I posted a powerful picture that demonstrates what it feels like to the photographer to have #BlackLivesMatter criticized and taken over by #alllivesmatter. This is what happened:

Juan Paul was the poster that put this up and where I found it.

• Random Person Are you serious? All lives DO matter.

  My REPLY:

  There is no question of that, Sir. But by saying ALL instead of BLACK, it’s saying they have no right to speak up. It’s a way of silencing the voices who are speaking against racism, brutality, violence, and murders. Do those things happen to Caucasians? Yes, of course they do. But they are not, usually, perpetrated by people in authority. As a rule, the rate of incarceration and unreasonable arrest statistics of melanin enhanced individuals is disproportionate compared to ANY OTHER civilized country in the world. #Blacklivesmatter is more about quality of life than saying no other lives matter or ALL lives matter. It’s another way to keep racism going, keep us divided instead of united, and a, pardon the pun, whitewashing the degradation of our fellow human beings. Yes. All lives do matter but we’re not focusing on that right now. We’re trying to support our fellow humans from the obvious racial disparities in our country.
• Random Person 2 words… Bull Sheet. All lives matter. Nobody is born “equal”. But if you’re not, you fight be equal. Any man, black, white, red or yellow is welcome to take a ride in a police car after breaking the law. Cherry picking data doesn’t make you right Mare.
• My Reply:

  “you fight be equal” Then clearly you understand the need.
  The United States Declaration of Independence says we’re all created equal as well as the United States Constitution. Reading statistic after statistic after statistic that states clearly this is inaccurate means this is not an opinion, this is fact. It is not cherry picking when it is evident that we are NOT, in fact, created equal as we’re told.
• Random Person: If black people are disproportionately represented in jails, don’t you think government policies might have more to do with it? In Detroit (completely Democrat) white people left because jobs left and crime was always getting worse. Social programs probably have more to do with “disproportionate” numbers…and the fact that black people are killing other black people in far greater numbers than any sub section of society. And that’s NOT just Detroit. Chicago. New Orleans. All have high murder numbers; mostly black on black crimes. All are Democrat controlled bastions of liberalism.

  RANDOM PERSON II:

  I think this is a very powerful image. Thank you for sharing.

• RANDOM PERSON III:

  I disagree with you on this one Mare. All lives matter has nothing to do with silencing black lives matter, its pointing out that it isnt just blacks who get harassed, assaulted, and killed by the police. If i ran around shouting white lives matter, id be a racist, regardless of my opinion on anything. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one. smile emoticon
• MY RESPONSE:

Breaking Down Mass Incarceration Statistics:

Educate yourself about the actual statistics

If this seems fair to you, we can’t be friends

The Federal Bureau of Prisons claims more white inmates than black:

Read about that here

But, the States, the Census Bureau and the Department of Justice all contradict those statistics with roughly the same rate of growth per their reports as opposed to that of the FBP.

As the two links above, this one is from The Department of Justice and is a PDF: This doesn’t match the Prison Report either

Believe what you want to, but unless you can bring me proof via public records, studies, or other recognized sources based on scientific fact and not ignorant opinions, I will love you from a distance with respect for you and will continue to state factually in support of #Blacklivesmatter

P.S. Random Person I is employed as a police officer.