Can We Take a Stand Against Murder?

I don’t have a whole lot of emotional energy to spare right now, so if this seems blunt, well, that’s because it is.

A civilian killing a cop is not an inherently worse crime than a cop killing a civilian.

A white man killing a black man is not inherently worse than a black man killing a white man.

And those are not worse than a black person killing another black person, or a white person killing another white person, or a straight person killing an LGBTQ person, or an LGBTQ person killing a straight person, or a man killing a woman, or a woman killing a man, or a teenager killing an adult, or an adult killing a teenager, or a Muslim killing a Christian, or a Christian killing a Muslim, or a religious person killing an atheist, or an atheist killing a religious person….

And when I say one is not inherently worse than the other, I also mean that one is not inherently more forgivable than the other.

Every single one of these is murder. Every single one.

It is one person taking the life of another person.

And it’s fucking awful.

And that’s what we need to see. We need to stop trying to make value judgements about whose lives are supposedly worth more. About how in some cases maybe it’s not so awful. Because that’s not the case. In every single case it is awful. Fucking awful.

The problem isn’t that there are no good: cops, young black men, straight people, men, teenagers, whatever. It is that the good ones are not stepping up to stop the bad ones. In all communities.

In all communities, our initial reaction is to rally around one of “our own”, because we see ourselves in them and them in ourselves, so we do not want to believe they are capable of doing something so fundamentally awful.

We need to redefine our “us”.

I am not saying that being a cop doesn’t matter. I am not saying that being black doesn’t matter. Those are hugely important communities; they absolutely help shape identities.

But sometimes, we need to just be people first. We need to be people who are against harassment, profiling, irrational fear, and killing.

How difficult is it to say, that before I am anything else, I am a person who does not support murder?

How difficult is it to build a community where we can all say – killing is fucking awful. Let’s not do it. Let’s not support those who do it.

I want my primary “us” to not be – white, female, parent, etc. I want my primary “us” to be people who don’t believe in killing other people. And that’s the group I want to rally around. That’s the group I want to support and protect. I don’t care if they are black or white, cop or civilian, LGBTQ or straight, or any other thing. I care only that they believe killing another person is fucking awful.

Do you believe killing another person is fucking awful? Yes? Then you are one of mine. Let us build our community. Let us stick together. And let us speak out against the people who are not part of this community.

Because if you believe that killing another person is not inherently, fucking awful, then I don’t want to be around you. (And yes, I get that sometimes, RARELY, it might be necessary. It really might. That doesn’t change the fact that it is fucking awful. Just changes whether or not it is a crime. I don’t know if I could ever kill in defense of self and family or not, but I do know that if I did, it would be fucking awful, and I would be destroyed by having to have made that kind of decision.)

So can we form the “Let’s not kill” community? Will you stand with me against killing other people? Can we please just make this a basic tenet of our human community?