How Many Lives Matter Less?

I can't help but look at the news of Walter Wallace Jr.'s murder and wonder, "How many of our lives don't matter?" Since 2014, the phrase Black Lives Matter has been called out in response to the murder of Black people by police in incident after incident, after incident. Black Lives Matter has become the rallying cry, as both a statement, and a declaration of what needs to change. In truth, where police violence is concerned, as well as many other areas, we have not acted as a nation which believes Black lives do matter. Unless you are specifically uninterested and wilfully ignorant, the arguments and reasoning behind the Black Lives Matter movement shouldn't be anything you've missed in the last eight months. 

Walter Wallace Jr. belonged to two different communities whose lives statistically and realistically haven't been treated as if they matter. He was a young Black man, and he was someone living with severe mental illness (which will be referred to as SMI, moving forward). Unfortunately, it's often couched in the language of "untreated mental illness," which is to say reporting and studies on people with "untreated" SMI being killed by police say we are killed at sixteen times the rate of people who do not have SMI. Walter Wallace Jr. was treated three days before his murder. Because of the circumstances of his death, it's basically guaranteed he will be referred to as "untreated." Unfortunately for those living with SMI, like myself, treatment is not a guarantee to getting symptoms immediately under control. It can take days, weeks or months. Because of the economic ramifications of SMI, treatment is more likely to be inconsistent than it is to be as cut and dry as "treated" or "untreated," as well. Really though, it's hard to be completely certain about the numbers of people with SMI killed by police, because no one counts them. This lack of counting police killings is by design. We don't have an official count of people killed by police at all, and therefore, we have no official count of people with SMI killed by police. In other words, even when we can statistically show Black people, people with SMI, and a number of other people in different sociological categories are killed by police at rates disproportionate to their representation in the overall population, none of us matter enough to be counted. That's how little our lives matter. As soon as you are killed by police, you life doesn't matter. 

This is a problem which affects my fellow Americans living with SMI, who are also Black, at an even higher rate. A full half of Black people killed by police are living mental illness or other disability. The facts we do have about police violence and Black Americans have been getting more attention than they've probably ever gotten before, and the facts say the police in the United States are committing violence against Black Americans at rates that are disproportionately higher than any other people. 

Being a person with SMI who is not Black, creates an issue. How can I, as a person who is also white, heterosexual, cisgender and male, address the facts about people with SMI also being disproportionately victimized by police violence? In no way do I want to attempt to undermine any of the effort of the Black Lives Matter movement to bring changes to policing which will stop Black people from being victimized by police. At the same time, I think it would benefit Black Lives Matter's aim of attempting to defund police, and fundamentally change our model of emergency services, by being direct and vocal about the violence people with mental illness face from police. 

The truth is, part of the function of white supremacy is in making sure there isn't solidarity between Black people and the other races who are also part of the population of the United States. One of the central avenues through which this is created is by fostering the belief that Black people in the United States are deserving of being disproportionately targeted by police violence. It's in the way the society, culture and politics have imagined and presented Black people since the 1860's. 

Part of what this does is create exactly the kind of issue we run into when we attempt to talk about violence against people who live with SMI. In the mind of the majority of white America, questioning police violence against Black people is to essentially question their sense of safety and security. We have so closely associated being Black with both lawlessness and violence, it's an automatic, implicit, often unconscious reaction. When someone like myself begins to talk about the disproportionate amount of violence levied against people with SMI, two things are guaranteed to happen. 

First, is the majority of whites, and anyone else who is still indoctrinated by the racist myths about Black people which are part of American culture who harbor racist ideas and attitudes, feel their sense of safety and security is threatened. It's certainly not only white Americans who have spent their lives being inundated with these ideas. It has been white Americans who've overwhelmingly upheld  politically, economically and socially racist systems and norms, through having been both the plurality of the people in the country and the greatest share of economic wealth. This privilege serves white people, in many ways. This is another part of the truth of white supremacy and racism which has been often discussed in the last few years, this year especially. 

To attempt to address the violence people with SMI face from police also means there is the risk of taking some of the attention away from the efforts of Black Lives Matter and many organizations who have worked diligently to address these racist systems, the ideas which drive them, and the outcomes they produce. 

Let's be clear about one thing, the proposals put forth by Black Lives Matter, like the often discussed, misrepresented, and purposefully misunderstood idea of defunding the police, will be something which will significantly cut the amount of violence committed by police, against people with SMI. Anyone who is living with SMI, who has loved ones living with SMI, or advocates for people with SMI should support the channeling of funds away from the police to specific civilian units meant to respond to calls for mental health crises etc. Over the last ten years, as pressure on police has waxed and waned, more and more departments are requiring "conflict de-escalation" training, which is what is still being promised by "reform" minded individuals who are either politically at risk by supporting defunding the police or who have the unconscious anxieties about their own safety and security being activated because there won't be police on the scene to murder a person experiencing mental health emergencies, especially if the person is also Black. 

Let's also be very clear, Black people are most disproportionately victims of police violence, and people with SMI are also disproportionately victims of police violence, but there are many others who are also disproportionately victimized by police violence. The LGBTQ community are among them, especially transgender people. People who are homeless or houseless (who are also over represented racially and as people with mental illness) are also victims of police violence at far higher rates than those of their overall representation within the entire population. Latinx people also face rates of police violence not in keeping with their population representation. The second most common complaint against police officers, behind unnecessary force, is sexual assault or harassment. 

