When Have All Lives Truly Mattered? | The Odyssey Online
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Politics and Activism

When Have All Lives Truly Mattered?

Why #blacklivesmatter is more relevant than your hashtag will ever be.

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When Have All Lives Truly Mattered?
John Legg Photography

When in the history of our nation, in 240 years as a collective body of Americans, have all lives truly mattered? Don't worry, I’ll wait.


This is the dilemma with proclaiming that “All Lives Matter” – in fact, they never have. Ever. We are responsible for dealing with the years of inadequacies and sheer failures of our system to provide for all. These are inadequacies that you do not have the right to deny. They exist every day.


And if you are having a hard time seeing that, I will make it very simple for you and remove race completely, if that is the factor which is hindering your understanding. Lives of members of the LGBT community did not matter two months ago when they were fighting for the right to use a public restroom like everyone else. However, the second the lives of members of that community are stolen by a terrorist action, those lives matter. The media can further the agenda that who we should really be fearing right now are people of Islamic origin. Now those lives are valuable and matter because they are feeding the fear of another group. The lives of those five Dallas police officers were silenced forever. How does the media repay their memories? They use their deaths to propagate fear of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Does anyone else notice the same pattern as this author? The shooter at the Orlando night club and the shooter at the Dallas protest were radicals. They were the extremists of their respective groups. Now they account for all actions of all members of that group ever? If this is the case, then the KKK is a representative body for all Christian organizations and Timothy McVeigh is representative of all veterans. See how those examples stung and built anger inside you? These are adequate examples of the grossly disproportionate belief system that the media has fed through fear.

The commonalities in these scenarios show that dehumanizing, devaluing, and degrading lead to the taking of another life for one simple reason: Fear. Dear America, it is time to bring our skeletons out of the closet and openly talk about them. Using #alllivesmatter is simply trying to shove issues back into the crowded closet when they're relevant.

Civil rights didn't end 50 years ago because that’s easy. It’s done. It’s over. Black Lives Matter's movement is proving to you that it is not over and it is not done and America will have to reap the consequences sewn from previous indiscretions. We inherited this problem, but we will be the ones to fix it.


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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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