Black Lives Don't Matter

Black lives don’t matter, except to those who have a vested interest in black lives mattering.

I don’t mean to sound facetious, but we can easily refer to the history books to see how the current #blacklivesmatter narrative will fold out.

To illustrate why black lives don’t (and at least for the time-being, won’t matter) let’s take a look at neuroplasticity and the process of transformation.

Insane in the ‘membrain’

Understanding neuroplasticity is critical to actually making black (and all pantone shades of brown) lives actually matter.

Science may explain racism

Neuroplasticity is the brain’s ability to transform its physical and functional connections, throughout our years. Our brains wiring responds to our thought patterns, behaviour, environment, emotions and feelings.

Put simply, we can rewire our brains.

So at a simple scientific level, it is ‘possible’ for black lives to matter, IF those who formerly didn’t care about black lives (or where nonplussed, unaware, not bothered, living in an ignorant bliss) re-wire their brain.

If they re-wire their brain (i.e: do the inner-work), they may actually start believing and behaving as if black lives matter.

We ‘simply’ have to create new neurological pathways to create a new belief pattern or change a bias.

So unless certain swathes of society do the inner work required to create a new neural-pathway (way of thinking), the whole ‘aging but not dying’ racism debate is just noise.

How do you rewire your brain?

How to rewire your brain is a question that many mindfulness practitioners and Neuro-Scientists (I’m the former) have tried to answer for ions. It is an entire modality of study.

However before answering the HOW, let’s look at the question WHY.

Why do black lives not matter?

It seems there’s complex and multi-dimensional answers to:

Why do black lives not matter? OR why have black lives not mattered enough?

But actually it really simply boils down to one simple true.

Beliefs.

Our belief-system dictates what does and doesn’t matter to us.

Belief system

Our beliefs reinforce our awareness, which becomes our biochemistry. As the saying goes, ‘what fires together, wires together’. If we hold a belief, our body reacts to that belief at a cellular and molecular level.

Our body is completely aware of our brain wiring, meaning it stores and reacts to our feelings, emotions, thoughts and beliefs.

As quoted in the research paper titled ‘The biochemistry of belief’ by the Indian Journal of Psychiatry — https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802367/

“Frontal lobes play a major role in beliefs. Mental representations of the world are integrated with sub-cortical information by prefrontal cortex. Amygdala and Hippocampus are involved in the process of thinking and thus help in execution of beliefs”

So basically, for black lives to matter, we need to alter our brain wiring that originally meant that black lives didn’t matter (much) to us before.

Drug addicts

I spent a few days at Hope Rehab Centre in Thailand, covering an article on how they were helping drug and alcohol addicts recover from their addiction.

I interviewed at length the founder, management team, staff, volunteers and the recovering addicts themselves.

I would wake at 6am, and join the recovering addicts with their early morning exercise regimes, we cycled around green pastures together, we ate together, we created sharing-circles together, we practiced mindfulness and gratitude together, we attended group-therapy sessions together, we were vulnerable together.

I got a peek into their recovery journey, and many of them invited me into their world (heads) for the moment I was there.

Most of these recovering addicts were ‘residents’ in the centre for between 1–6 months (it takes a while to recover from addiction). Some had stayed longer and were now volunteering to help other recovering addicts.

Re-wiring brains

The strict recovery programme used at Hope Rehab, used holistic methods reaped in both Eastern philosophy and Western science. It was essentially designed to re-wire the recovering addict’s neural pathways.

Existing neural-pathways

After chatting to one of the staff members (a Neuro-Scientist), she explained that an addict has an existing pathway that has been fired up so many times, that it is triggered easily and automatically.

In an addict’s brain, there is a default response to an environmental or other trigger, that causes them to ‘need’ another drink/shot of whatever substance they are addicted to.

It is very difficult for an addict to control this response, such is the deep entrenched auto-firing of that neural-pathway controlling their addiction.

This helps to explain why so many addicts relapse.

For an addict to recover, a new pathway must be created, and re-fired continuously. If that new pathway becomes stronger (through repetition of the new beliefs, new actions, new behaviours etc), then a new ‘default’ response is possible, rendering the old neural pathway insignificant.

This requires effort and intentional action. But before that, an addict has to have a desire to change.

All change requires effort and intentional action.

That’s not to say the old addiction pathway disappears. But over time, if it is not fired up, then Neural Darwinism (also known as ‘neural pruning’) will occur. Which basically means that if a neuron isn’t fired-and-wired together it becomes weak and rendered to the bin.

So in theory, if the addict has ‘done the brain work’, then when they are faced with triggers, that originally had them reaching for that shot of vodka or hit or heroin, they are now able to exercise full control and say NO.

Drug addicts and racists

So if we consider the science behind neuroplasticty, and the above example on rewiring our brains, for black lives to actually matter, certain members of society need to change their belief system entirely.

This will involve an intentional process of them re-wiring their brains, thus changing their bio-chemistry.

Simply put, a racist (or closet racist) needs to do the ‘brain-work’. And they need to do it repetitively.

Do black lives matter?

Do black lives matter? That depends on who you ask.

Even if black lives matter at some stage in the future, the real question is WILL they matter? And to whom?

Let’s look at the constructs of all the global protesting and marches going on currently. People are taking to the streets and chanting ‘black lives matter’ in chorus.

Certainly there is unity in that moment of protest. There is love, passion, energy, anger, fear, sadness etc, it’s all there.

But for those who have spent their time protesting, black lives already mattered.

