It shouldn’t be rocket science why invoking “All Lives
Matter” is, at best, insensitive and, at worst, an active attempt to derail
activism and deny reality. Nobody is disagreeing that all people’s lives do, in
fact, matter and ought to matter equally.
The point is
that right now they are not treated as though they matter equally. Some
people’s lives are treated as precious, others as disposable garbage. If you really
do believe all lives matter, then your focus should be on black lives, which
are demonstrably the most neglected lives in our country and,
for that matter, the world. Treating a focus on black lives as a
“special interest” or parochial concern requires willful ignorance about what
kind of world we actually live in.
