> As an example, a whole bunch of people, for some reason, took "Black Lives Matter" to mean "Only Black Lives Matter", as if that was said or as if that was the point.
That was never my issue, or the issue of anyone I encountered. My issue (and those other people's issue) was the implicit bad-faith assumption that we didn't already think black lives mattered, and needed to be scolded about it. Such rhetoric is needlessly divisive and should be avoided.
Why would you feel that anybody was personally scolding you by saying "black lives matter" if you already believed that black lives matter?
Clearly, plenty of people, through both their actions and their words, have made it very clear that they don't believe that black lives matter, and the movement was always aimed squarely at them.
People think that black lives matter, you trying to say they don't if they don't agree with the BLM movement is just making things worse. There is no reason to turn allies into enemies.
> Clearly, plenty of people, through both their actions and their words, have made it very clear that they don't believe that black lives matter, and the movement was always aimed squarely at them.
Correction: the movement is aimed at only a very small subset of black lives. It is not aimed at the much larger number of ones taken by other black people.
But I guess "a specific subset of black lives matter, and let's not talk about the others" doesn't quite roll off the tongue.
That was never my issue, or the issue of anyone I encountered. My issue (and those other people's issue) was the implicit bad-faith assumption that we didn't already think black lives mattered, and needed to be scolded about it. Such rhetoric is needlessly divisive and should be avoided.