How Problematic is "All Lives Matter?"

[Saint of M]

I am going to say very problematic. THe only time I see or hear something involving the phrase All Lives Matter is usually in response to anything related to Black Lives Matter.

Part of this problem is the BLM movement has never said only black lives matter, just that for a long time they havn't been given the same decency or respect that is expected of them for being both human beings and AMerican Citizens. Tere have also been plenty of times when they have been abused, experimented on, forced to take up less opportunistic living areas and careers and so on, and suffered more abuse from the systems supposedly there to protect them.

While one can argue this was the case with many a peoples in this country, people of color seem to have it worse off. This may not be true everywhere in the country, with different areas from Liberal California to Conservative Alabama having each having areas where this is not much of a problems and others where this is a day that ends in Y.

Having been someone that used this phrase, I know there are people that honestly believe in it, and good for them.

Having repented of it I can see how bad faith it can be. Partially because its only used in this situation, not say the Latinos caged up on the boarder, or the crap the Native Americans had to put up with. I am also sure a number of these people spouting this might have also blamed Asians for the Covid virus at some point.

The other problem is not all lives matter to all people, at least not equally. For a Christian like me, thats suppose to be but lets face it most of us have done the following.

1. Felt Vindicated when you feel Karma bit them hard.
2. Mocked someone that got too close to a dangerous wild animal and the animal acted accordingly in a national park such as with the buffalo in Yellowstone.
3. When someone, particularly a guy, miscalculates their landing with a skateboard and lands crotch first on a railing do you laugh mercilessly at their pain?
4. Or if all lives matter, did that ever include Epstein, the Unabomber, the men that left an irreparable scar on the legacy of the By Scouts of America due to their pedaphilia?

Yeah, I am casting no stones either if this was the case.

This mostly comes from the fact I see this regularly on Facebook and I am getting tired of it.
What are your thoughts on this, and how bad is it really.

 

[Buyetyen]

It's just another empty slogan from lazy, complicit people who don't want to address the fact that America has never been as free as we like to imagine. The whole point is to stymie conversation by making it impossible to concentrate on one topic or issue. Anyone who at this point still believes that BLM is saying that "only" black lives matter, is doing so deliberately because they want to be aggrieved and pretend they're the victim instead of, you know, the people murdered by cops.

 

[Houseman]

I think any slogan or movement focusing on one specific race, gender, religion, etc is "problematic" in that it is divisive, because it necessarily excludes everyone else.

It's discrimination. You shouldn't fight discrimination with discrimination.

Edit: Whoops, misread the topic title. I thought this was about BLM

 

[Agema]

I think any slogan or movement focusing on one specific race, gender, religion, etc is "problematic" in that it is divisive, because it necessarily excludes everyone else.

It's discrimination. You shouldn't fight discrimination with discrimination.

I think a slogan or movement designed to combat the discrimination that a specific race, gender, religion etc. suffers without explicitly pointing that out may as well not bother.

What next? Anti-poverty campaigns that are inclusive for billionaires? Veterans charities that collect money for people who dodged the draft due to bone spurs?

 

[JoJo]

This mostly comes from the fact I see this regularly on Facebook and I am getting tired of it.
What are your thoughts on this, and how bad is it really.

Hey, I've moved this thread to Off-Topic as per the updated subforum ruleset, threads in Current Events must included a linked news article. Hit me up if you'd rather edit the OP so it can be moved back.

 

[Saint of M]

Hey, I've moved this thread to Off-Topic as per the updated subforum ruleset, threads in Current Events must included a linked news article. Hit me up if you'd rather edit the OP so it can be moved back.

If you feel it belongs here, it belongs here. I thought with the BLM movement, this would work in current events as that's what the phrase was meant for, but I humbler defer to the mods' judgments.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

New campaign: No Lives Matter.

For those who are apathetic and just want to stare into the void.

It's just like All Lives Matter, but honest.

 

[Worgen]

The problem with 'all lives matter' is that you are right, all lives should matter. But, for the longest time, black lives, didn't matter, hence the BLM. To try and bring black lives back up to the level of mattering as white lives.

 

[Palindromemordnilap]

Its just an utterly bland statement that means nothing and is designed solely to defend the status quo. It should be used to fight inequality and injustice yet is more often employed to shout down those who are actually trying to do just that

 

[CM156]

New campaign: No Lives Matter.

For those who are apathetic and just want to stare into the void.

It's just like All Lives Matter, but honest.

I prefer "All Lives Matter, but not equally, because I value the life of my dear grandmother more than the life of people like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. And, quite frankly, it's natural and fine to value the lives and welfare of the righteous over those who commit heinous crimes against innocent people. That doesn't mean our systems of justice should totally ignore the welfare of those who are incarcerated for horrible criminal acts, however. After all, we want rehabilitation for those who can be changed. Essentially, I don't think it's possible for anyone to value all lives equally, and that we shouldn't pretend that we don't value the good over the evil. And that's my major problem with utilitarian thought."

But it doesn't really fit on a t-shirt.

 

[Houseman]

Having repented of it I can see how bad faith it can be. Partially because its only used in this situation, not say the Latinos caged up on the boarder, or the crap the Native Americans had to put up with.

Does "Black Lives Matter" cover Latinos? Native Americans? South Indians?

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Nearly every person using it so far has shown no interest in the sanctity of human life in the realms of social injustice, it's these people who are the problem, running a seemingly (only surface level) innocent phrase into the ground just so they can weakly justify their own lack of shits towards people they refuse to see as equals for whatever conditioned reasons. Its beyond transparent yet still fools enough uncritical outdated idiots to perpetuate it around boomer social media. I was gonna throw a couple of metaphors in here for examples but honestly cannot be arsed now. They'd be useless at this point.