The question is, for those who stayed at home watching Netflix (or doing something else arbitrary), why did black lives NOT matter for them to choose to stay away, and not take part in the demonstrations? Do they even care?

Simplistic view

Now of course it is too simplistic to imply that black lives don’t matter to those who don’t attend a protest or march. Even I know there are many ways to demonstrate that black lives matter, and one doesn’t have to take to the streets to make a point.

But the point here is that people marching in streets chanting ‘black lives matter’ are doing so because they want their voice to be heard by the people who consciously or subconsciously believe that black lives don’t matter.

After all they don’t need to preach to the converted.

Can we hear #blacklivesmatter ?

Now we can all ‘hear’ #blacklivesmatter. We are hearing it everywhere at the moment. The #blacklivesmatter slogans are plastered all over our social feeds.

Even brands such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok and Twitter have joined the chorus with clever slogans and changing their logo colours to black (interesting timing for these brands to jump on the bandwagon by the way #justsaying #startyourownmovementbrands #areyousincere? #prstuntsperhapsmaybe).

But hearing something is not enough, unless it creates a deep desire or shift within to want to change.

We will change if we care.

Trigger

So if we are trying to create a movement with #blacklivesmatter, we are essentially trying to create a trigger for certain layers of society to change their views or to change their belief system.

Without a fundamental change in a belief system or bias, we can’t bring about equitable change for black people and humanity at large. This is true for all types of movements ranging from gender, islamophobia, LGBT and everything in-between.

However as you can see in my very ‘broad-brush-high-level’ description on neuroplasticity, for real change to occur within people, they need to do the ‘self-work’ to re-wire their brain entirely. And to do that work (which is not always easy), they need to care enough about the cause in the first place.

New neural-pathway = new thinking = new action = new behaviour = new outcome

To change our thinking/beliefs/biases, we need to create a new neural pathway entirely and continue to repeat that new way of thinking and acting, till it becomes our default.

Now do you believe that Trump is going to have Obama round for coffee every month? Do you think Trump is going to place Michelle Obama on speed-dial?

Do you think those who originally didn’t care (or didn’t care enough) about black lives, will suddenly make a conscious effort to have black folk round for tea, dinner and sleepovers?

Will the entire US police-force make a conscious effort to study black-history and choose to intentionally eat, drink and be merry with black folk?

Will openly-racist (or the more dangerous closet-racist) white folk ensure they intentionally invite members of the black community to their homes for Sunday roasts? Repetitively? Despite their white neighbour’s curtains twitching?

The answer is………….

Maybe?

But until those who didn’t formerly care about black lives (and this includes those who remain on the fence in the ‘I’m not a racist, but I don’t actually do anything to support black people either’ land), make fundamental changes to their belief system at a cellular level, then black lives will continue to not matter.

We can march, we can have an outcry, we can demonstrate and we can splash the tabloids with our #blacklivesmatter viewpoints and stories.

But until the recipient we are trying to convince does the repetitive work required to permanently change their views (alter their neural-pathway) it’s all ‘noise’ for them. An annoyance even.

Pragmatic optimism

So should we all just shut-up and forget chanting #blacklivesmatter?

Absolutely not.

Remember what ‘gets fired-gets wired’.

So for all those standing up for black lives today, we are re-firing and thus reinforcing our own neural pathways. We are getting stronger in our beliefs against racism.

We are becoming more vocal about it, we are regaining our confidence and power to speak-up, we are creating energy, we are honouring our value-system, we are proclaiming and reclaiming our personal boundaries.

And most importantly, we may be influencing the younger generation who have the most malleable of minds.

Our kid’s brains are creating neural pathways at a far more rapid speed than us adults. If the younger generation keep hearing on repeat that black lives matter, then black lives WILL matter in the future for them.

Someone amongst us

Kids are born colour-blind towards humanity, until someone in their circle assigns a negative/positive meaning to 50-shades of brown.

Those from the younger generation will one day lead companies and nations. They are witnessing the #blacklivesmatter narrative right now.

It is my hope that they are forming the crucial beliefs (thus neural pathways), that black lives do matter. It is my dream that those from the younger generation bring in a new era of change.

Till then…..

Until then our generation must continue to speak, voice out, demonstrate and strengthen our own neural-pathways to the racism cause.

For those reading this who don’t really care about black lives, or for those who do care but in a distanced ‘this doesn’t affect my life’ kind of way, then my question to you is, what needs to happen for you to care about ALL lives?

What needs to happen?

What needs to happen to erase the racism-dichotomy? Is it possible we can all be humans first instead of identifying ourselves with superficial layers of difference?

What needs to happen for you to decide to do your bit? What will it take for you to ‘do the work’ on yourself to help the world become a better place for all and sundry?

If the #blacklivesmatter narrative has you irked, bored, annoyed and already at the stage of ‘move on already’, then the question is:

What will it take for black lives to matter to you?

If you can’t answer that, then there’s a clear indication (and invitation) for you to examine your belief-system and bias, and then ‘do the work’. On repeat. Please.

And so….

Black lives do matter, all lives matter.

I’ll be joining the chorus, I’ll be firing-rewiring my neural pathways.

I’ll continue to influence my own kids with the anti-racisim message, in the hope that if our generation misses a beat, that their generation may close the ghastly racist gap.

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Written by Dee Khanduja (Allan)-The Gritty Girl, Workplace Futurist, International Speaker and Writer. I blog on the Medium platform, and live in Singapore with my cool husband and two cheeky kids.

Photos from Pixabay and Unsplash. Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash