There has been a lot of conversation and dissension over the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, as well as the deaths of several police officers in Dallas. Social justice warriors, activists, and others have all taken to the internet to voice their opinions, resulting in a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter hashtag onto everyone’s—and I mean everyone’s—Facebook and Twitter feeds.
Of course, to combat this supposedly narrow-minded opinion, the Blue Lives Matter hashtag also arose, resulting in a battle of opinions that continues.
A similar situation happened on Pride Day, where the Heterosexual Pride Day hashtag arose to be more inclusive. However, unlike Blue Lives Matter, Heterosexual Pride Day was shot down rather quickly across social media.
Despite this, the issue with these two situations remains the same. With #BlackLivesMatter and Pride Day, this country’s minorities set out to push themselves on to a level playing field with the rest of the world. They are not antagonizing people. They are not saying the rest of the world does not matter. They are simply saying that if everyone else gets to matter, they should matter, too.
And what does the privileged majority do? Despite constant exclusion of minorities, the privileged majority throws a hissy fit at being excluded. The privileged majority says, “Hey, what do you mean, I don’t matter?” Even though nothing in the phrase “Black Lives Matter” says “Nobody Else Matters.”
We need to stop reading what is not there. There is no persecution of the “other” in a simple call for fair treatment. There is no kicking people out of the privileged majority so the minority can move in. There is only a cry for attention, a plea to be seen as good people whose lives are worth just as much as someone else’s.
And yes, the Dallas shooting was an absolute tragedy. Those police officers deserve to be talked about, too. They deserved to keep their lives, too. But just like one president can never represent the values of every citizen in the country, one shooter can never represent the values of an entire community of oppressed people.
Stop reading between the lines on matters of social justice. There is nothing there but a path toward continued hatred, another stick to draw another line in the sand between “us” and “them.”
