As of recently there have been billboards springing up in cities that read “Blue Lives Matter”, as if they already do not. “Blue Lives” refers to law enforcement lives and is problematic in more ways than one. First of all, the message is being directly stolen from the Black Lives Matter movement. This is nothing more than a ploy to go against the movement that advocates against police brutality and create sympathy for a system that is killing people daily. Second of all, cops lives are not being treated like they do not matter. Black Lives Matter was created to say to the American people and the American “justice” system that despite what they may believe, black lives do matter. Despite what they think, they can not kill us and face no consequences. “Blue Lives” Matter however has no real objective besides stealing the spotlight from a growing movement that is fighting a system they are apart of.
To hide the lack of a foundation or any purpose they try to say they are fighting against the “war on police”. Not only is there no war on law enforcement but it is a slap in the face to the 990 people they killed last year and the approximately 350 they have killed so far this yearto even imply that there is. There were 128 police killed in 2015 and only 37 of those were by intentional gunfire. Traffic related and non specific deaths are the only category that is up since last year meaning that police officers are not being murdered anymore than they have been in the past. 2015 was one of the safest year for law enforcement in history. You can not intentionally ignore statistics to meet your agenda. The agenda being that recently cops have been unjustly killed at a higher rate than normal, which is not true.
What the agenda should be is for law enforcement to get better training opportunities and even more opportunities for mental health care. There were 126 police suicides reported in 2012. More than all police deaths combined last year. The only war on police is coming from themselves. They should be fighting for more chances to get treated for PTSD and other mental disorders their jobs might be causing. These are things “Blue Lives Matter” should be advocating for but in reality all they truly care about is debunking the Black Lives Matter movement and gaining unwarranted compassion for a broken system.
Every life lost is a tragedy and to say that “Blue Lives Matter” is flawed, is not to say that those cops lives do not matter. To focus on these very few in a time where civilians are being murdered by the system they were apart of is an injustice to those lives lost. Commemorate and honor the law enforcement lives but do not pretend that these lives are being lost because of a “war” on them. The only war that they are involved in is the one that they are the aggressors against the people of America. So Blue Lives Matter “activist”, go back to the drawing board. Find another way to discredit Black Lives Matter. We will be waiting.
