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> So, just as "All Lives Matter" is not a good response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement, It's tangential, but can you please explain this part? It seems t

> So, just as "All Lives Matter" is not a good response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement, It's tangential, but can you please explain this part? It seems to me that "All Lives Matter" really is the more apt phrase, because it shifts the focus from an us-versus-them conflict to actual justice. Edit: Got it. I'll stop being part of the problem. The only remaining question is this: What's the most effective way to be part of the solution?

SideburnsOfDoom 11y ago
Canonical answer: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3du1qm/eli5_why_is_it_so_controversial_when_someone_says/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3du1qm/e... http://fusion.net/story/170591/the-next-time-someone-says-all-lives-matter-show-them-these-5-paragraphs/ http://fusion.net/story/170591/the-next-time-someone-says-al...
jgord 11y ago
The cost of saying "All Lives Matter" in response to "Black Lives Matter" is that you are seen to be ignoring the main issue. Its not that its wrong, its that its perhaps insensitive - a certain amount of empathy and solidarity could be a start in acknowledging the problem. So while "All Lives Matter" is truer, its less useful at the current moment in time when Black people are experiencing real pain, and we have a huge problem that needs to be addressed urgently.
wfo 11y ago
Of course everyone believes that all lives matter. But the context is important. If someone says "black lives matter" and your response is "ALL lives matter", you're not just saying you think all lives matter, you're saying you don't think it's a racial issue. And willfully ignoring the problem of racism is what has allowed racism to flourish in, say, police departments. So when you say "all lives matter" you're essentially saying "This problem that effects specifically black people doesn't matter. Let's focus on the more general and still important but less urgent problem that effects white people too, and maybe the problems facing black people will go away". It's like if someone comes to you with statistics about how horribly out of proportion police brutality is towards African Americans and your response is an anecdote about this one time the cops beat up a white guy. Or if someone brings up how serious sexual assault and harassment is for women and all you talk about is how men can be sexually harassed too. If you willfully refuse to recognize the problem, you're part of it.
- puredemo 11y ago
  >you're saying you don't think it's a racial issue. Correct, it isn't a racial issue. Take the two most well-known cases for instance, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. Trayvon Martin assaulted Zimmerman unilaterally (Zimmerman never threw a punch,) had him in a ground-and-pound position and was bashing the back of Zimmerman's head onto the sidewalk while Zimmerman repeatedly screamed for help. If any white seventeen-year-old had done the same thing there would be zero outcry about recognizing the need for self-defense on the part of the neighborhood watchman. If a white kid in a hoodie was walking behind houses in the rain and looking into windows, nobody would label it "profiling" when a neighborhood watch leader called the police, since that's obviously questionable behavior. Michael Brown had just committed robbery at a convenience store, then he assaulted a cop who asked him to walk on the sidewalk, then tried to wrestle away the cop's gun. Forensics shows Michael Brown didn't have his "hands up" when he was shot, meaning the witnesses all lied about the situation. Again, if a white teenager had committed strongarmed robbery and proceeded to try to grab a cops gun there would be literally zero sympathy or outcry when he was shot in self-defense by the cop. People would basically just call the dead teenager "trailer-trash," or something equally derogatory and move on. The only factor race plays in any of this is that we would never have even discussed or heard of these absurd cases had the so-called "victims" not been black. If race enters into the narrative at all it's in the form of black privilege / supremacy, in that black communities seem to believe these incredibly violent assaults are fine and don't merit self-defense for some reason, solely due to skin color. More accurately, it's all hyped up and manufactured by the media to stoke division because nothing sells ad space like impassioned controversy.
  - CuriousSkeptic 11y ago
    Regarding witnesses and lying. Check out this Ted talk https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_fraser_the_problem_with_eyewitness_testimony https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_fraser_the_problem_with_eyew...
analog31 11y ago
In the US, "Black Lives Matter" was a phrase adopted by a protest movement to draw attention quite specifically to the way black people are treated. Rather than addressing this injustice, the right wing responded by attacking the name of the movement. It was seen as diversionary and insincere, since the suggestion of the phrase "All Lives Matter" was not accompanied by any sincere effort to amend the situation.
moron4hire 11y ago
It goes a little further than what the other people are saying. It's not just that the reply "All Lives Matter" is ignoring the issue of police violence against African Americans. It's being used as a defense of the police officers who did the killings, an apologistic post-hoc rationalization that the cop was defending himself. When a person uses "All Lives Matter", what they really mean is "cop's lives matter more". The easiest thing you can do is donate to the ACLU. You could probably also find part-time volunteer work at any of the many institutions trying to end or mitigate poverty.
- jazzyk 11y ago
  >When a person uses "All Lives Matter", what they really >mean is "cop's lives matter more" No, I understand it to be "police can sometimes use force unjustifiably towards anyone, of any race." If a cop murders someone, s/he should be held responsible (sadly, they are not). The reason that more black people get murdered by police is that they (blacks) get in trouble more often (which is NOT a justification to kill them) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...
  - moron4hire 11y ago
    yes, of course
  - eropple 11y ago
    > No, I understand it to be "police can sometimes use force unjustifiably towards anyone, of any race." This would be true if this is what the people saying it demonstrated beliefs that were congruent with their actions. However, the overwhelming majority (to the point where the counterparty is anecdotal and, frankly, possibly mythical) use it to establish a fundamentally conservative defense of the status quo. I mean--"All Lives Matter" sounds good. Except it is used as a direct and intentional response to the institutional prejudice and societal control via police that is applied to black people, and when you look at deeds instead of words, that's super fucked-up. "All Lives Matter" requires intentionally misunderstanding "Black Lives Matter." What it means, and what they no-sell as hard as they possibly, possibly can, is that it's really "Black Lives Matter, Too". Because right now, to society at large, black lives don't matter. Deeds, not words, and the deeds are uniformly bad.
Estragon 11y ago
"All lives matter," as a response to "Black lives matter," carries roughly the same implications as "Everybody hurts!" would, as a response to "I'm hurting real bad right now!"

