The Black Lives Matter movement has been seen widely as an African American movement focused on eradicating police brutality. But that's not the whole story, according to Dontae Latson, chief executive officer of the McLean County YWCA.
Latson calls Black Lives Matter "a human rights movement" that is also shedding light on job and housing inequality, the high incarceration rate of African Americans, and the school to prison pipeline. He said the one of the movement's main accomplishments has been to focus national attention on issues that have long simmered in the African American community.
The YWCA director is one of the speakers at the Tuesday night program "Black Lives Matter: Listening to Our Neighbors." The 7 p.m. program at the Normal Public Library is being billed as a "listening session" for the community. The program will also include comments from a State Farm executive, a female ex-offender, and a graduate student in social work.
The event is being sponsored by the McLean County League of Women Voters, Not In Our Town, First Christian Church and the Unitarian Universalist Church.
"When you think of Black Lives Matter, I think they have been unfairly painted as this sort of extreme leftist group that is quite violent and that has a single stream issue, that is addressing police brutality," Latson said.
"I have to say I felt the same way for quite sometime until I did what I would encourage everyone else to to do who has questions about the movement, which is get on line, open a book, listen to and engage the folks involved in it every day before you pass judgment."
Latson said it's been necessary for Black Lives Matter protests to strike a more strident tone than civil rights protests of the past.
"What makes this different from my father's or your grandfathers' civil rights movement is that (today's protesters) are not okay with playing by the rules that are typically out there, meaning if you dress or behave or act a certain way you will be accepted. They are looking at, how long are we going to keep talking about this stuff? How many of us have to die in the streets? So the politeness is out the window," Latson said.
Race relations are in some ways worse today than in past decades, as is life for some African Americans, Latson said. However, he sees this moment in history as a springboard for renewed dialogue between blacks and whites.
"I think we have to recognize the power that we have together," Latson said. "If one person is unjustly treated, then it's going to have an impact on us all".
Responding to the criticism that the movement should say not only black lives, but all lives matter, Latson said, "If you believe black lives matter, it in no way means white lives somehow don't matter or blues lives, as they call cops' lives, or any other race doesn't matter."
He said these types of misunderstandings could be avoided if both sides not only talked to one another, but also listened intently. "We have to humble ourselves, we have to acknowledge we don't know it all, just because it doesn't show up on a newsreel or a sound bite from a news station you listen to. Stop going by the few talking points that constantly divide us and start listening."
Latson said Bloomington-Normal has "a really good group of people in this community who want to do the right thing," but added that it has been somewhat "inoculated" against the kind of racial turmoil that has engulfed many other cities.
"Because Bloomington has been inoculated against some of what the rest of the country has gone through, you begin to take on the mindset that everything is okay," Latson said. in that case, it's easier to turn a blind eye to discrimination that does exist, "and we get into this place of comfort," he added.
But he warned, "All it takes is an incident. That's all it takes. And then there is this powder keg of racial tension that was always there at the surface that we didn't want to deal with. Why? Because we're this nice cool community and nothing bad is happening."
Latson urged the Bloomington-Normal community to become "proactive" in avoiding the kinds of incidents that have sparked racial tensions in other cities.