What this boils down to is the social, political and economic hierarchy of white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism is the definition through which one's life is valued. To be male, white, wealthy, heterosexual, cisgender and neurotypical is to have your life most valued. As you differ from this standard, you move further into the territory of your life mattering less. 

Any way in which any of us who differ from that standard means our lives matter less. Any way in which we attempt to uphold the ideas, norms and standards of this hierarchy, automatically upholds the standard which says our lives matter less. I may not be as likely to be killed by police as someone who is both Black and lives with SMI, but that doesn't mean I either believe that to be good or that I gain anything by it being true. My life still matters less than someone who does fit the standard, and police violence is just the most instantly deadly consequence. I'm still sixteen times more likely to be killed by police than they are, and that's a substantial difference. What white supremacy tries to sell someone like me is that I'm "fortunate" my life matters more than someone who is both Black and living with SMI. It is certainly a privilege I'm afforded in comparison, but my life is still valued less than those who are the standard and who support the idea, norms and traditions which make this a reality. What exactly do I have to gain by saying, "OH, yeah, that's great. Let's keep making sure more Black people with SMI are killed than white people with SMI"? Why would I choose to support the people who have since advocacy for the mentally ill gained traction started addressing police violence 40 years ago, continued to allow for my life to matter less than theirs? To reveal it in these terms is to reveal how ludicrous it is. 

In this way, this isn't just about Black Lives Matter, and it is also all about Black Lives Matter. It's about eliminating the hierarchy, which is founded on anti-Black racism. It's about always understanding the reality which is as a white person who faces a culture and society which fundamentally, by default, believes my life matters more, any of the issues I face as the result of living with SMI are going to be more acute for people who are navigating the world both with SMI and Black skin, and that other people of color are also going to face issues of discrimination on top of those faced by white people with SMI. I may not be able to know the experience they have, but I do know what it is to very clearly matter less than the people who benefit most. 

There are those who say, these are fundamentally issues of class, and while I agree issues of class are operative, to say they are fundamental is misunderstanding the essential differences between the kind of discrimination faced by people with SMI and those faced by Black people, is there is no issue of caste among those of us who live with SMI. Things like the negative healthcare outcomes for Black people are across the class spectrum, including where mental health treatment is concerned. They may improve for someone who is Black and moving up the hierarchy of class, but they are still consistently disproportionately negative in comparison to those of white people, and in comparison to their percentage of the overall population. White supremacy was established as and still is a caste system, and class operates within that caste system. In the United States, the two most fundamental structures creating the hierarchy of whose life matters, are race and gender. Even the issues of LGBTQ people being valued less, essentially come back to the ways in which their existence challenges the standards and norms of gender. Race only then compounds any and all other issues. While class can help alleviate them to some degree, it does not render them inoperative, most especially race. 

This is the way we have failed to begin to build solidarity. We have been focusing on the hierarchy in a way which defines our place in it, primarily. We can overcome it by beginning to understand we are all living in a hierarchy which defines the degree to which our lives matter. It's a hierarchy established to most privilege white, heterosexual, cisgender, neurotypical, wealthy men. All of the rest of us matter less. It's incumbent on us to understand how this hierarchy devalues us, and each other, because we  help to support it, but also fail to undermine it, when we don't. 

When someone says, "All Lives Matter," even as I understand they are saying it in order to distract from the point of saying "Black Lives Matter" which is to bring to the fore that Black lives have always mattered less, they're not just papering over the fact that Black lives have always mattered less, they're papering over the fact that my life matters less, because the structure of American society as it exists needs Black lives to matter less, and many of the rest of us, like those of us who live with SMI, are essentially collateral damage. Our lives do matter less. They aren't targeted in the same manner or with the same degree of focused ferocity Black lives are, but the history and the facts also say our lives matter less to the people who must maintain this hierarchy and who benefit most from it. 

When people purposely misrepresent the idea of defunding the police in order to present Black Lives Matter as irresponsible and radical, so the ideas and solutions contained within a slogan like defunding the police are dismissed and never genuinely presented or considered, they're also dismissing and belittling the fact that defunding the police would make my life safer. 

These are among the ways we see this hierarchy play out. The reality is most of the people who say things like this never consider or genuinely have no idea they are saying my life matters less, but they never consider it and have no idea because my life matters less. Though there has been some press, media and journalism about the degree to which police violence affects the lives of people with SMI, it's far from the kind of significant story followed, investigated and reinforced in the way which does push it to being a general culture and political understanding. Again, it's not the same kind of focused discrimination as that of anti-Black racism, but it's more people with SMI being collateral damage of anti-Black racism. White supremacy has to be defended or fought with such ferocity it sucks the oxygen out of the larger social debate and discussion, which to be clear, is not the fault of the anti-racist forces in those debates and discussions. It's also because people with SMI are under represented as journalists, editors etc. They have to be educated in the "issues," where for people with SMI, these aren't issues, this is our lives. 

This means it has to be up to us. Those of us who live with SMI, those whose loved ones live with SMI, and the rest of the people whose lives touch ours and whose lives we touch, to be vocal and up front in saying things like, "I support Black Lives Matter. It is imperative to stop the racist violence perpetrated on Black people by police, and instituting the kinds of solutions Black Lives Matter are fighting for will also help prevent people with SMI, like me, from being victims of violence at the hands of the police." 

Those of us whose lives matter less have to do our best to learn how to stand together, against the hierarchy which devalues our lives, not fight for a better place in the hierarchy or fight to keep those who are more negatively affected by it from "challenging our position."