SideburnsOfDoom 11y ago

Canonical answer: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3du1qm/eli5_why_is_it_so_controversial_when_someone_says/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3du1qm/e... http://fusion.net/story/170591/the-next-time-someone-says-all-lives-matter-show-them-these-5-paragraphs/ http://fusion.net/story/170591/the-next-time-someone-says-al...

jgord 11y ago

The cost of saying "All Lives Matter" in response to "Black Lives Matter" is that you are seen to be ignoring the main issue. Its not that its wrong, its that its perhaps insensitive - a certain amount of empathy and solidarity could be a start in acknowledging the problem. So while "All Lives Matter" is truer, its less useful at the current moment in time when Black people are experiencing real pain, and we have a huge problem that needs to be addressed urgently.

wfo 11y ago

Of course everyone believes that all lives matter. But the context is important. If someone says "black lives matter" and your response is "ALL lives matter", you're not just saying you think all lives matter, you're saying you don't think it's a racial issue. And willfully ignoring the problem of racism is what has allowed racism to flourish in, say, police departments. So when you say "all lives matter" you're essentially saying "This problem that effects specifically black people doesn't matter. Let's focus on the more general and still important but less urgent problem that effects white people too, and maybe the problems facing black people will go away". It's like if someone comes to you with statistics about how horribly out of proportion police brutality is towards African Americans and your response is an anecdote about this one time the cops beat up a white guy. Or if someone brings up how serious sexual assault and harassment is for women and all you talk about is how men can be sexually harassed too. If you willfully refuse to recognize the problem, you're part of it.

