There’s a beautiful train-wreck of a film on Netflix called Bright. It combines fantasy, Tolkien-esque themes with modern urban America. And they were not shy about throwing all subtlety out the window with the racial allegories. In an early scene, Will Smith’s character is madly flailing a broom around, trying to exterminate a pesky fairy creature. When he finally makes contact, he drops the most cringe-worthy one liner of the year:
“Fairy lives don’t matter.”
Let the groaning commence. I very nearly turned the film off. Not because I was offended by the allusion, but because the reference itself already feels so dated and tired.
The truth is that the Black Lives Matter movement was built upon good intentions. There still exist inequalities in our society that are racially charged — in particular with regard to the way people of color feel about law enforcement. In short, that feeling is being unsafe, to put it mildly, and there’s plenty of viral online video to validate that fear.
But as with any movement, there’s going to be a backlash. Due to the inherent nature of Black Lives Matter, it was perceived by some circles to be an exercise in racial prejudice. In defiance of this, the anti-BLM crowd created their own slogan: All Lives Matter. And the BLM supporters took this as a direct attack on their movement. This is where things get start to get hairy.
A primary issue here is the choice of words used to name these protests. The direct opposition to “black lives matter” would be suggesting that black lives do not matter. But there’s a reason that no one is saying this — and it’s not just because that would be incredibly racist. No, opponents of BLM actually interpret the protest to mean that black lives matter more.
Right or wrong, this entire conception could have been sidestepped if the movement were just called “Black Lives ALSO Matter” or “Black Lives Matter TOO.” It sounds patronizing, but it does completely disarm the notion that BLM is singling out black lives as having more value than others.
Because there’s no denying that the BLM movement has been divisive. Confrontations and violence have been at the forefront of how protesters are often portrayed — so in response to this, the All Lives Matter slogan eventually gained traction. And since BLM stood in disapproval of this suggested ideal, it only reaffirmed opponents’ beliefs that they were actually championing black supremacy over “all lives.”
Of course, “all lives matter” is itself a ludicrous premise. Speaking philosophically, if “all” lives matter, then simultaneously, no lives matter. If everybody is tall, then nobody is. And I could really dig into the nihilism there, but the slogan itself essentially means nothing. As a clapback to BLM, it falls flat, since it neither affirms nor denies any particular position. Its most salient reason to exist is simply to be adversarial to another movement.
Then there’s the weakest of these “matter” protests: blue lives matter. Wait…blue lives? Okay, since we aren’t discussing Smurfs or the cast of Avatar here, this is obviously defending the blue uniform of police officers. And once again, this rallying cry carries a hollow message.
In order for this to be a relevant motto, someone out there has to be suggesting that policemen’s lives do not matter. And I don’t hear a single person claiming this outside of NWA circa the 1980s. Two officers were recently killed in the line of duty near where I live, and the community held an entire parade for them. And statistics show that people whose lives didn’t matter almost never get parades. Unfair, I know.
By and large, nearly all people agree that “blue” lives matter, even if they also believe there is some corruption behind the lines. As with All Lives Matter, it’s simply a redundant platform. It’s unnecessary to point out.
But semantics aside, none of these movements are ever going to truly succeed in building a bridge to equality — because they encourage division. Rather than serving to convince anyone to change their way of thinking, they prop up identity segregation. They are unnecessarily combative and adversarial. And claiming that any particular lives matter in some kind of vacuum is an avenue to misunderstanding and isolation.
Maybe worst of all, our culture has become so saturated with these “lives matter” protests that they’ve started to lose whatever meaning they once had. The idea has become a cliché to be mocked and parodied in bad movies. Whatever was hoped to be accomplished by these protests has already expired, if it ever existed to begin with. Now they are nothing more than worn out failings for Will Smith to beat to death with his broom.