Why “All Lives Matter” Isn’t Good Enough… Not Yet

Okay let’s take a deep breath. In. Out. Good. You might be thinking, ugh, more of this. Another person with an opinion. And I understand that you might be getting tired of this debate, but this shouldn’t be a debate. Police brutality and racism in America right now are wrong.

This is a heated topic right now, as it should be, but I want to approach it with grace and truth. I’ve realized that I haven’t cared enough about the injustice happening in my own country. America is burning over what should be an obvious injustice and I don’t want to be silent and passively watch as America struggles with what should be a clear cut issue. So, I need to be clear. Black Lives Matter! All Lives Matter is a good concept, and is ideal. We should believe that all peoples lives matter no matter their ethnic or racial background. However, All Lives Matter can’t be true until Black Lives Matter. African Americans risk their lives fighting for their lives to get people to care.

Unfortunately, it has taken the death of George Floyd for people to start caring. We should’ve cared about the injustice of racism and police brutality from day one, and I hate that it has taken myself so long to care. But, I’m tired of seeing people hurting for something as trivial as the color of their skin. I want to use my words to promote change. I want a world where we love and respect people for their humanity, not simply because of the color of their skin. But we can’t get there until we pull back the veil and see that we see people for their skin. We see people and value them, or hate them, for their skin. We are so much more besides our skin color. But I’ve realized that we can’t overlook the color of our skin. So, we can’t love each other for our shared humanity until we acknowledge and appreciate each other for the color of our skin. If we can’t do this, then we have no hope for loving each other for anything deeper, namely our humanity.

There is one big step that I think we can make in our hearts and minds and with our wallets. We need to value humans more than money. Many people turn their attention away from racism and police brutality because their lives aren’t directly affected. This is frustrating and sad, but I understand why. Things have a tendency to not matter to us until they hit home or our pockets. I truly believe that our society promotes the worship of money which leads to viewing people as a means to an end rather than humans. And this is where I think a lot of racism is born. If we want to truly see change, we need to stop caring more about money, a thing that is not everlasting, and start caring more about people, ones that are dying unfairly at the hands of prejudiced people with power.

I will never understand what it truly means to go through the struggles that African Americans unfairly go through, and I am privileged in this way. I will admit that I have never personally known unjustified hatred for something that I was born with. And when I see horrid, heinous acts of violence against African Americans simply because they have black skin, I feel repulsed. It’s just wrong. No matter what your skin color is, these acts are just wrong, and it shouldn’t take a whole movement in order for justice to be served. It’s taken many innocent lives for people to start caring, myself included; however, if we want to truly mean All Lives Matter, we need to face reality; racism is real and it is happening at a systematic and individual psychological level. And in order for us to understand what it means to have All Lives Matter, we need to understand the meaning of life. This begins with us facing the facts. It’s uncomfortable, trust me I know, but if I truly mean that I love all people, and if we as a society want to truly mean it when we say All Lives Matter, then we have to address the blatant reality that the lives of African American men and women are not valued the same. We can start by loving people for their humanity, demanding justice for black lives, and putting our financial goals aside in order to value the realest, most enduring things, humans.