Everybody's life matters. But that's why we have to say black lives matter, because the highest disproportionality, police brutality, disenfranchisement, education disproportionality in school discipline, curriculum, misrepresentation, all of this.
Issues like immigration, police brutality, and other onerous laws put in place by local and state governments are prime avenues for active clergy to work with their parishioners on the issues that affect their daily lives.
I especially appreciated hearing the President [Barack Obama] affirm that "black lives matter" and that it means that some citizens are feeling more pain, and experiencing more negative effects than others, and he offered up the stats. He also indicated that black lives matter does not negate the fact that blue lives matter. He ably walked the tightrope, here, between affirming both black life and police life.
Yet civil rights issues are very much on the front burner in South Carolina between the Black Lives Matter movement and police shootings.
Usually, 'All Lives Matter' comes as a response to 'Black Lives Matter'; it doesn't exist in a vacuum. So when people say 'Black Lives Matter,' a lot of times the response 'All Lives Matter' can seem very condescending, dismissive to 'Black Lives Matter.'
When we started making 'Selma,' the Black Lives Matter movement didn't exist. The parallels between Martin Luther King staging these marches, suffering police brutality... we weren't even aware when making the film that these sorts of things would start to happen again in 2015.
Black Lives Matter is the ultimate divisive movement. They aren't shy about what they don't like, which is western civilization, capitalism, and the rule of law. They really dislike the police, and certainly get the credit for the war between black men and police.
I'm sick of watching 'Blue Lives Matter' supporters idly stand by any police officer simply because he wears blue, ignoring the facts that should make them cringe in disbelief and horror. Police brutality is systemic, not anecdotal.
All these police treating our people wrong, man. Black lives matter, but we got fans of all different colors, so all lives matter.
With the Black Lives Matter movement, a lot of the focus is on the protest and dissent. I'm hoping to dismantle the public notion - for folks outside of the community - of what Black Lives Matter means. It's really about saying that black lives matter: that humanity is the same when you go inside people's homes.
Black Lives Matter has no more to do with black issues than Students for a Democratic Society had to do with democracy. They are means to an end, and they use the black population as sacrifices for their goals.
All lives matter when black lives matter and no lives are more important than black lives.
A lot of people are quick to say that saying 'black lives matter' makes you anti-cop. All lives should indeed matter, but we have a systemic problem in this country in which black lives do not matter enough.
Of course black lives matter. All lives matter. I stopped eating meat because their lives matter to me. I don't think it's necessary for us to grow a cow to kill it.
Whether or not you call it Black Lives Matter, whether or not you put a hashtag in front of it, whether or not you call it the Movement for Black Lives, all of that is irrelevant. Because there was resistance before Black Lives Matter, and there will be resistance after Black Lives Matter.
You have to know the forces that are against you and that are trying to break you down. We talk about the problems facing the black community: the decimation of the black family; the mass incarceration of the black man; we're talking about the brutality against black people from the police. The educational system.