Saying 'All Lives Matter' is the new wedge issue. Now that the confederate flag is gone

[MH1]

41. Thanks, by the way I should mention, I saw that somewhere on the Internet

I didn't come up with myself, just saw it and thought it worked well.

There are several of these analogies floating around, and I just latched on to that one as probably the best and easiest for most people to understand.

I don't think the 911 call analogy that I have heard is that stupid though. (You call 911 to tell them your house is on fire so they'll send the fire dept, and they respond with "all houses matter&quot . The point is, the situation described in the analogy is ridiculous. It is ridiculous because it makes no sense, that's not how it would happen - just like the restaurant analogy. You call 911 because you have a problem; it is not appropriate (and wouldn't happen) to get a response that everyone else has problems, too. No, they dispatch the organization that should be able to help with your problem. When people are saying "black lives matter" it is a call of distress - to respond with "all lives matter" just ignores the situation of distress.

I didn't go to the article you were referring to, but I would agree that the analogy posted from the article is a little harder to follow, and therefore "stupid" in the sense that it doesn't effectively get the point across. I had to re-read it and scratch my head to figure it out, and I already know what the plot is supposed to be. So, a swing and a miss, I'd say. And yeah, a young white guy has no room to be snarky and patronizing about an issue like this.

And I definitely agree we shouldn't be broad-brushing all uses of "all lives matter" as racism. Some is racism, some is ignorance, some is (as you point out) trying to promote a more noble notion. I would however, say that for the more noble, context matters, and when it isn't misinterpreted as racism or ignorance, it might accurately be perceived as naive. But then, most idealism is at least a little naive, and there is still a place for it. Sometimes we have to dream of things how they aren't, so we know what we are trying to achieve.