Something is terribly wrong

if the pain

sorrow

and outrage of a people

makes you more uncomfortable

than murder itself

-Rupi Kaur

First off, let me just say that I do agree that all lives matter, whether you are African-American, Caucasian, Asian, Middle Eastern, etc. However, let's face it: We don't live in a world where everyone believes that. We live in a world where African Americans, and other minorities, are being targeted and mistreated by our American police.

We live in a world where people of color are being imprisoned and killed for no reason at all. Believe it or not, this hashtag was made to basically silence those people who are suffering and trying to speak out against police brutality.

Yes, there are good cops who are actually committed to protecting citizens of their community and who do openly talk about police brutality. However, there are the really terrible ones who are responsible for the tragic and unnecessary deaths of Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, Philander Castile, Delrawn Small, Sean Bell, Walter Scott, Sam Dubose, Phillip White, Tony Robinson, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Tanisha Anderson, Shawn Brown, Anthony Hill and countless others.

I would also like to state another thing: #Blacklivesmatter does not imply that other lives don't. It is not saying that people belonging to other races and ethnicities don't matter. In fact, it is stating the opposite. Throughout American history, Black lives didn't matter at all (not when black women were being sterilized by the U.S. government to control the African American population, or when they introduced syphilis to black men to kill them off).

We are using this hashtag to stand up for ourselves and to remind people that our lives matter ALSO. The BLM movement wasn't made to belittle and demean other lives; it was made to uplift ours. Unlike the all lives matter movement, which was made to belittle and demean lives.

Let me be real here: The "all lives matter movement" was made by a bunch of butthurt white people who didn't want to acknowledge their privilege and just simply wanted to ignore the struggles that African-Americans were facing. That movement was made to dismiss the struggles that we face on a daily basis, not the BLM movement. We are trying to advocate justice, not segregation or hate.