The Black Lives Matter movement has dominated today’s news. Something that is not made clear, however, are the motives of “Black Lives Matter.” Black Lives Matter is a movement for the equality of everyone, no matter what race or ethnicity they are. It supports the belief that everyone is equal, and that their lives matter, also. 

People on social media and in the media itself  are trying to dispute this by saying “all lives matter”. The people who support the All Lives Matter movement believe that the Black Lives Matter movement is trying to make the lives of African-Americans more important than all other lives. 

This is not the case. 

If you think about it, the basic beliefs of Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter are the same; they both are saying that everyone is equal. The All Lives Matter movement was created as a way to dispute the Black Lives Matter movement. The common denominator of all of these movements are that people who have experienced the benefits of White Privilege have benefited from this privilege for some time.  White privilege is the idea that people are born with privileges that allow them access to accomplishments others may be unable to achieve based on their race.

Americans are recognizing that white privilege exists and they are realizing that it is not right. People born with white privilege don’t have to fear for their lives when they are approached by a police officer. There is video evidence of police behaving harshly when they have interactions with African-American people. Some examples of these harsh interactions are George Floyd, Philando Castille, Ahead Arbery, or, more recently, Daniel Prude and Jacob Blake. These names are but a few of all people who have had very violent exchanges with police officers, causing them to be extremely injured, or worse. 

Jacob Blake is the only survivor of the five. There are countless other African-American lives that have been lost because of their interactions with police officers, and the list keeps growing, needlessly.

Keep in mind that the police are not supposed to shoot people, even if they have done bad things. An officer’s first responsibility is to serve and protect. I have watched countless shows about police officers and FBI agents, and the consistency that I have seen throughout them all is that they don’t shoot the bad guys, unless they pull a weapon on them, no matter what they’ve done. Their job is to apprehend the perpetrator, not decide his (or her) fate. 

That is why we have the courts system. Justice is to be carried out by the courts, not by the officers involved. When people say Black Lives Matter, they are talking about the last 400 years of systemic oppression and racism against African-Americans. Since the birth of our country, many decisions have been made by people with white privilege . The fight is for the equality of everyone, not the supremacy of one race over everyone. 

All Lives Matter is a way for the people with white privilege to feel like they have control over the narrative. People are just now speaking up and recognizing the institutionalized racism in our country, and that makes some people uncomfortable. They trust so much in their country and believe that it is the best place, that when there is some evidence that America is actually not so great, they deny it and prefer to stay in their bubble of perfection. 

It is true that we live in a free country, and that we are able to speak up against the government and we are able to believe what we want, but when our beliefs stifle the lives of others, they become dangerous. The foundations of America are that people are supposed to be able to be free and true to who they are. But what we must not forget is that we are all Americans, living in the same country, hoping for the same prosperity.