This is for you, politically correct white people who don't understand how racist you are.
"Black lives matter" is "BLACK lives matter" because in a culture that dismisses and ignores every government-supported murder of a Black person, it is clear that, culturally, they do not. Culturally, we ignore and avoid this topic. "Black lives matter" is to throw it back into the spotlight.
"Black lives matter" is a tag/slogan/rallying cry SPECIFICALLY to protest the OBVIOUS PATTERN of Black lives being lost at white hands (especially those of 'law enforcement') for no damn reason whatsoever. Our white-centric culture has bought into the sad delusion that dark skin somehow creates an optical illusion: it replaces peace with violence, surrender with attack, and everything from cell phones to skittles with pistols. Racism isn't just seeing the cell phone and thinking, "I'm gonna shoot this Black guy and tell everyone I saw a gun." It is legitimately seeing a gun where there is not one because you are THAT BRAINWASHED into believing that dark skin means danger. Racism is not just conscious bigotry; it is also the act of unconsciously condoning or even tolerating it.
White people—cops—hide behind our culturally ingrained racism without ever pausing to consider how brainwashed they really are. Figuratively AND literally, they shoot first and ask questions NEVER because in their minds (twisted and conditioned by our everyday culture and social norms), a person's skin color makes them dangerous, and that assumption JUSTIFIES MURDER. People DIE, every DAY, for committing the crime of EXISTING, simply because our culture is blinded by its assumptions.
Blindness is not justice. To claim that this does not affect you—that you "don't see race," that you are "color blind"—might have sounded progressive ten years ago, but it actually erases Black identities. It dismisses and ignores the fact that Black experience is different than yours, and that in most cases, that makes life while Black more dangerous. Again, racism is not just conscious bigotry; it is also the act of unconsciously condoning or even tolerating it.
To derail the "Black lives matter" phrase is to derail the visibility of the slow-but-steady massacre Black people face at the hands of white law enforcement. To chant "all lives matter" at someone working to raise awareness of this particular problem is like chanting "all diseases matter" at a breast cancer survivors' meet; obviously everyone matters, but we're intentionally focusing on this particular situation right now. Equity cannot be achieved by simply erasing the groups that are not being treated fairly to refocus on the 'bigger picture'; that's a bit closer to genocide than justice.
"Black lives matter" is not short for "ONLY Black lives matter." It is short for "Black lives matter no matter how many times you try to erase them." To respond with "all lives matter" is, in fact, ERASURE. Every time you do that, you prove the point.
Good job, "I'm-not-racist-but" people. You aren't just part of the problem; your attitude IS the problem.
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