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.'
We are clear that all lives matter, but we live in a world where that's not actually happening in practice. So if we want to get to the place where all lives matter, then we have to make sure that black lives matter, too.
Black lives matter. White lives matter. Asian lives matter. Hispanic lives matter. That's anti-American and it's racist.
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.
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.
A lot of times, we get stuck, and we are followers. When you hear one person say, 'black lives matter,' or 'blue lives matter,' all lives matter. It's not right what is going on in this world on both sides.
I was in the Black Power movement. I feel as energized about Black Lives Matter. I don't feel in any way separated from Black Lives Matter. I do believe we are hand and glove. I am the legislative tool.
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.
I sometimes think they should have said 'Black Lives Matter Too,' because that is really what is being said. The outcry is that historically and presently, the feeling is that black lives don't matter as much as white lives because we don't see the same type of things happening to them.
If black lives matter, then why is it that black women are more than five times as likely as a white woman to have an abortion? I think the womb that brings forth the black life should matter... Because black lives absolutely matter, what about the babies in that womb? What about that mama?
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.
At the end of the day, Black Lives Matter and we all know this and I get when people say all lives matter, I understand.
I think Black Lives Matter has some really thuggish elements in it. Look - at the risk of being incredibly politically incorrect, but I guess that's my job - I think that all lives matter. Not least black lives.
Black Lives Matter was created as a response to state violence and anti-black racism and a call to action for those who want to fight it and build a world where black lives do, in fact, matter.
Black lives matter just as much as White lives matter, just as much as Hispanic lives matter.