If ever there was a weaponized phrase, it’s the phrase “All lives matter!” You would think that this would be a straighforward statement that everyone can get behind. I, for one, do not disagree. All lives do matter. It’s Humanity 101.

What I do disagree with is the way this sentence is uttered. Typically, this sentence can be easily replaced with the sentence “No, they don’t.” I submit the following hypothetical conversation

1: “Black lives matter.”

2 (with air of exhaustion and condescension): “No. All lives matter.”

1: “Well, it doesn’t always seem like it. Black people suffer from police misconduct disproportionately, and if a black person dies at the hands of the police, almost all cases end up in mild punishment, if any, and at worst the officer involved has to go work at another police department. If all lives matter, you would be unhappy about this, too.”

2: “Well, what about all the black-on-black crime?”1 OR “Actually, more white people are killed by police than black people.”2 OR “You know, George Floyd wasn’t exactly a great guy. He was a criminal, you know.”3

Now, people who respond in this way generally claim not to be racist (although, some of them say such vile things — and not in the infrequent maybe-they-made-a-mistake kind of way — that I’m not sure I can still believe that even they think this is true). I found myself thinking why would this person, who otherwise is a very decent human being, respond to the statement that black lives are just as important as anyone else’s lives in this way?

Fear. It has to be fear. I am told by all sorts of otherwise rational people that a huge, secretive, and well-organized organization called Antifa is millions (if not billions) strong is not-so-secretly trying to destroy America. They’re everywhere. I don’t personally know anyone in the organization, or know anyone who can say that they know someone in the organization, but they are everywhere and they are out to get us. And their codeword is “Black lives matter.” There’s also a shadowy organization actually called “Black Lives Matter.” Now, this group is a bunch of communists who are also the negative print of the KKK. Now, this might actually be true, but like Antifa, I have never known anyone to be in the actual group (I’ve technically known more Black Panthers than the self-appointed BLM group). For those who are afraid, the words “black lives matter” signify that this person is speaking code for being part of one of these allegedly ubiquitous fringe groups. This person is coming for them! So they protect themselves in the only way they know how; they shout “All lives matter” like they were holding up a cross made of gold and minced garlic in front of a vampire.

You people need to chill. When someone you know says “black lives matter,” we aren’t being unpatriotic. We probably don’t have designs on the destruction of the government. We don’t want to destroy your way of life (unless your way of life has, at its core, indiscriminantly beating on black and brown people without fear of consequences), and we aren’t coming for you. Odds are, we don’t know anybody who knows anybody who knows how to become part of the groups you rant about.4

What we want is for police to be less violent. What we want is for skin color not to play a role in sentencing. We would like LaDawn to be hired just as often as Dawn is. We want Rayvon to be offered the same paycheck as Raymond. In short, what we want is for all lives to actually matter. That’s not unAmerican. Last time I looked at the founding documents, what’s unAmerican is not wanting that.

1Person 2 should have just said “crime” here, but I guess they’ve already used some racist language, might as well follow it up with some more racist language.

2This is true, but immaterial since over 60% of the population is white. There is no reason that 13% of the population should account for 27% of the deaths. See: https://policeviolencereport.org/

3This does not make his death okay. In America, we expect that if a agent of the government kills a citizen, there should have been a trial, a sentencing hearing, at least one appeal. Mr. Floyd’s criminal record should not make it okay to keep your knee on his neck for several minutes after he’s non-responsive (i.e. dead).

4While I talk smack about Antifa, and I do not agree with what I’m told they stand for (I have no credible sources of my own what that is), I would very much like to be on record saying that fascism is bad, and I’m against it.