In recent months, the Black Lives Matter movement has grown in following as outrage against systemic racism and lynchings of people of color (POC) has grown. In retaliation against the movement, another hashtag has risen to popularity: #AllLivesMatter. Normally, this hashtag would be considered positive, but the reasons behind it cause it to be an awful hashtag to use.

According to the official website, The Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) is a “call to action in response to state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism.” Although it is not stated above, BLM also supports Black LGBTQ+ individuals, undocumented people, and women. 

Protests in the name of BLM have been happening all over the country, even in overseas countries such as the UK and France. I recently attended a peaceful protest myself on August 16. 

I, along with a group of about 30 other people marched from the Palatine High School parking lot to the police station. When we arrived, we stood for about three and a half hours crying chants such as “No justice! No peace! No racist police!” and kneeling for eight minutes and forty-six seconds at a time. 

Aside from the occasional racist or Trump supporter flipping us the bird or screaming at us from their cars to “Go home!”, it was one of the most positive and enjoyable experiences of my high school career so far. 

As support for BLM grew and more protests started happening, another tag rose to fame: #AllLivesMatter (#ALM). That sounds like an innocent, positive tag, right? Wrong. This tag is extremely racist and supports white supremacy. 

By supporting ALM, people are supporting the belief that all races, religions, sexualities, genders, and sexes are treated equally. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. When someone yells “All lives matter!” they are also saying that each group of people is in equal danger of discrimination and physical harm because they are part of a certain group. That, again, is not true at all.

A perfect example of this occurred during the week of August 25. A Black man named Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back for attempting to break up a fight, while a white minor named Kyle Rittenhouse was allowed to walk free after murdering two people and injuring multiple others with an illegal AR-15 gun.

We cannot allow any more discrimination against minorities. We can start fixing the system by voting locally for unbiased candidates who will help minorities thrive in America. We must vote out those who will bring us down, starting with Donald Trump, working our way down the ladder. Find out how to register and when to vote here.