Those who argue All Lives Matter are often arguing from a point of racism. These individuals come together to subvert opportunities to overcome black disenfranchisement.
The argument
The phrase “All Lives Matter” is coded language for “White Lives Matter,” as author Jason Reynolds claims. He states that when it comes to America, based on the numbers and the experiences of black people and other minorities, their lives haven’t mattered as much as white people’s lives. So when people claim all lives matter, then they’re talking about white people. The adoption of All Lives Matter (ALM) by white supremacists turned it into “White Lives Matter.” While All Lives Matter came from a place of ignorance, White Lives Matter (WLM) became a racist response to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. In early 2015, Texas-based white supremacist group Aryan Renaissance Society promoted the slogan “White Lives Matter.” Other white supremacist groups used and popularized this slogan by using flyers and protests until it eventually spread. By 2016 other groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, began using it. It is now a staple among the white supremacist mantras. This mantra turned into an inverse organization to the BLM movement. WLM describes themselves as a movement dedicated to promoting the white race and taking positive action to fight the issues white people face. WLM believes the Obama administration passed immoral orders against the white race. Part of their goal is to destroy the BLM movement. The BLM movement does not strive for supremacy, as WLM wants. BLM wants black people to be treated like human beings and get fundamental human rights and freedom that white people already enjoy.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Black people are not the only oppressed population. Many injustices occur all over the world, and there are not massive outcries over them. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement values some lives more than others. Because of the nature of the police officer’s jobs, there will always be violence. This violence affects all people of color, as we saw with Justine Ruszczyk, a blonde white man, who was killed by Mohamed Noor in 2017. We also have to accept the fact that there will be people with racist ideas and views. That doesn’t reflect the majority of people living in America. That does not reflect the concept of All Lives Matter (ALM), as ALM works to include everyone and ensure people hear their struggles. While it is essential to focus on the cruel actions of some and work to hold them accountable, we cannot ignore the progress that’s occurring. Singling out and prioritizing one group of people over others in unfair and forces people to think in a vacuum. Celebrating those victories will work to restore our faith in humanity and unite us as people.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] Adoption by a group does not fix a phrase's meaning for everyone who uses it. The premise's two claims are also of very different strengths: that white-supremacist organisations took up the slogan is a claim about those organisations, while "functions as coded language" is a claim about how the phrase works for the far larger number of people who say it, and the first does not establish the second. Slogans are routinely appropriated by movements whose originators would reject them. [Rejecting P2] The contrast actually drawn is between Black Lives Matter and White Lives Matter, not between Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter, so the premise substitutes the more extreme term partway through. Whatever holds of the white-supremacist movement described cannot be transferred to everyone using the broader phrase unless the coded-language claim has already been granted, which is the point at issue. [Rejecting C] The conclusion is about legitimacy, which the premises approach only through association. The stronger objection available on this side of the debate — that answering a specific claim about unequal treatment with a general one changes the subject — sits in the argument's own material and is never made.