they don't get shot by cops - for which they will be shamed and blamed.
I hope the analogy helps clarify.
To discover your own biases go to implicit.harvard.edu. It shows your implicit reactions - your subconscious mind. It is a disturbing test to take, but the courageous will.
