A topic that has consistently been in the spotlight in recent times is the issue of still-existing racism in America. With the “Black Lives Matter” activist movement being of major controversy, many other platforms have taken off whose aim is to instill justice and equality for minorities in this country.
In rebuttal to the Black Lives Matter development, people have responded with the notion that “all lives matter.” The argument made against the movement is that it itself is discriminatory because it is placing one specific race above others, which goes against everything they are fighting for and hence making them hypocritical. However, the disagreement to this is that BLM is not insinuating that those who belong to other races matter less, but rather they are not experiencing the same level of prejudice that they are. As American TV host Bill Maher stated in an episode of his show "Real Time with Bill Maher," stating that all lives matter “implies that all lives are equally at risk, and they're not."
The issue I have found with all these concepts of racism is that there is such a grey area between what is simply having and expressing a sense of pride in your heritage and what can be deemed excluding or hurtful to someone by being “discriminatory.” With America’s pushing towards being more and more progressive these days, people are just itching to pick apart any mere thing that they want to and label as “prejudice,” “racist,” and “offensive.”
An example I am going to use to expand on this is pop sensation Beyonce’s newest single “Formation,” which shook the media as she received seemingly ridiculous attacks for pretty much being, well, insultingly black. Collective African American themes in the Super Bowl performance and the music video for the song include Black Panthers uniforms, a shot of the statement “STOP SHOOTING US,” only black backup dancers, and lyrics such as “I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros, I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils.”
The problems people found with these themes are that they are made to relate to the African American community, leaving other races left out, which is then pegged as racist. Since when has someone’s embracing of their ancestry and culture been a shameful thing? People need to realize that yes, equality is extremely important, but just because we are striving to be equal does not mean everyone is going to be included in every single thing they want. By this, I mean that rights of the human being should be the same across the board -- no if’s, and’s, or but’s about it -- but sometimes there is going to be a celebration of a culture and not so much the other at that moment. People need to put in the effort to stop playing the victim and simply support and encourage other races in their sense of pride regarding who they are and their roots. We must learn to be an ally -- defined as a person, group, or nation that is associated with another or others for some common cause or purpose (in this case, the common cause or purpose being equality and proper treatment of all).
