I stand by what I said that All Lives Matter and that we are human beings.
― Richard Sherman, 2016
#BlackLivesMatter doesn’t mean your life isn’t important if you aren’t black—it means that Black lives, which are seen without value within White supremacy, are important.
― Alicia Garza, 2014
When former Seattle Seahawk Richard Sherman expressed his universal value for human life, doubling down on his point that “All Lives Matter,” I tried to root for him, thinking that I understood where he was coming from. Maybe he was trying to say something profound yet reasonable: that Black people, like everybody else, believe in those elusive principles of freedom, equality and justice. Surely, he was right―if that is what he actually intended to convey. But if he were attempting to argue that all lives matter equally in this country and that we are all treated as free and equal human beings, then, he was flatly wrong.
Maybe, Sherman was confused. Maybe, he was deluding himself. Or, just maybe, he was gaslighting the interviewer. (Regardless, Black Twitter let him have it!)
Without question, I stand with Alicia Garza’s message: that Black Lives Matter. But I go even further. To be frank, the slogan “All Lives Matter” is a dishonest repudiation and rejection of the Black Lives Matter movement. It dismisses observable reality, and it flagrantly disregards history.