If black lives really do matter, then why do I continue to read stories of black people being murdered?
More specifically, why do I continue to read about the gruesome murders of black women?
When we say black lives matter, are we talking only to white people and Law Enforcement officers, or are we also talking to ourselves?
We should be! Because it seems to me black lives don’t matter that much when it’s black people murdering other black people.
And let me be clear that by saying “black people” I mean all people of colour.
As the world is taking stock of its generational victimisation of people of colour, it’s the perfect time for us to ask
ourselves some very painful questions.
Like why life has always been so cheap in the ghettos.
Why should anybody else care about our lives, when we don’t appear to care ourselves?
Our boys are watching men chase each other down and emptying guns on each other with impunity.
They are gawking at bullet-ridden bodies in parks where they are meant to be playing childhood games.
How can they believe that black lives matter, when they see the exact opposite on a daily basis?
How can they believe that their own, young black lives matter, when they live with the real fear of innocently catching a stray bullet at any time?
If the life of a man is cheap on the Cape Flats, then there have been more than enough stories to prove to us that the life of a female must be free.
The mere regular murder of a woman or a girl is no longer enough; society has become desensitised to those.
Now the acts have to be extra barbaric and brutal for it to go viral on social media or make news headlines.
If Tshegofatso Pule hadn’t been stabbed several times and hanged from a tree, while being eight-months pregnant, we may never have heard of the 28-year-old.
HEINOUS: A pregnant Tshegofatso Pule was brutally killed
Trust me, there are many many murders that you don’t get to hear about, because it is just part of the regular daily news cycle.
But also because it no longer shocks us to hear of our savage cruelty towards our own.
The #BlackLivesMatter movement is forcing all of us to ask some pertinent questions about how it may be directly relevant in our own lives.
It may stem from the steady stream of police brutality stories against African-Americans, but it has taken on a much broader life of its own.
This means we can give it a value that has the most meaning to us.
But it also means that we can evaluate the status quo and recast ourselves in a different image; one that portrays us in all the dimensions, facets and dynamics that make us who we are.
But first we need to seize the moment and confront our painful realities.
This is an opportunity for all people of colour to reset our social standing and claim our place in the global society that we like to call civilised.
But it won’t happen if we only lay blame at the feet of white people.
Yes, they are slowly coming around and understanding the great injustices they have exacted upon us and our forefathers.
But at the same time, we must acknowledge how we have chipped away at our own self-esteem and humanity.
Over the decades, we have pushed drugs on youth, allowed gangs to flourish in our communities, watched our children rape each other and shielded the perpetrators of gruesome murders.
These are not the actions of people who believe that coloured lives matter. If we want our black lives to matter to others, then we have to make sure that our black lives matter to ourselves.