
Ask HN: Was Mark Zuckerberg wrong to call All Lives Matter employees malicious? - alllivesmatter
<i>I&#x27;m posting this from a throwaway account because of the stigma and taboo of having non-mainstream opinions toward sensitive topics like diversity.  Obviously I agree that many aspects of diversity are underrepresented in the tech world: diversity by race, gender, age, culture, and even geography.</i><p>Given his position, Zuck&#x27;s response is understandable, but at the same time I find it distasteful to refer to employees writing &quot;All Lives Matter&quot; as &quot;malicious&quot;.  What they are saying is valid and accurate.  I do not see it as insulting at all, but rather a broadening of the statement to be fully encompassing and supporting of all people (isn&#x27;t that what embracing diversity is really about?!).<p>It&#x27;s hard to understand being lashed out against for arguing that all people matter equally.<p>For context, see this recent post:<p>&quot;Zuckerberg Asks Employees to Stop Crossing Out “Black Lives Matter” at FB HQ (techcrunch.com)&quot;<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=11176467
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kafkaesq
First, I hope no one flags this question again but it's both (1) relevant to
the mission statement of HN, and (2) perfectly civil.

That said -- "malicious" might not have been the best word for him to use.
Even though one is offended by (otherwise sees harm in) the actions of others,
one shouldn't always presume _malice_. You do have a point there.

But otherwise -- and more importantly -- look, you need to realize that,
basically the ALM movement is pretty darn insensitive and clueless. The main
reason people take offense at the ALM slogan is that it seems belittling of
the (very serious, and more to the point, _seriously unequal_ ) threats to
their physical safety that blacks (and other minority groups) have to deal
with on a daily basis.

As the other poster so eloquently put it -- yes, some people _do_ have more
right to complain. It's just the way the world is, at present. If you don't
like this state of affairs... either (1) try to do something about the
underlying phenomena which _causes_ these people to complain more in the first
place, or (2) at least lift your head up, and recognize that however
imperfectly stated, their complaints _are not about you_ , and as such, in no
way meant to be something you should get offended about.

So in sum, yes, the ALM slogan isn't necessarily malicious, per se. But it is
clueless and juvenile.

~~~
bobby_9x
"The main reason people take offense at the ALM slogan is that it seems
belittling of the (very serious, and more to the point, seriously unequal)
threats to their physical safety that blacks (and other minority groups) have
to deal with on a daily basis."

Do you have proof of this? The few cases we see in the media nearly all
involved criminals fighting or antagonizing the police.

I have yet to see a case where a minority was minding their own business and
the cops came and decided to shoot them dead.

The real issue is minority -> minority homicide rates. It's astronomical
compared to pretty much any other statistic. Yet, it's not hip or cool to talk
about.

The main problem I see is that all of these groups are separating us even more
by race, to gain power.

Just look at all of these groups on college campuses that only allow
minorities to participate (whites need not apply).

It's the exact same type of racist bullshit that happened during the 50s and
60s in this country, but because the shoe is on the other foot, it's somehow
justified.

All lives do matter. Until we can accept this, we will never have equality.

~~~
kafkaesq
_I have yet to see a case where a minority was minding their own business and
the cops came and decided to shoot them dead._

What usually happens is they see some guy minding his own business. And then
panic because he's, you know, black.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
bobby_9x has a point, though. If black lives matter, they matter whether the
black was shot by a cop or by a criminal.

~~~
kafkaesq
The bigger points that when people put the "Black Lives Matter" slogan, they
do so out of perfectly well-meaning intentions.

And scribbling over it is just inflammatory and childish.

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AnimalMuppet
All lives matter. This is clearly true, and goes back at least to Jefferson.
("We hold these truths to be self-evident...")

Black Lives Matter is saying something else, however. _In practice, out on the
street,_ blacks are dying far more frequently than whites. While we can argue
about the causes of that[1], there is still a problem that is worth calling
attention to. Replying that "all lives matter" is true, but is also diverting
attention from the horrific body count, which makes it somewhat less likely
that anything useful will be done.

[1] I have heard that, if you adjust for severity of the interaction with the
police, blacks are shot _less_ frequently per severe encounter. ("Severity"
means "a murder bust is more likely to go bad than a traffic ticket".) I
cannot cite a reference for this at the moment, however.

