Dear Editor:

When the Los Angeles Times put the question on the table in a recent article. “How Black Lives Matter,” it forced campaigns to toss their strategies on reaching black voters.

Patrisse Cullors, a movement co-founder from Los Angeles said, “We want to ensure that these candidates will actually deal with the issues that black people face.”

Visible evidence has been increasing right in front of our faces. Anyone who reads, listens to news or watches it on social media or TV, can’t ignore that it is not safe walking while black, running while black, driving while black, shopping while black, or applying for a job while black.

The movement exposed politicians’ tone-deafness on racial issues. I suspect if we were honest with ourselves we would feel that we are often also tone-deaf on racial issues. Our response — that “all lives matter” — ignores the predominant evidence that it is black lives that are being taken — often by police.

Our country ignored mass killings in South Sudan (Dafur) where the targets were Christians. Our state harbors two hate groups (KKK and Neo-Nazi), and when we brought our black South Sudan refugee daughter with her Hispanic friend to Maine we heard folks ask loudly, “What are they doing here?” It is easy to ignore those events until death takes the place of comments.

The written answer to the question: “Is it legal to be black in this country?” is yes by law, but no in realty.

Many answers to the same question often ignore laws, and sympathizers often withhold positive answers. The question left on the table is “how will candidates, and how will we, actually deal with the daily reality of issues black people face in our country?”

Jarryl Larson

Edgecomb