All Lives Matter

[Foxaèr]

I used to be an "All Lives Matter" proponent because my egalitarian beliefs automatically want to push for equality over focused inequality. I changed my mind when I read a really good (at least in my opinion) metaphor, which I'll repeat in a moment. Suffice to say, "All Lives Matter" is the overall goal, nobody
disputes that. The reason the "Black Lives Matter" movement exists is to focus on the fact that at this moment in time, black lives are treated, or at least are seen to be treated as less valuable.


So anyway, onto the metaphor that changed my mind:

Suppose you are at a family dinner, and the patriarch / matriarch is serving up dessert. He/she heaps a portion of dessert onto everyone's plate except for your own. You complain "Hey, I didn't get any dessert, I should get some too." The rest of the family looks at you and hushes you. "EVERYONE should get dessert" they say.

The underlying point is that you're still left without dessert, but your family are too focused on the overall issue of everyone getting dessert to even notice / care about your plight.

It's fine to be egalitarian about things, and recognize that inequality affects most people in some way, but sometimes you need to view things through a narrow lens. You can't solve every inequality at once, so you need to do them one by one. That's why multiple groups exist.

Of course, with that in mind, I honestly get the impression that saying "Black lives matter" isn't much better in this regard. Taking the dinner metaphor to its logical conclusion, it's like replying "of course, you'll get dessert" AND NEVER ACTUALLY GETTING IT. And then, when it's over, you ask about it and they actively deny having denied you of your dessert.

To be honest, if they really mattered on any socially meaningful way, the movement wouldn't need to keep reminding people of the fact. And, of course, the point of the phrase is generally treated as a reminder to the powers that be of a fact they seem to have forgotten. Except I don't think they've forgotten it. I think they just don't care. And they probably never did. Hell, that was the point of the Ice-T video "No Lives Matter" I linked to earlier.

What the phrase should be is "WHY DON'T BLACK LIVES MATTER?" It goes right for the jugular and points out the problem in an unambiguous way that bypasses the whole semantical niggling we've spent all this time trying to unpack, and it's a lot less empty a statement than either "black lives matter" or "all lives matter."

Indeed.

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Your beliefs are irrelevant.

Just as is your belief that my belief is irrelevant. See how that works.