 

[Hades]

I think any slogan or movement focusing on one specific race, gender, religion, etc is "problematic" in that it is divisive, because it necessarily excludes everyone else.

It's discrimination. You shouldn't fight discrimination with discrimination.

I wouldn't say its meant to exclude. Black Lives matter is more about forcing people to include black lives into a privileged group that all other groups already belong to, namely a group that doesn't just randomly get murdered by cops because of their skin color.

Most people insisting that all lives matter know that all other lives have already been decided to matter and that only black lives are excluded from that list. As such its not an unreasonable reminder that black lives indeed matter.

I fully agree that all lives matter but that's also exactly the problem, that large groups of people just don't think black lives are included when they say ''all lives matter''. If people say all lives matter then they should practice was they preach and accept that black lives matter too.

 

[meiam]

It's a pretty shitty thing to do by people who started it, but people who started BLM left the door wide open for that one and shoot themselves in the foot by calling their movement black live matter. I think there would be much more progress on that issue if they called the movement "Equal justice for all" or something like that (which is prefectly fair to say, more people killed by cop are white than black, simply because majority of the population is white). Ultimatly a slogan like BLM will mostly affect people who have an interest in the welfare of the black community, the problem is that this number of people is pretty small. Plenty of people have nothing against the black community, but they don't particularly care either. These are the people that need to be convince to become active for any real change to happen and I just don't see that happening under the BLM slogan.

 

[Worgen]

It's a pretty shitty thing to do by people who started it, but people who started BLM left the door wide open for that one and shoot themselves in the foot by calling their movement black live matter.

Thats the problem that the left has in general. We can come up with catchy names for what we want, but they generally require explanation or are easily memed on. BLM is one of the better ones, 'defund the police' was a really bad one since that needed a lot of explanation.

 

[Thaluikhain]

It's a pretty shitty thing to do by people who started it, but people who started BLM left the door wide open for that one and shoot themselves in the foot by calling their movement black live matter. I think there would be much more progress on that issue if they called the movement "Equal justice for all" or something like that (which is prefectly fair to say, more people killed by cop are white than black, simply because majority of the population is white). Ultimatly a slogan like BLM will mostly affect people who have an interest in the welfare of the black community, the problem is that this number of people is pretty small. Plenty of people have nothing against the black community, but they don't particularly care either. These are the people that need to be convince to become active for any real change to happen and I just don't see that happening under the BLM slogan.

Disagree there. For one, your opponents are going to try to dismiss or discredit you whatever you do, if the name was different they'd do it some other way.

Secondly, if you say something like "Equal justice for all", you've not actually said who you want equal justice for, as "all", in practice, is a meaningless word that allows you to include or exclude whoever you want. Which is the point of "All lives matter", of course. Compare the opening of the US Declaration of Independence. "All men are created equal". Black men were not included under the heading of "all".

 

[Houseman]

Compare the opening of the US Declaration of Independence. "All men are created equal". Black men were not included under the heading of "all".

I was curious about this, so I looked it up. Wikipedia says " In writing the declaration, Jefferson believed the phrase "all men are created equal" to be self-evident, and would ultimately resolve slavery.", according to the book it cites.

So it seems that Jefferson really did mean "all".

But anyway, this argument that "Unless the slogan singles out a specific ethnicity, it wouldn't be effective!" seems like faulty (inductive) reasoning. How do you know that? Have they tried other slogans? Did other movements fail solely because of the name? "It's working, therefore, this was the only possible way it could have worked" is not solid logic.

 

[meiam]

Disagree there. For one, your opponents are going to try to dismiss or discredit you whatever you do, if the name was different they'd do it some other way.

Secondly, if you say something like "Equal justice for all", you've not actually said who you want equal justice for, as "all", in practice, is a meaningless word that allows you to include or exclude whoever you want. Which is the point of "All lives matter", of course. Compare the opening of the US Declaration of Independence. "All men are created equal". Black men were not included under the heading of "all".

It's not about stopping opponent from discrediting you, it's about getting people on the sideline to actually care. Simply put, the majority of people hear "black lives matters" and simply think "well I'm white/latino/asian, so this doesn't concern me" and just ignore it. This means the movement will always stays small and will not achieve any the critical mass of people needed for large changes to happen. But shitty police behaviour transcend race, and this could have easily be an inclusive movement (especially if it would be broaden to include things like civil forfeitude, de facto spate sponsored thievery).

 

[Asita]

Does "Black Lives Matter" cover Latinos? Native Americans? South Indians?

Is it your contention then that in the fight for Women's Suffrage that the slogan "Votes for Women" was unduly discriminatory? There's an implicit "too" in both slogans.

 

[Houseman]

Is it your contention then that in the fight for Women's Suffrage that the slogan "Votes for Women" was unduly discriminatory? There's an implicit "too" in both slogans.

The difference here is that a protected class wants something. "We women want the right to vote!" That's okay. So yes, "Votes for Women" would be okay.
If there were a slogan like "We black people want to be treated equally!" That would be okay too.

"[protected class] wants [thing]" is okay. It's okay to want things.
"[protected class] lives matter" is not okay, because it excludes everyone else with the implication that other lives don't matter, which is probably why you didn't answer my question, because if you did, and if you were being honest, you would have said "no", which proves my point.

If you make your fight about the value of life for a specific group of people, then everyone who you don't stand up for must not matter, or must not matter as much, which is just as worse.