#__________livesmatter – Reflections on a Catchphrase

This coming Wednesday, July 13, will mark the third anniversary of the founding of the international activist movement known as Black Lives Matter.  Most of us probably became familiar with this movement just shy of two years ago, when the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri gave rise to civil unrest that spread to other locations where other black men were killed.  

Rather quickly, the movement became identified by its twitter hashtag, #blacklivesmatter, which became the slogan of the groups protesting violence against the black community.  Importantly, though, #blacklivesmatter is not merely protesting police involved shootings of black men and women.  They are protesting an entire system that is unjustly biased against the black community.  They are agitating for change.

Over the course of the last two years, I have seen many “counter” protests to #blacklivesmatter as a movement and, in particular, as a slogan.  The most popular of these is to transform the slogan into the more benign and inclusive #alllivesmatter.  Well-meaning people have repeatedly asked me why it is necessary to emphasize that it is black lives that matter, as opposed to all lives.  Other well-meaning people have suggested that the intent of #blacklivesmatter is to communicate that black lives matter more than other lives – say, those of police and other law enforcement officers.

From reflection on the issue and from conversations with friends, I have come to believe two things to be true.

1. #alllivesmatter is a copout, a way of ignoring the pressing issue of systemic and institutionalized injustice.

2. We need slogans like #blacklivesmatter.

Let me explain.

#Blacklivesmatter, as a slogan, is not a statement about the superiority of one life over another.  Every person I have ever known who is involved with the Black Lives Matter movement would easily and completely affirm that no one life matters more than another.  With their slogan, they are not attempting to stir up violence against law enforcement, against white people, or against any other race.  Rather, their slogan is intended to force us who live in the white majority to ask ourselves some difficult questions.

When we say or write #alllivesmatter in response to the killing of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile or in response to the unthinkable murders of five law enforcement officers in Dallas this week, we are affirming a core truth.  All lives do matter.  Black lives, white lives, male lives, female lives, gay lives, straight lives, law enforcement lives, even criminal lives – they all matter.  It is unquestionably a good thing to affirm that we believe that all lives matter.

When we make that affirmation, though, #blacklivesmatter is there with a question: “Do they really?”  What I see and hear when I read #blacklivesmatter is a challenging question – are black lives really included when I say that I believe that all lives matter?  That’s a question we all need to hear, because too often we resort to #alllivesmatter as a way of distracting and distancing ourselves from the very real problem of systemic injustice in America.

Of course, most of us in the white majority are quick to respond to the question presented by #blacklivesmatter with an indignant insistence that OF COURSE black lives really matter.  We feel insulted and perhaps even personally attacked by the insinuation that we are racist or prejudiced, that we value one life over another.

To which #blacklivesmatter replies with another question – do our actions match our words?  Do the things we do affirm that black lives are included when we say that all lives matter, or is it just words that we say to make ourselves feel good?  And to be clear, it’s not really about what I do in my day to day life, though that matters.  It’s about what I do to combat and change systemic injustice.  Do I exercise my vote in line with my insistence that all lives matter?  Do I spend my money in line with my insistence that all lives matter?  Do I insist that my legislators and my government stop offering only “thoughts and prayers” and instead begin to work to change the broken and unjust systems?!

These are uncomfortable questions for anyone who, like me, is a part of the white majority in our country; for anyone who, like me, benefits in ways that I do not choose, but have not opposed, from the very real thing called white privilege; for anyone, who like me, who struggles to find a way to respond both to the injustice of the Philando Castile and Alton Sterling deaths and to the senseless murders in Dallas.  This discomfort that #blacklivesmatter makes us feel is, I suspect, why so many of us respond viscerally against the slogan.  It is also why we desperately need to see it and hear it and read it again and again.  Without that discomfort, nothing will change.

Of course, there are other slogans we need, other hashtags that ask pressing and uncomfortable question of us.  We need them too.

If we are angrier (or feel a deeper sadness) today at the deaths of five police officers than we were yesterday at the deaths of two black men in police custody, we need to hear the message that #blacklivesmatter.

If, on the other hand, we are angrier about the two black men who were killed in police custody than about the five officers who were murdered in Dallas, perhaps we need to hear the message that #policelivesmatter.

If we, collectively, care more deeply about the 7 lives in the news the last two or three days than the 200+ lives that were lost in Iraq this week, perhaps we need to hear the message that #iraqilivesmatter.

If our fear of attack and wariness of the other drive us to demonize women and children who are seeking safety in our midst, perhaps the message we need to hear is that #refugeelivesmatter.

If our opposition – however justified it may be - to a way of life means that we feel differently about the Orlando night club massacre than about other attacks, perhaps we should heed the questions raised by #gayandlesbianlivesmatter.

It is true that all lives matter, and we should never stop affirming our belief in that truth that is fundamental to our human identity and to our American identity.  It is also true that, once we strip away the rhetoric, we have systems in place that do not affirm that truth; we have systems in place that say that some lives matter more than others.  And until we – all of us – get angry enough at the injustice that we demand (with actions more than words) that it stop, we will continue to hear from our black brothers and sisters the questions posed by #blacklivesmatter.