Get A Handle On It

 I was recently asked about my Twitter handle. It includes the phrase "Black Lives Matter." The suggestion was made that we, as a nation, are kind of over that and we might pick a new way to cajole folks to think in other productive ways: Stop Climate Change, Tax The Rich, Eat The Rich. All worthy suggestions and thoughts I have had at different times. But I keep coming back to Black Lives Matter.

Because Black Lives Matter.

I was reading an article about a one hundred year old SS camp guard who is currently on trial in Neuruppin, Germany for the deaths of three thousand five hundred eighteen prisoners during World War II. The man, whose name is reported as only Josef S. due to Germany's trial reporting rules, stands accused of being at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp by regularly standing guard in the watchtower between 1942 and 1945. "Stands" is a legal term here, since his age and condition only allows him to be in court for two and a half hours a day. Which does not stop prosecutors there from seeking justice for crimes against humanity. 

Black Lives Matter. 

I raise the case of Josef S. because there has been a number of high-profile arrests and trials of Nazis in Germany. Recently, a ninety-six year old suspect fled from those who might bring him to justice for those crimes against humanity. The obvious subtext here is that these murderers should be caught and found guilty before they have a chance to disappear into history that suggests that they were "just following orders."

Black Lives Matter.

Here in America, we have a very efficient system of justice. For some. Not for everyone. Having enough money to smooth the path helps. Being white helps. Black men and women have been harassed, assaulted, and murdered by the police here in America. By uniformed men and women who will claim that they were "just following procedure." Orders. I do not believe that they should have to wait eighty years to be wheeled into a courtroom to be held accountable for their crimes. Against humanity.

So, if you're wondering when I'll be changing my Twitter handle, I'm guessing it might be about eighty years. 

Black Lives Matter.