As with many social movements, there is always a counter-movement from those who disagree.
All Lives Matter became a phrase with the semblance of a movement to deter the public from thinking police brutality was distinctively a problem for black people. Under the guise of inclusion and seemingly righteous "what about us?" questions, All Lives Matter became the white to the darkness that has been cast on the Black Lives Matter movement.
While it seems like a simple answer, because yes, every life matters, All Lives Matter is actually a false argument that seeks to undermine the validity of police brutality and other wrongs America has committed against people of color. It levels the playing field for all harms against all people, as if the playing field was level from the beginning. It discounts all the struggles and constant barriers people of color face in America, and runs alongside the likes of arguments such as "reverse racism" or "taking back 'our' country."
The motive of the Black Lives Matter movement is not to lower the value of other American lives, but instead to raise the value of Black Lives to the level of others. Black people are continuously murdered for minor traffic offenses or simply doing nothing, and to act as if these horrific crimes plague any other community in America is to ignore a huge issue.
If you didn't believe All Lives Matter was motivated by racist intentions before, you most certainly should now.
As families are separated and lost in oblivion at the Mexican American border, those who preached and pressed that All Lives Matter are silent. Some even have the nerve to speak out on it, calling the young children held in these camps "not our kids" or saying they were simply in "summer camp."
Although it does not seem like "All Lives Matter," this behavior goes along with the rhetoric the counter-movement seeks to push.
All Lives Matter except those of color.
By using a blanket statement, it disintegrates any attention directed towards people of color in desperate situations such as travel bans, deportation and separation, and police brutality.
All Lives Matter does not mean the 17-year-old black boy who was murdered by the police after voicing his fear for his life in a poem.
All Lives Matter does not mean the elementary-aged children being torn from their parents and lost in a sea of traded bodies and government bureaucracy.
All Lives Matter means white.
All Lives Matter means if it's white, its right.
Stop listening to the rhetoric. People of color have continuously struggled with proving the value of their lives in America. All Lives Matter is just a way of continuing this struggle. Do not give it power. Pay attention to the news, the things happening to people of color around you and how you can help.
All Lives do matter, but right now, black and brown lives are in danger.