A Quote by Opal Tometi

Black Lives Matter has been viral, and people are taking it, appropriating it, and using it however they see fit.

Opal Tometi

Quote Topics

Been Black Black Lives Black Lives Matter Fit However Lives Matter People See Taking Using Viral

Quote Author

Opal Tometi
American - Activist

I've been using the phrase Black Lives Matter quite a lot. I'm not saying that all lives don't matter, I'm just saying that right now black people need support and they need help because of the racism going on all around the world.

Kalvin Phillips

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.'

Benjamin Watson

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.

Ava DuVernay

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.

Angie Thomas

I think the fact people still don't realise why people are taking a knee and saying 'Black Lives Matter,' people are being so close-minded to the fact that no one is disrespecting the flag, nobody is saying all lives don't matter.

DeAndre Yedlin

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.

Benjamin Watson

I thought that, as a black audience member, I would like to see something that reflected an experience that's not normally exhibited in documentaries, or is so much about black people as victims in this country, and black people not taking control of their own lives and their own destinies.

Elvis Mitchell

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.

Alicia Garza

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?

Alveda King

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.

Alicia Garza

I think that part of the issue here is when people hear 'Black Lives Matter,' sometimes they think that someone is saying your life doesn't matter, and that's not what 'Black Lives Matter,' at least to me, is saying.

Benjamin Watson

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.

Julianne Malveaux

Black lives matter. White lives matter. Asian lives matter. Hispanic lives matter. That's anti-American and it's racist.

Rudy Giuliani

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.

Sheila Jackson Lee

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.