BLM and the oh so relevant response of ALM

To me it feels like every time this happens, screams of “Black Lives Matter” tend to be met with the response equally valid “All Lives Matter.” on any and every social media patform. I mean last year, Hillary Clinton said “All Lives Matter,” though she has since corrected herself (because it wouldn’t be a Hillary moment if she didn’t apologize, retract, and recomment). And lots of people have expressed confusion about why it’s controversial to broaden the #BlackLivesMatter movement to include people of all races.

The real issue is that, while being absolutely true, “All Lives Matter” is a tone-deaf slogan that distracts from the real problems black people in America face. Changing #BlackLivesMatter to #AllLivesMatter is an act of erasure that makes lots of people cringe.

Let's say that you’re sitting down to dinner with your family, and while everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don’t get any. So you say “I should get my fair share.” And as a direct response to this, your dad corrects you, saying, “everyone should get their fair share.” Now, that’s a thoughtful sentiment. Everyone should, and your point did have that ideal in it in the first place: that YOU should be a part of EVERYONE, and you should get your fair share also. However, dad’s smart-ass comment just dismissed you and didn’t solve the problem that you still haven’t gotten any food.

The problem is that the statement “I should get my fair share” had an implicit (understood) “too” at the end: “I should get my fair share, TOO, just like everyone else.” But your dad’s response treated your statement as though you meant “ONLY I should get my fair share”, which clearly was not your intention. As a result, his statement that “everyone should get their fair share,” while still very valid, only served to ignore the problem you were trying to point out.

That’s the situation of the “black lives matter” movement. Culture, laws, the arts, religion, and everyone else repeatedly suggest that all lives should matter. Clearly, that message already abounds in our society through those very societal outlets. But the result is that, societally, we don’t pay as much attention to certain people’s deaths as we do to others. So, currently, we don't treat all lives as though they matter equally.

Just like asking dad for your fair share, the phrase “black lives matter” also has an implicit (understood) “too” at the end: it’s saying that black lives should also matter. But responding to this by saying “all lives matter” is willfully going back to ignoring the problem. It’s a way of dismissing the statement by falsely suggesting that it means “only black lives matter,” when that is obviously not the case. And so saying “all lives matter” as a direct response to “black lives matter” is essentially saying that we should just go back to ignoring the problem.

When some people rejoin with ‘All Lives Matter’ they misunderstand the problem, but not because their message is untrue. It is true that all lives matter, but it is equally true that not all lives are understood to matter which is precisely why it is most important to name the lives that have not mattered, and are struggling to matter in the way they deserve.

What I’m saying is, we can’t have a race-blind approach to the questions: which lives matter? Or, which lives are worth valuing? If we jump too quickly to the universal formulation, "all lives matter", then we miss the fact that black people have not yet been included in the idea of "all lives." That being said, it is true that all lives matter. ​You can’t discuss "all lives mattering" without acknowledging that "all" must inherently include ‘black.’ Supporters of "all lives matter" are perpetuating a lie. Black people’s relationship with this country is one of exploitation, discrimination, and death. So "ALM" proponents fall, to us, into one or more of the following categories: ignorant of the plight of black americans, in denial of the plight of black americans or the worst: a camp that believes that ‘all’ does not include us and that black lives do not matter. A lot fall into the latter, thus reinforcing the urgency of this movement moment. So when you hear "Black Lives Matter", remember that we are just sitting at the table waiting for our equal portion of the meal. Which in this case means less discrimination, less exploitation, less death and, more equality. In your head remove the "ONLY" leave the "Black Lives Matter" and add the "TOO" at the end.