All Lives Matter is a form of White Fragility

The argument

The All Lives Matter movement reflects a view of racial dismissal, ignoring, and complete denial of reality. Its rhetorical form is what makes it effective and what makes it dishonest: it answers a specific claim about a specific harm with a general statement no one disputes, and in doing so it changes the subject while appearing to correct the record. Philosopher Chris Lebron describes the movement as a "disingenuous retort" that misunderstands the problem raised by Black Lives Matter proponents. The substance of that misunderstanding has been stated plainly. On Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher expressed support for use of the "Black Lives Matter" phrase, stating that "All Lives Matter implies that all lives are equally at risk, and they're not". The original phrase asserts that Black lives matter too, in a context where the evidence suggests they have been treated as though they do not; the substitution erases the context that gives the statement its meaning, leaving a platitude in place of a grievance. Commentators have gone further about what the substitution accomplishes. In July 2016, USA Today concluded, from the thoughts of Columbia University sociology professor Carla Shedd, that using the phrase "'All Lives Matter' can actually be interpreted as a racist". It also cited professor Joe Feagin, who said that white people use the phrase "All Lives Matter" to belittle the Black Lives Matter movement, which he described as "already about liberty and justice for all." On this reading the phrase functions not as a broader moral claim but as a way of declining to hear a narrower one. That many users of the phrase did not intend this is itself part of the pattern. USA Today reported that some celebrities who had tweeted using the hashtag #AllLivesMatter, including Jennifer Lopez and Fetty Wap, deleted the tweets and apologized, and Wap stated that he did not understand the hashtag. All Lives Matter is therefore not a legitimate protest for equality.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The All Lives Matter movement does exactly what it says it does; it stands for all life. In 2016, American football player Richard Sherman, who is African American, supported the All Lives Matter message, saying, "I stand by what I said that All Lives Matter and that we are human beings." He wanted African Americans to be "treated like human beings" and did not want innocent police officers being killed. In June 2015, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton faced severe backlash after using the phrase "all lives matter" at an African-American church in Missouri during her presidential campaign. Clinton has proven herself in the eyes of the African American community, which shows that she should have been credited and not backlashed for saying the phrase "All Lives Matter".

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The implication is read into the phrase rather than found in it. On its face it asserts that all lives matter, which the movement it responds to also holds; whether it carries a claim about equal risk depends on the occasion of its use rather than on the words. [Rejecting P2] Usage varies and the premise treats one use as the meaning. The phrase has been voiced by people who accept the disparity — including Black public figures using it to insist on shared humanity — which is hard to reconcile with denial being built into it. [Rejecting P3] The diagnosis is unfalsifiable as stated. If objecting to the characterisation is itself taken as evidence of the fragility being diagnosed, no response can count against the claim, and a term that explains every reaction explains none of them. [Rejecting C] Legitimacy is also the wrong thing to settle by attributing a state of mind. The stronger objection — that a general affirmation offered in reply to a particular grievance functions as deflection — concerns how the slogan is deployed, not what everyone deploying it is feeling.