~~~
tedmiston
> blacks are shot less frequently per severe encounter

This sounds like another way of arguing that racial profiling is real.

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detaro
> _I find it distasteful to refer to employees writing "All Lives Matter" as
> "malicious"_

I parsed it as being about crossing out a message, not about writing another
one. Not "you are malicious because you write a broader statement/remind
people of a more encompassing position", but "you are malicious because you
crossed out others speech, after we've told you we consider that as silencing
others and that is not OK". There is a difference there, and it is quite
carefully worded to limit the scope. (really, better than anything I would
have expected from Facebook)

Now, I have no clue how the general conduct regarding those walls is and what
happened before Zuckerberg's message, so it's hard to put it into precise
context.

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kup0
"All Lives Matter" is just another way of saying "But what about me?". It's
incredibly selfish and dismissive. It's a way for us to make it about
ourselves instead of those being affected.

It's "blacklivesmatter" not "onlyblacklivesmatter", I don't know why people
keep interpreting it as the latter. "blacklivesmatter" doesn't imply that all
lives don't.

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dragonbonheur
Imagine that you’re sitting down to dinner with your family, and while
everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don’t get any. So you say “I
should get my fair share.” And as a direct response to this, your dad corrects
you, saying, “everyone should get their fair share.” Now, that’s a wonderful
sentiment — indeed, everyone should, and that was kinda your point in the
first place: that you should be a part of everyone, and you should get your
fair share also. However, dad’s smart-ass comment just dismissed you and
didn’t solve the problem that you still haven’t gotten any!

The problem is that the statement “I should get my fair share” had an implicit
“too” at the end: “I should get my fair share, too, just like everyone else.”
But your dad’s response treated your statement as though you meant “only I
should get my fair share”, which clearly was not your intention. As a result,
his statement that “everyone should get their fair share,” while true, only
served to ignore the problem you were trying to point out.

That’s the situation of the “black lives matter” movement. Culture, laws, the
arts, religion, and everyone else repeatedly suggest that all lives should
matter. Clearly, that message already abounds in our society.

The problem is that, in practice, the world doesn’t work that way. You see the
film Nightcrawler? You know the part where Renee Russo tells Jake Gyllenhal
that she doesn’t want footage of a black or latino person dying, she wants
news stories about affluent white people being killed? That’s not made up out
of whole cloth — there is a news bias toward stories that the majority of the
audience (who are white) can identify with. So when a young black man gets
killed (prior to the recent police shootings), it’s generally not considered
“news”, while a middle-aged white woman being killed is treated as news. And
to a large degree, that is accurate — young black men are killed in
significantly disproportionate numbers, which is why we don’t treat it as
anything new. But the result is that, societally, we don’t pay as much
attention to certain people’s deaths as we do to others. So, currently, we
don’t treat all lives as though they matter equally.

Just like asking dad for your fair share, the phrase “black lives matter” also
has an implicit “too” at the end: it’s saying that black lives should also
matter. But responding to this by saying “all lives matter” is willfully going
back to ignoring the problem. It’s a way of dismissing the statement by
falsely suggesting that it means “only black lives matter,” when that is
obviously not the case. And so saying “all lives matter” as a direct response
to “black lives matter” is essentially saying that we should just go back to
ignoring the problem.

From
[https://np.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3du1qm/el...](https://np.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3du1qm/eli5_why_is_it_so_controversial_when_someone_says/ct8pei1)

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lightlyused
His business, his rules. He is right on this one.

