Sorry, no, I can’t say that. We can only say Black Lives Matter, and Palestinians are just people of colour, so we can’t include them.
Okay, that is a bit tongue in cheek. I am getting a bit annoyed at people that make the Salem witch trial look tame with their attacks on “them” that say “All lives matter”.
There are two different things racism and racists. We need to understand the difference. The term “All lives matter” is true. It is accurate. There are a lot of people that are not racists that want to use the phrase.
I find it difficult to generalise on a people group simply because of the colour of their skin – it really feels bad. And that is every use of a generic term whether for negative or positive reasons.
I really dislike the MOBO awards, because I do not believe music has a colour. It may have a regional origin, it may have a people group origin, but I cannot accept it has a skin colour origin. Willie Ruff came up with a theory (based on a talk with Dizzie Gillespie) of links between some southern call and response in african american churches and in scottish highland churches. You can listen to the isea here:
If you want to do a test then try listening to the video below while picturing slaves in plantations. What colour is this music?
So I understand why some people will innocently want to use the term “All lives Matter”. But there is another side to the phrase. There are racists that use the phrase. The phrase can have either a racist or an innocent meaning based on the intention of the person saying it.
To my mind we need to be aware of the company we keep. By using the phrase “All lives matter” we put ourselves in a group that racists feel happy in, where they can take comfort in walking beside us. I don’t want to be in the same group as racists, so I will avoid using the phrase “All lives Matter”. But I also choose to believe that the majority of people using the phrase are not racists (in fact like me they may have strong anti-racist views that leads them to say it) and I will not attack them. I would ask them to think twice about the company they keep.
Somebody recently wrote about their dislike for the actions of the Israeli government related to the treatment of Palestinians. They were not anti-semitic. They held genuine concerns about some of the events of the day. But the language was language that an anti-semite would happily use. Changing from “Israeli government” to “Netanyahu government” is a simple example of choosing language that makes the point but makes the language less attractive to racists. This comes back to the idea of commenting based on a broad characteristic of people.
We need to try to keep pushing for change, but at the same time we need to watch the company we are keeping.