What I’m learning...from my own mistakes, from asking the wrong questions and having the wrong responses...BUT having patient people around me letting me process, grow, and learn.
Stop using All Lives Matter as a response to Black Lives Matter.
If my house is on fire and no one comes to help and I stand in the street crying “My house matters!” and you come to console me or
God forbid correct me by saying “Hey Fred, all houses matter.” you are forgetting the fact that your house isn’t on fire. What you are saying IS true, the problem is that it’s not helpful and is uncaring.
Black Lives Matter ALREADY inherently contains and relies on the sentiment that All Lives Matter. If all lives don’t matter then it is possible that black lives don’t matter.
Black Lives Matter is saying that certain lives are suffering disproportionately more than others and everyone should want to see that change.
Black Lives Matter is not a threat, it is an invitation to those of us whose race and ethnicity has not suffered to the same degree.
If you believe that All Lives Matter then show that by standing up for those whose lives have not mattered as much as yours.
Let’s look at this way. A person in a wheel chair is at the pool and their child is drowning...and no one is helping and they begin to cry out, “My child matters!” Are going to say to them “All children matter!” Or are you going to get up off your donkey and get in the water?
Lessons I’m learning as a white man.