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3 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate NEWS NOW Our View: SOU sets new timeline in president search ... Field project inches forward ... Weather or Not: Add a fifth season to the calendar — smoke ... Our View: SOU sets new timeline in president search ... Field project inches forward ... Weather or Not: Add a fifth season to the calendar — smoke ... COMMENTARY Chris Honoré: 'Black Lives Matter' — the context Comment By Chris Honoré DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré Posted Oct. 19, 2015 at 12:01 AM By Chris Honoré Posted Oct. 19, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News During the recent Democratic debate, the candidates were asked to comment on “Black Lives Matter,” a protest movement that is a response to police shootings of unarmed African-American men. Taken alone, absent a context, it can be heard as an admonition and has been framed by some Republicans as being anti-white and inflammatory. True, the initial response could be, “All lives matter,” no matter the color of one’s skin. Life is to be cherished, and the distinction of race has no place in our discussion of lives and their value. But wait. There is a historical context embedded in this statement that bears scrutiny. What must be understood is that to say “Black lives matter” is to remind America that the African-American experience will always be framed by a dark and wrenching journey — slavery — that is woven into the fabric of our nation. And no, it’s not time to get past it. Like the Holocaust, it is a deep and traumatic wound that will take many generations to heal, if it ever does. Slavery was an institution that required the dehumanization of hundreds of thousands of people, brought to our shores in the holds of ships, not out of choice but as captives, considered to be cargo and part of an insidious economic process known as the trans-Atlantic slave trade. What is today indisputable is that black lives mattered because they were viewed as property, part of an owner’s wealth, bought and sold and bartered like livestock. Children were taken from their mothers’ arms, families were fragmented without hesitation or remorse. In a recently published book “The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave Breeding Industry,” authors Ned and Constance Sublette write that women were expected to be constantly pregnant, often forced. Children were, after all, considered an asset. Simultaneously, slavery was ubiquitous and protected by law, prejudice, custom and greed. Newspapers were filled with ads for buying and selling slaves and ownership was embedded in the economic and social fabric of our nation. To reiterate, black lives mattered because they were property and never viewed as people possessing an equal humanity with all inalienable rights, no matter what our founding fathers (many slave owners) penned in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Though slavery was finally abolished with the Emancipation Proclamation, what did not follow was a commensurate attitudinal shift. Where once black lives mattered as a source of wealth and free labor, the prejudice and discrimination that followed were not easily legislated away, and blacks were still viewed as far less than equal. It was called Jim Crow and it rippled throughout America. Racism was made manifest in countless ways signaling that black lives no longer mattered, at least not as much as those of whites. Plessy v. Ferguson, affirming separate but equal laws, was writ large by the Supreme Court. Voting rights were withheld. Segregation was law in public places from schools to buses to drinking fountains. And black people were shot and lynched with impunity as the public looked on in approbation. There is a thread from Jim Crow and the denigrating belief that black lives don’t matter that leads directly from the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing to the killing of nine African-Americans in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., last June. Racism and reflexive prejudice and discrimination continue to haunt us as a nation. They continue to distort our democracy and put the lie to the stated belief that all men are created equal. When black men and women march on urban streets, hands raised high, and say, “black lives matter,” it is an appeal and a reminder that black lives should matter. It represents America’s covenant with our Constitution. And those three words remind us that the shroud of Jim Crow is ever with us; we still do not live in a post-racial America. Why else was it necessary for African-Americans to create a civil rights movement? Why was it necessary to pass a Voting Rights Act and a Civil Rights Act? Taken in the aggregate, all remind us that equality matters. Justice matters. And ultimately it is the content of our character that matters. Chris Honoré lives in Ashland. By Chris Honoré DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré Posted Oct. 19, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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