Why we say BLM, not ALM

From the Editor’s desk,

This week, the Record reported on a whiteboard reading “All Lives Matter” posted outside a CSB dorm room. After the sign was erased multiple times, an RA issued a notice forbidding residents from erasing each other’s messages. This prompted administration to respond. Whether the Bennie who posted this sign should be allowed to keep it up is outside the scope of this discussion. The sign’s content is worth a discussion of its own.

The movement is called Black Lives Matter because that fact isn’t obvious in American society. While the phrase “All Lives Matter” may seem inclusive at first glance, deeper contemplation exposes a darker truth.

The foundational documents of this country invoke inalienable rights for all men and claim that all men are created equal. That language, when it was written, excluded two major groups: women and any non-white men. Various pieces of legislation, including amendments to the Constitution, have corrected that language. According to the law, in theory, all people are now equal.

Disappointingly, social norms and the law’s enforcement and execution have not caught up to the noble ideals our country was founded upon. Black people are killed and brutalized by police at rates disproportionate to their share of the population. This year, we saw massive protests across the country over the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. They are far from the only Black people killed by police this year.

To say that Black lives matter is to point out something that America seems to be missing. We act as though Black lives don’t matter whenever we stay silent over police killings, conditions that create systemic poverty disproportionately affecting people of color, systemic racism and dozens of other injustices that occur daily.

Saying that all lives matter intentionally misses the point. Of course, all lives do matter, especially if we reference the “all” used in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Saying that all lives matter ignores the simple fact that we ignore Black suffering at every level and the oppression people of color face in this country every day.

Even discussing this in an academic context, removed from real consequences, is a major privilege. Believing that this country acts like all lives matter is a statement of ignorance. We can say that all lives matter when this country starts acting like black lives matter. Until then, to say that alllivesmatterisintentionally embracing a racist lie.

Sincerely, Will Schwinghammer, Editor-in-Chief