# Are the actions of BLM wise or foolish?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-actions-of-blm-wise-or-foolish/738278>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [November 22, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-actions-of-blm-wise-or-foolish/738278 "2015-11-22T15:18:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 35

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**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2015, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-the-actions-of-blm-wise-or-foolish/738278/35 "2015-11-25T06:05:48Z")

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> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> I totally support an effort to tackle police brutality, punish police officers who break rules or laws, and generally reduce prison sentences and the overall effect that policing has on Americans’ lives. But when Black Lives Matter gets in the news, it’s usually not because of they’re doing those things. The bad stuff:
> 
> [ul]  
> [li][Complaing](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/07/20/martin_omalley_apologizes_for_saying_all_lives_matter.html) when anyone says “all lives matter”.[/li][/ul]

“All lives matters” is a complete dismissal of the point.

Imagine that you go out to dinner with your family, and everyone gets what they order except you - you get a plate full of dicks. You say, “Hey, I should get what I ordered!” And your wife responds with “_Everyone_ should get what they ordered,” while chowing down on the food she ordered and doing absolutely nothing about your plate of dicks. The effective meaning of that sentence is to _completely ignore your complaints_. Yes, obviously everyone should get what they ordered, but _most people already do_.

Or, to put it another way: when I say “black lives matter!” I am specifically addressing an inequality in the system: the fact that black lives, by and large, _don’t_ seem to matter, at least not in the way white lives do. If your response is “all lives matter!” you have at best missed the point and at worst are trying to deflect from it. Yes, of course all lives matter, but right now we’re trying to pay special attention to black lives because that’s the point where “all lives matter” seems to be breaking down. It’s like wondering why there’s no such thing as a straight pride parade - you _completely miss the point of the exercise_, and at this point in the conversation it’s entirely reasonable to assume that you’ve either just stumbled into the room for the first time, or you’re doing it on purpose.

> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> Let’s use logic. Black people are a subset of all people. Therefore to assert that all [human] lives matter, is to assert that black people’s lives matter and so do the lives of all people. This is logic.
> 
> If you believe that saying “All lives matter” is equivalent to saying “Black lives don’t matter”, then apparently you reject this logic. Are black people not included among all people?

This is what happens when you blindly play semantics with absolutely no attempt to understand the context; the equivalent of wondering why they’d need a plane in wood shop because you couldn’t fit a Cessna through the door.

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