Black Lives Matter, BLM,  is a organization founded in 2013 in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin. Their mission, which you can find in its entirety on their website, is to “…is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes…” The movement has made major strides going from largely controversial to becoming the social norm with millions of instagram users claiming to stand against police brutality.

However, just the phrase Black Lives matter is enough to make some people uncomfortable.

All Lives Matter, ALM, is less of an organization and more of a reactionary statement. With no official website, leader, or mission they seem to only exist as a way to anger those who are actually fighting for their rights.

Blue Lives Matter has more of an online fan-base with several websites and online merch stores. On one of the several online communities, Blue Lives Matter proponents describe their mission as ” …shed positive light on America’s heroes to help boost morale and gain society’s much needed support.”

Every single counter-movement to BLM is completely ignorant to the racism Black people say is very much still present in American. Refusing to believe people’s pain is extremely dangerous and harmful.

The idea of “blue lives” is an anomaly. Police have the ability to walk away from their jobs but Black people can’t change their skin color.

Not all police are bad people but all people take part in a broken system that is actively hurting Black people. Police are often called to respond to mental health situations, which they are not qualified to handle properly.

This was the case with Daniel Prude, who was detained while having a psychotic episode. The police handcuffed Prude after he had run into the street naked. He started to spit on police, this led the officers to put a mesh hood on Prude and push his face into the ground. He went to the hospital and died a week later. These inhumane practices should not be celebrated or protected.

Supporters of ALM and Blue Lives Matter will also bring up this idea of Black-on-Black crime as a much more important issue in the Black community. The argument is that Black people should be more concerned with 70 percent of violent crimes against Black people are committed by other Black people instead of police brutality.

While this is an issue, ALM seems to entirely miss the point of why this is a problem. Systematic racism has caused Black people to be born at a disadvantage for generations.

The War on Drugs, specifically, is cited as responsible for the Black-on-Black crime statistic.

Federal, state, and local law enforcement funding increased during the 90’s resulted in a 26% increase of sworn officers between 1992 and 2008 resulting in places like New York being over policed.

The erosion of the Fourth Amendment was extremely rampant during this time. The line “…but upon probable cause…” has led to what Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court Justice, has called “the drug exception to the Constitution.”

This exception led to the murder of several Black Americans, most recently Breonna Taylor was murdered because the police were legally allowed to enter her home with a no knock warrant under the suspension that she was selling drugs out of her home.

If you truly believe all lives are important then you should be the first one on the frontlines lifting up Black voices. Hearing that Black people are three times more likely to be killed by police should anger you to no end. All Lives Matter has never meant equality instead, it has meant that

White people continue not to believe Black people when they talking about the racism they experience.