All Lives Matter is trash and invalidates the Black Lives Matter movement

If All Lives Matter, it’s time to admit that black lives do too


Ever since the Black Lives Matter movement was founded in 2013, a wave of people decided that it was wrong to say. Ignorance decided that we should be saying “All Lives Matter”. Of course every life matters, but society isn’t mirroring that ideology. How can you say “All Lives Matter” when innocent black people are being killed? 

All Lives Matter is one of the most harmful remarks you could make when talking about the Black Lives Matter movement. We are far past the point in society where seeing innocent black lives being taken by the police is shocking, it is a constant wave of mourning; nearly to the point of it being accepted as being the norm. How do you think it makes us feel when fighting for our rights are completely disregarded and met with a “But All Lives Matter too!”

Firstly, stop saying All Lives Matter

It’s pretty simple. By deflecting the Black Lives Matter movement with the statement that all lives matter you are ignoring the lives of those who have died at the hands of the police. If all lives mattered, why are only black people’s lives threatened everyday? Why are only innocent black people murdered by the police, with their killers let off and allowed to continue their lives?

The hypocrisy of suggesting that all lives matter is just gross. The Black Lives Matter movement was set up to fight against unlawful violence and the institutionalised racism against black people. It is a clear attempt to overshadow the real issue, you’re making it very apparent your blatant disrespect for those who have lost their lives because of their race.

Saying it only makes you sound ignorant

If you did your research you’d understand how idiotic you sound. There has never been a dispute that every life matters, but when it comes to a point of black people being murdered and no justice being done, clearly their lives don’t matter at the moment. That’s the point of the hashtag in the first place. If you truly believed that all lives mattered you would support the Black Lives Matter movement; as it is trying to tell ruling institutions that black lives are being treated inhumanely.

For example, if you had five children and one gets a paper cut. You wouldn’t give a plaster to all five children as only one of them had been affected by the paper cut. You would focus on the child who had been hurt just like you should focus on Black Lives Matter movement as they are the ones being actively oppressed.

Black people have been beaten and executed, for longer than we have been alive. Police brutality isn’t just happening more, it is simply being filmed. The burning house is a perfect example of debunking the term ‘all lives matter’. If there were two houses and one was on fire, you’d surely try to hose down the house that was on fire as that is the one being most affected, not the one that is perfectly fine. Trying to hose down both will only halt the progress of saving the house that is actually on fire.

And don’t you dare say: ‘But Blue Lives Matter too!’

Please, just stop. “Blue Lives Matter” is another trend helping to monopolise a movement started by and for black people. Black Lives Matter was a unique movement; empowering people all across the globe and now there is this. Blue Lives Matter. A countermovement who has inverted what the Black Lives Movement stands for.

Black Lives Matter speaks out against and has been actively protesting about police brutality for seven years and individuals have been doing the same for decades. To hijack a movement, insinuating it is the police who are being killed at such an alarming rate is both ludicrous and a mockery to those who have been and are being affected by police brutality.

According to the FBI, 48 officers died as a result of felonious acts in 2019 but 235 black people were shot to death by police; that number doesn’t even include the deaths of people killed in circumstances like George Floyd. The Blue Lives Matter movement is clearly a way to anger and mock supporters of the Black Live Matter movement.

Here’s how to deal with people saying ‘All Lives Matter’

Seth Rogen taught us all how to perfectly respond to those saying All Lives Matter: just tell them to fuck off.

We’re kidding, people need to learn and not just be told to fuck off (even if it feels right, right now) but also – it’s not your responsibility to educate these people if you’re sick, tired and emotionally exhausted from fighting this fight.

Unfortunately, not all celebrities are Seth Rogen, and they’re not all aware of how damaging using their platform to say all lives matter is. Recently, Gemma Collins was blasted for saying the statement in a video to social media and has since been deleted after receiving backlash.

If you are met with someone saying all lives matter it is your job to educate them that their ignorance is extremely harmful. Instead, tell them why the Black Lives Matter was set up and what they can do to support the movement. We just told you, so repeat what you’ve learned and try your best to teach someone else. Especially if you’re white. You haven’t had to fight this fight for nearly as long as black people have.

The term ‘Black Lives Matter’ is not to say that non-black lives don’t matter, but it is to show that black lives are continuously treated as having less value than others and that is why people are speaking out. If all lives mattered, why don’t the police, the institutions in this country and the US, and the justice system treat them like they do?

Featured image (before edits) by resul and Logan Weaver on Unsplash

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