Black Lives Matter is not a term of confrontation or an exclusionary demand. As Columbia Law Professor Kimberle Crenshaw explains, saying black lives matter “is simply aspirational;” it's a rallying cry for a shift in statistical numbers that show that people who are black are
twice as likely to be killed by a police officer while unarmed, compared to a white individual. According to a 2015 study, African-Americans died at the hands of police at a rate of
7.2 per million, while whites were killed at a rate of 2.9 per million.
Instead of exploring the reasons why a movement like this would even be necessary, many have a knee jerk reaction. “What about me?” “All lives matter,” they cry. “Why be divisive and unfair, what about our safety?” The point these people miss is that the majority of experiences here in America already tend to center and highlight whiteness and cater to its safety. The country was built to function that way. Its roots of white supremacy and the marginalized concern for people of color has remained.
But let's get back to the issue of countering Black Lives Matter with the phrase “All Lives Matter.” I've come to describe this as a collective gaslighting from the white community.
Gaslighting is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power (or in this case, keep their own peace), makes a victim question their reality.
Why do those who counter black lives matter act as though black people aren't aware of the glaring disproportionate statistics of police brutality, of health care racism, and of mass incarceration? This is our reality. You deciding to ignore it for your own comfort doesn't make it any less true.
If a patient being rushed to the ER after an accident were to point to their mangled leg and say, “This is what matters right now,” and the doctor saw the scrapes and bruises of other areas and countered, “but all of you matters,” wouldn’t there be a question as to why he doesn't show urgency in aiding that what is most at risk? At a community fundraiser for a decaying local library, you would never see a mob of people from the next city over show up angry and offended yelling, “All libraries matter!”—especially when theirs is already well-funded.
Let me be clear: our stating that black lives matter doesn’t insinuate that other lives don’t. Of course all lives matter. That doesn’t even need to be said. But the fact that white people get so upset about the term black lives matter is proof that nothing can center the wellbeing and livelihoods of black bodies without white people assuming it is to their demise.