All Lives Matter does not address the rampant injustice faced by black people

The argument

ALM misses the point of BLM. It ignores the current state of race and inequality in America and the historical events – such as slavery and Jim Crow laws – that led to it. BLM doesn't strive to diminish other ethnic groups' worth but bring awareness to problems that plague the black community. BLM seeks to highlight and change systemic injustices ranging from education, mass incarceration, and economic opportunities, among others. For instance, black children are three times more likely than white children to live below the poverty line. In part, this has to do with the high unemployment rate for Black Americans, which has neared 15 percent once every decade for the past 50 years. In comparison, the unemployment rate for white people has never neared that figure. Housing and education are also affected. Redlining, a practice banned 50 years ago, prevented black people from securing mortgages. Now the net worth of white families is ten times greater than black families. Education is also affected as white schools receive $2,220 more per student than nonwhite schools. Police brutality also threatens black communities, with black people are three times more likely to be killed by the police than whites. Police officers killed more people in the first half of 2020 than the last two years. Black lives are disproportionately undermined and undervalued. The BLM movement is attempting to change that. The founders of BLM want to "imagine and create a world free of anti-Blackness, where every Black person has the social, economic, and political power to thrive.”

Context

The All Lives Matter (ALM) movement states that all lives should be viewed and treated equally. ALM comes as a criticism of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and believes that black lives are not specifically more important than other lives.

Premises

Counter-arguments

ALM does not ignore the rampant injustice that is happening to black Americans, as it includes black lives. The main message of this movement is to value the lives of other people as well. Claiming that one group of people are more important than others undermines that. BLM and its supporters have directed their anger at the wrong targets. For instance, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul feared for his life when confronted by protestors who were angry over the killing of Breonna Taylor. Their anger was misguided as Sen. Paul was the one who introduced the “Justice for Breonna Taylor Act,” which prohibits no know warrant that led to Taylor’s killing. ALM is a legitimate protest as it helps unite people and moves society forward. As South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott stated, the phrase “All lives matter” is not offensive. He believes that people are better together, and unity is what is needed to fight against the problems faced today.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] "Ignores" is a claim about what a phrase entails rather than about what its users assert, and supporters reply — as the counter does — that a statement including everyone does not deny that any particular group faces distinctive harms. Establishing that the phrase adds nothing would require engaging with how it is used and by whom, which the premise does not attempt. [Rejecting P2] The statistics establish that disparities exist, which is a different matter from whether a protest slogan is legitimate. Several also need qualification: the per-pupil funding figure comes from a single advocacy analysis, and the police-killing ratio is a per-population figure that participants in that dispute contest by reference to different denominators. Disparities in outcome are in any case compatible with more than one account of their causes. [Rejecting P3] The final step changes the subject. That one movement pursues worthwhile aims does not show that a different movement is illegitimate; two campaigns can both be sincerely meant, and a protest is not normally held illegitimate on the ground that another one addresses the problem better.