All Lives Matter is about elevating all lives to an equal standing. There is nothing in its mission that suggests one race is superior to another.
The argument
Erasing the difference between race is, on this argument, the driving force behind All Lives Matter. To include everyone despite race or color is what the movement believes in, and proponents say the slogan is meant to name that goal rather than to answer another movement's claim. People believe that All Lives Matter is trying to erase the importance and meaning behind the BLM movement, but supporters answer that that's not what's happening. The movement itself aims at erasing the boundaries that have been in place because of race, not race itself. The distinction matters to the argument: a call to dismantle racial hierarchy is not a denial that the hierarchy exists, or that it has fallen more heavily on some people than others. It is a statement about the arrangement that should replace it. While brought into the limelight in response to the BLM movement, the slogan is on this view inclusive and not exclusionary. Its reference class is wider than one group: additionally, it includes indigenous races, immigrants, and other communities which have received undeserved hatred and segregation, like Hispanic and Latinx communities. Proponents treat that breadth as the point rather than as a dilution, since a principle that condemns racial hierarchy has to condemn it wherever it is imposed. For the same reason, supporters hold that All Lives Matter is not supportive of white supremacy, as its emphasis is on humanity and not race — and a doctrine of racial ranking is precisely what an appeal to shared humanity refuses. It includes those who've also suffered from exclusion and racial injustice, not just black lives, and it does so, on this account, without setting those experiences against one another. All Lives Matter, proponents conclude, supports people of all races and color, and does not ignore race but shows that people will stand together as one united front where everyone matters.
Premises
Counter-arguments
All Lives Matter is a movement that, despite its stance, reflects a view of racial dismissal and denial about the reasons the Black Lives Matter movement started. For many, yes, all lives do matter, they have importance, no one person is lesser or better. However, the movement itself erases the fact that the societal controversy is not about white people, it’s about black people and the targeted mistreatment they’ve suffered for centuries. Despite the wars, laws, and reforms, there's still gross mistreatment of black people. To dismiss the fact that there is a racial difference in treatment denies the fact that there is injustice as a result. Unfortunately, race is a lens through which society defines individuals. They are more, and that is what the movement tries to make people understand. That Black Lives to Matter like other lives do, that there should be equality despite race or color.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] All Lives Matter is a hurtful phrase that denies the reason the Black Lives Matter movement started is in direct response to what's been done and is being done to them as a race.