Black Lives Matter is the name of an activist organization that is especially active when it comes to combatting police brutality. There has, of course, been backlash when it comes to their name. Namely, a whole contingent of people have chosen to interpret BLM asserting that yes, black lives matter, as them somehow simultaneously saying other lives don’t matter. This insistence on countering conversations about the experiences of people of color with #AllLivesMatter has led to discord, much of it online.

Today, a new hashtag surfaced called #AllLivesDidntMatter. BLM supporters and skeptics of the #AllLivesMatter reaction have spent some time today pointing out all of the times that all lives didn’t matter which, to them, underscores the importance of highlighting those lives which seem to matter least. The question here, then, is why those who pipe up with #AllLivesMatter when black people begin insisting loudly that theirs do aren’t also speaking out against every one of these other travesties.

When in the constitution black people were 3/5 of a person & Native Americans were driven off their land Trail of Tears.#AllLivesDidntMatter

— divak68 (@divak68) July 11, 2016

#AllLivesDidntMatter when bodies were floating in water & people were starving and fearing for their lives in a stadium for a week in NOLA

— Ashia_Corrine ♍️ (@ashiacorrine) July 11, 2016

#AllLivesDidntMatter when whites were the illegal immigrants and killed off Native Americans and stripped them of their land

— charizard rae jepsen (@fatandugIy) July 11, 2016

#AllLivesDidntMatter when Vincent Chin was killed by 2 white ppl who couldn’t differentiate btwn Chinese or Japanese pic.twitter.com/yvs8IWd4bX

— Vivian L. Duong (@inviviancible) July 11, 2016

#AllLivesDidntMatter it was just way for racists to undermine the #BlackLivesMatter movement

— Mrs Lassy Fly™ (@dreswifey06) July 11, 2016

#AllLivesDidntMatter when Arizona made it legal through SB 1070 to terrorize and profile people who “looked” undocumented.

— dani (@danyelaa_) July 11, 2016

#AllLivesDidntMatter = NOW! LGBT people can be legally fired from jobs and refused housing in the USA to this DAY!

— king (@510_emcee) July 11, 2016

#AllLivesDidntMatter when the U.S. unconstitutionally threw 120,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps because they “could” be threats.

— Cole Haddon (@colehaddon) July 11, 2016

This is an unprecedented way for BLM and its supporters to go about making their point, which has always been that #AllLivesMatter is a distraction tactic meant to minimize voices of color.

[image via Twitter]

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

Lindsey Ellefson
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