'All Lives Matter' Sign Revealed A Dangling Thread In Melrose

MELROSE, MA — In place of our usual weekend notebook, this space will be dedicated Saturday and Sunday for local Black voices speaking their personal truths about the police traffic sign controversy that has thrust Melrose into an unwelcome national spotlight.

The following is from Melrose residents Rev. Jaron and Concetta Green.

Admittedly, Melrose is a nice place to raise a family. It has become a community that we, a Black family, love and are invested in. Melrose, however, is not an oasis from the systemic racism that we see being exposed on a national scale. Racism, like all politics, is local.

Because racism is built into our laws and systems, we must confront it boldly when its hanging threads are revealed. And within communities like ours, we must learn to hold one another accountable, respectfully.

Untangling and dismantling racism is a messy, painful business. Mayor Brodeur and Police Chief Lyle possessed the courage and compassion to quickly remove the message boldly posted on an electric sign, which was insensitive at best, when residents called to complain.

Choosing to view the offensive message as an isolated moment is to willfully ignore the larger fabric from which it stems. Deliberate or not, the message revealed a dangling thread in Melrose.

Our brand of local racism in this national moment is forcing us to decide: will we live up to our motto, One Melrose, Open to All? Remember, all lives can’t matter until Black lives matter too.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote, “All men are created equal,” enslaved Africans in the United States were still considered property (like your lawn mower or washing machine). This level of suppression was codified into law and enforced.

Look up the word “codify” and you’ll see definitions like, “the action or process of arranging laws or rules according to a system or plan” and “to put (laws or rules) together as a code or system”.
Read those again. Slowly. This is where racism’s systemic nature was carefully crafted. Long before we were born, but now that we are here, we must dismantle it together.

The Blacks, these “non-people” responsible for building the new America, were deemed as disposable articles, not worthy of the same freedoms their oppressors waxed poetic about. Newspaper cartoons, ads, and novels, characterized these “non-people” as lazy, dim witted and violent. That in mind, punishment and controls were established to keep these “non-people” in line. These very ideas and assumptions were woven into the thread of every system this country has. Churches, entertainment, politics, education, housing and the job market - have all been framed on the oppression of Black lives.

Historically, African Americans have heard Jefferson’s words, knowing that certain ‘truths’ have not equally applied to us from the start. Hearing “All lives matter” today rings the same bell as Jefferson’s phrase in 1776. “All” does not actually mean all. It means “ALL: when Blacks stay in their place.”

African Americans have grown weary of the hypocrisy of the American dream. We are tired of dying on cell phone videos at the hands of police officers. We are tired of being told, “It’s just a bad apple! It’s just one mistake!” when the list of our unjustly murdered Black brothers and sisters grows each day. We want the police to serve and protect equally. So what do we do? We don’t wait for White people to finally “get it”. We give our own value verbiage, by saying, “BLACK LIVES MATTER.” Period.

In Melrose, we have noticed an alarming number of White citizens reading “Black Lives Matter” as the preface to an angry uprising. If that is your reaction, have you asked yourself why you fear that very thing? Aren’t we equal?

Could it be that many Whites know well that we are actually not treated equally? That when they hear the words, “White Power” they know the violent vitriol that informs it? Do they fear that is what Blacks really mean when we say, “Black Power” and “Black Lives Matter”?

Let us assure you: they are not the same.

“Black Lives Matter” is an affirmation and declaration that despite centuries of systemic oppression, undocumented lynchings and crimes against our humanity, we are still humans; Americans with unalienable rights granted by God to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Today, the racial work needed in our community is for residents to speak up every time something wrong happens. To speak up when threads of inequity are exposed and demand accountability and repercussions. Otherwise, nothing changes.

Mayor Brodeur and Chief Lyle need our support as a community because the world is watching and racists are attacking them for doing the right things. We hope the next steps include intense diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, especially addressing anti-Blackness, to help us all dismantle racism when opportunities, like this one, arise.

Rev. Jaron & Concetta Green

Melrose residents