Where Were The #AllLivesMatter People From 1619-1968, When #AllLivesDidntMatter

By
Sarah Scott
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The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has been met with a surprising amount of controversy. Unfortunately, some people have interpreted Black Lives Matter to mean, only Black Lives Matter.

Black Lives Matter was never meant to dismiss another group of people. The hashtag was coined to draw attention to racial inequality in the United States.

When activist came out with the term Black Lives Matter, people fired back with #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter. While both those statements are true, neither statement was popular before African Americans began drawing attention to the discrimination they face past and present.

In light of #BlackLivesMatter, being dismissed with All Lives Matter, a new hashtag has emerged. The hashtag #AllLivesDidntMatter seeks to point out that the United States has a long history of not treating all life equally.

Below are just a few examples of that.

A study called, Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male began in 1932 and would last 40 years. The study consisted of 600 African American participants, many of them illiterate and impoverished sharecroppers. They were told they were receiving treatment, but the opposite was true. In 1947, penicillin became the treatment of choice for syphilis. Instead of treating participants, researchers documented the progression of the disease and allowed for the wives and children of participants to become infected.

While the experiment was permanently discontinued in 1972, health disparities for African Americas are a relevant issue today. As Bernie Sanders explained in a 2016 speech,

“Fifteen neighborhoods in Baltimore have lower life expectancies than North Korea. Two of them have a higher infant mortality rate than the West Bank in Palestine. Baltimore teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 face poorer health conditions and a worse economic outlook than those in distressed cities in Nigeria, India, China and South Africa…”

In 1955, 14-year old Emmit Till was kidnapped, brutally beaten, and murdered for flirting with a white woman. Till’s great uncle was able to identify the murderers as the woman’s brother and husband. The jurors deliberated for less than an hour before deciding the killers were not guilty.

https://twitter.com/carlenlea/status/753588411857076224

It wasn’t until 1955 that the US Supreme Court ruled to end segregation. Of course, the legal end to segregation was not equal to living in an integrated society with equal opportunities.

During 2013-2014 school year, 16 percent of schools still consisted of a student body that was 75-100 percent black or Hispanic and qualified for free or reduced lunch. The United States Government Accountability office found that these schools offered less science, math, and college preparatory courses.

While slavery was abolished in 1865, many argue that slavery hasn’t ended, it simply evolved into incarceration. Amnesty International, a leading human rights organization condemns mass incarceration in the U.S.

“The United States accounts for only 5% of the world’s population, but is responsible for nearly 22% of the world’s prison population. More than 2 million people are incarcerated in U.S. prisons as well as local and county jails. 1 in 3 black men in the United States will go to prison or jail if current trends continue.”

African Americans are still imprisoned at a disproportionate rate compared to their white counterparts, 1 in every 15 African American men is imprisoned compared to 1 in every 106 white men. In addition, African American offenders receive longer sentences for the same crime the white offenders.

On September 15 1963, a Baptist church was bombed killing four girls aged 11-14 and injured at least 20 more. It was the third bombing in 11 days following a federal court order to integrate Alabama’s schools. Although the FBI had information about the bombers identity in 1965, they chose to do nothing for over a decade. One of the Klu Klux Klan members responsible for the bombing would not be convicted until 2002, nearly 40 years later.

On June 18 2015, Dylan Roof targeted a black church in Charleston South Carolina. He murdered nine people. Following his arrest, officers protected Roof by placing him in a bullet proof vest, and bought him Burger King.

Freddie Gray was unjustly arrested for running from police upon making eye contact. He suffered a spinal injury, was denied timely medical attention and died in police custody. Police failed to follow procedure by securing him with a seat belt, and are suspected of punishing him with an unsanctioned police technique called a rough ride.

While mass incarceration remains an issue, some suspects never make it to a courtroom. The exact number of people killed by the police is unknown as departments are under no mandate to report this. Estimates for 2015 put that number at anywhere between 975-1,186 people.

As the Washington Post reported,

“Although black men represent 6 percent of the U.S. population, they made up nearly 40 percent of those who were killed while unarmed.”

Some people have used Gray’s criminal history to devalue his life. People have chosen to call attention to Gray’s past drug arrests as opposed to the wider issue of police brutality.

Tamir Rice didn’t have a criminal record when he was shot and killed by police. He was only 12 years old. The officer who killed him won’t face charges. Even though that officer didn’t give Rice time to comply with orders to drop what was in his hand, a toy gun. Rice was killed in Cleveland, Ohio an open carry state.

Emergency responses were slow and insufficient in aiding the city of New Orleans with a population that was 67 percent African American with 30 percent of the population living in poverty. Nearly 2,000  people died as a result of the storm.

All Lives Didn’t Matter has a plethora of other examples that illustrate how all lives are not treated equally. The examples are not limited to the experiences of African Americans. Some touch on the history of Japanese internment camps, the treatment of Native Americans, and the refusal to accept refugees.

However, this last tweet brings up a great point. People did not feel the need to aggressively stand up for the importance of human life until it was used as a way to dismiss the Black Lives Matter movement.

 

 

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