Is the saying ‘All Lives Matter’ racist or insensitive? Many these days will tell you it is, but I strongly disagree and I want to briefly tell you why.
The Problem With Black Lives Matter
There is a reason “All Lives Matter” is the appropriate response to Black Lives Matter. It has nothing to do with condescension. Neither is it about putting black people in their place. Nor is it about dismissing the legitimate pain and fear and anger of black people.
Replying to Black Lives Matter by saying that “All Lives Matter” has everything to do with countering a dangerous movement. This movement has shown itself remarkably willing to embark on a moral crusade based on unsubstantiated claims about racial violence and law enforcement in America.
Additionally, many members of the Black Lives Matter movement have been alarmingly willing to turn these moral crusades launched by Black Lives Matter into calls for violence and actual violent action against law enforcement and white Americans.
Therefore, it is not enough that the movement is built on lies. When ardent devotees to the movement are hurting and killing cops and white Americans as a result of their total embrace of those lies, the movement becomes something less like mere leftist propaganda. And it becomes something more like an active and dangerous terrorist organization.
But that is not all, folks.
Some Lives Matter
Consider the hypocrisy. Black Lives Matter is a guilt-trip racist accusation against all whites for the wrongful deaths of some young black men in America. Yet the stubborn fact remains the vast majority of blacks murdered in America are slain by other blacks.
Moreover, many black Americans stubbornly refuse to accept any responsibility for changing their own violent, lawless culture. And it is this culture which makes these murders as well as run-ins with law enforcement far more likely.
This is a classic case of plank and speck.
Black Lives Matter wants to project the slaughter of young black men onto the culture of white America. This they do even though the culture of black America is killing over 90% of those same young black men Black Lives Matter claims to care so much about.
Yet it does not stop even there. It gets still worse!
Consider the consequences of feeding young black men this narrative. Innocent blacks are being systematically targeted by law enforcement for extermination and persecution all over America.
If true, this is a very serious charge indeed. We should all be outraged at our legal system for perpetrating genocide.
If untrue, however, this narrative pushed by Black Lives Matter recklessly increases the odds that a young black man having a run-in with the police is going to be angrier, more defensive, and more likely to violently clash with the cops with fatal results.
In effect, the false narrative pushed by Black Lives Matter then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It guarantees more young black men will have violent run-ins with law enforcement who they perceive as unfair, unjust, brutal, and murderous.
Racist and Insensitive
I firmly and wholeheartedly believe that All Lives Matter.
‘All’ includes, but is not limited to: black lives, white lives, and police lives. It also includes all the lives on the sidelines. These are the people who just want to mind their own business and live their life.
Yet I have heard many a celebrity and friend outraged at the saying ‘All Lives Matter.’
‘All Lives Matter’ is allegedly dismissive and condescending and insensitive, if not racist to boot.
One friend of mine offered a hypothetical to illustrate why All Lives Matter is the wrong way to respond. He asked me to imagine my mother had died of cancer.
So let us suppose my mother had just died of cancer and I started a movement with the slogan that #CancerPatientsLivesMatter. Would I not be offended if someone responded by saying that All Lives Matter? Would I not feel like the people responding that way were callously backhanding the memory of my mother? If so, how is it any different when we respond to Black Lives Matter by saying that All Lives Matter?
In answer to this, I would say that All Lives Matter is the most loving response to Black Lives Matter. And comparing that movement to one I might found if my mother died of cancer is not a good fit.
Suppose cancer killed my mother and I was raising awareness. Or suppose I were pursuing a cure for cancer. Or suppose I was encouraging people to get screened for cancer early, when something can be done to treat them. There would be no downside. Nobody could possibly be hurt by such a movement. There would be no collateral damage. There would only be potential benefits if my new movement succeeded in raising awareness, support, and due diligence.
White People As Cancer
In the case of Black Lives Matter, however, the collateral damage is human lives destroyed. Relationships are strained. Animosity and strife are exacerbated. And distrust and resentment are encouraged.
Black Lives Matter argues that cops and white people are the cancer that afflicted and killed your mother, father, sister, or brother. And this cancer will likely kill you too if you do not fight it now.
This is why five cops are dead in Houston. And two more were executed in New York City.
And how many white men, women, and children have been attacked in public by blacks angry about “white privilege” and the racism supposedly inherent to our legal and socioeconomic system?
How many have been assaulted and killed because of the racial animosity being promoted by this unhinged Afrocentric movement?
So long as the number is more than one, it is unfair to compare Black Lives Matter to your loved one dying of cancer. It is unfair unless you are prepared for innocent people to be treated like a disease, and fought accordingly.
All Lives Matter
All Lives Matter is a saying meant to remind everyone to respect and value everyone else.
It reminds any cops and white people who may have forgotten to treat black people with fairness and respect that they are dealing with their fellow man. Accordingly, they will someday give an account to Almighty God for their actions and attitudes.
But just as importantly, All Lives Matter reminds angry black people that there are innocent cops. There are innocent white people. And many of the participants and supporters of their movement are attacking and murdering those innocent people in pursuit of vengeance.
They want vengeance for slavery. They want vengeance for Jim Crow laws. And most disturbingly, they want vengeance for young black men shot and jailed under questionable circumstances. Yes, all of these lives mattered. Yet you cannot blame everyone for everything. That is not justice.
The accused – whether guilty or innocent – also have inherent value and dignity and worth in the eyes of Almighty God, in whose image we are created.
When we truly believe that All Lives Matter, we assign equal weight to the innocent life regardless the shade of skin. We also speak up for the value of the life of cops, whose duty is to serve and protect innocent lives.
The fact that cops and white people are being hurt and killed by black people influenced by the narrative of Black Lives Matter proves All Lives Matter is something angry black people need to be reminded of just as much as anyone else.
