What in the world was Kathleen McCartney thinking? McCartney, president of Smith College, recently sent out a school-wide email sharing the ridiculous view that “all lives matter.” You’d think that the top administrator in a hotbed of liberalism like Smith would know that some lives matter more than others.
The outage surrounding the email relates to concerns that it would co-opt the widely shared notion that “black lives matter,” popularized by protesters of grand jury decisions not to charge two police officers, one in cases in Missouri, one in New York, in the deaths of unarmed black men. The grievance against McCartney is that her variation on that theme minimized the race angle.
Headlines & Global News provides a portion of the text of McCartney’s mea culpa:
I regret that I was unaware the phrase/hashtag ‘all lives matter’ has been used by some to draw attention away from the focus on institutional violence against Black people. I appreciate the links to articles you sent me to make this point. I found your own words even more helpful.
A cynic might advise protesters to prevent future encroachments by copyrighting the phrase “Black lives matter,” but that would require participating in the capitalist system, which they have already made clear is somehow a catalyst to police brutality against blacks. Two days ago they shut down the Verrazano Bridge during morning rush hour, delaying close to a million commuters, and last Friday they took pride in “occupying” Macy’s in Herald Square and an Apple store.
My only question is whether the lives of black police officers killed in the line of duty matter. Or does the fact that they are members of law enforcement nullify the fact of their being killed? Someone needs to get on this pronto.
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