Black Lives Matter, Too

Black Lives Matter is a fine slogan, born of a spate of murders of young black men, largely at the hands of white police. The slogan was never intended to mean that non-black lives do not matter, but it invariably led to the currency of the counter-slogan All Lives Matter. Some offered this alternative innocently enough, seeing it as a logical corrective to the original slogan. Others, however, used it as a racist put-down of blacks.

Slogan-making is a tricky enterprise, and there are many opportunities for it to go awry. African-American Lives Matter, for example, is clumsy for shouting, and its adoption would have been a big mistake. The conciseness of Black Lives Matter is a real plus. Better, not much longer, and without any words longer than two syllables, is Black Lives Matter, Too. This delivers exactly the right message, especially to the white population: not only do white lives matter, but black lives also matter.

Alas, an opportunity was missed.