Summary Of The Real Reason White People Say All Lives Matter

1849 Words8 Pages

Since Dr. King’s time, racial tensions have risen tremendously in the United States. Everyday there are new headlines about protests and all the violence that occurs with it. In Although we have come a long way since when racism was a major everyday situation, Americans have yet to learn their lessons. Today, there are protest groups such as those for the Black Lives Matters movement that have been using violence to express themselves. The destruction done by protesters include cities being ruined where people of both color and white skin have been dying due. The result of all the violence is jail and prison sentences that can last up to a life time. Living in the United States, the land of equal right opportunity and rights, you can assume …show more content…

There is currently our second civil rights movement going on called “Black Lives Matter”. In John Halstead’s online article, "The Real Reason White People Say 'All Lives Matter '", it is stated that through people saying Black Lives Matter, the response is people saying “All Lives Matter”, implying that because it is said that Black Lives Matter, all other lives do not matter. It is said that “no one was saying ‘All Lives Matter’ before people started saying ‘Black Lives Matter’ so All Lives Matter is a response to Black Lives Matter”. In this letter from a white male to a white community, he says “if you went to a Breast Cancer Awareness, you wouldn’t think of saying ‘Colon Cancer Matters’ or chanting All Cancer Patients lives matter “. So, clearly, All Lives Matter is definitely a response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Halstead discusses that people of non-color face “color-blindness” where they are “able to ignore race”. This is the opposite of those of color because as said in the letter, “they live in a culture that constantly reminds them of their black-ness, which tells them in a million large and small ways that they are not as important as white people, that their lives do not matter as much as white people”. This shows the importance of saying Black Lives Matter because it is not necessarily that not all lives matter but the fact there are some lives that are overlooked and discriminated, causing racial inequality. It can be seen that “no one is questioning whether white lives matter or whether police lives matter but the question of whether Black lives matter is an open question in this country”. This just further shows that there IS racial inequality in America where people of non-color recieve luxury treatments and people of color do