puredemo 11y ago
>you're saying you don't think it's a racial issue. Correct, it isn't a racial issue. Take the two most well-known cases for instance, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. Trayvon Martin assaulted Zimmerman unilaterally (Zimmerman never threw a punch,) had him in a ground-and-pound position and was bashing the back of Zimmerman's head onto the sidewalk while Zimmerman repeatedly screamed for help. If any white seventeen-year-old had done the same thing there would be zero outcry about recognizing the need for self-defense on the part of the neighborhood watchman. If a white kid in a hoodie was walking behind houses in the rain and looking into windows, nobody would label it "profiling" when a neighborhood watch leader called the police, since that's obviously questionable behavior. Michael Brown had just committed robbery at a convenience store, then he assaulted a cop who asked him to walk on the sidewalk, then tried to wrestle away the cop's gun. Forensics shows Michael Brown didn't have his "hands up" when he was shot, meaning the witnesses all lied about the situation. Again, if a white teenager had committed strongarmed robbery and proceeded to try to grab a cops gun there would be literally zero sympathy or outcry when he was shot in self-defense by the cop. People would basically just call the dead teenager "trailer-trash," or something equally derogatory and move on. The only factor race plays in any of this is that we would never have even discussed or heard of these absurd cases had the so-called "victims" not been black. If race enters into the narrative at all it's in the form of black privilege / supremacy, in that black communities seem to believe these incredibly violent assaults are fine and don't merit self-defense for some reason, solely due to skin color. More accurately, it's all hyped up and manufactured by the media to stoke division because nothing sells ad space like impassioned controversy.
- CuriousSkeptic 11y ago
  Regarding witnesses and lying. Check out this Ted talk https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_fraser_the_problem_with_eyewitness_testimony https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_fraser_the_problem_with_eyew...

analog31 11y ago

In the US, "Black Lives Matter" was a phrase adopted by a protest movement to draw attention quite specifically to the way black people are treated. Rather than addressing this injustice, the right wing responded by attacking the name of the movement. It was seen as diversionary and insincere, since the suggestion of the phrase "All Lives Matter" was not accompanied by any sincere effort to amend the situation.

moron4hire 11y ago

It goes a little further than what the other people are saying. It's not just that the reply "All Lives Matter" is ignoring the issue of police violence against African Americans. It's being used as a defense of the police officers who did the killings, an apologistic post-hoc rationalization that the cop was defending himself. When a person uses "All Lives Matter", what they really mean is "cop's lives matter more". The easiest thing you can do is donate to the ACLU. You could probably also find part-time volunteer work at any of the many institutions trying to end or mitigate poverty.

jazzyk 11y ago
>When a person uses "All Lives Matter", what they really >mean is "cop's lives matter more" No, I understand it to be "police can sometimes use force unjustifiably towards anyone, of any race." If a cop murders someone, s/he should be held responsible (sadly, they are not). The reason that more black people get murdered by police is that they (blacks) get in trouble more often (which is NOT a justification to kill them) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...
- moron4hire 11y ago
  yes, of course
- eropple 11y ago
  > No, I understand it to be "police can sometimes use force unjustifiably towards anyone, of any race." This would be true if this is what the people saying it demonstrated beliefs that were congruent with their actions. However, the overwhelming majority (to the point where the counterparty is anecdotal and, frankly, possibly mythical) use it to establish a fundamentally conservative defense of the status quo. I mean--"All Lives Matter" sounds good. Except it is used as a direct and intentional response to the institutional prejudice and societal control via police that is applied to black people, and when you look at deeds instead of words, that's super fucked-up. "All Lives Matter" requires intentionally misunderstanding "Black Lives Matter." What it means, and what they no-sell as hard as they possibly, possibly can, is that it's really "Black Lives Matter, Too". Because right now, to society at large, black lives don't matter. Deeds, not words, and the deeds are uniformly bad.

Estragon 11y ago

"All lives matter," as a response to "Black lives matter," carries roughly the same implications as "Everybody hurts!" would, as a response to "I'm hurting real bad right now!"