Sorry to post over myself so quickly but I need to talk about All Lives Matter and how absolutely disgusting I find them for their manipulative nature that lures people in who don't know better
Let's go back to 2016. I'm not even 11 years old yet and I have internet access for the first time. I'm a little white kid who's none the wiser about the true racial injustices still present in the world, and the only racism I know exists is some assholes out there that truly have no power. In short, I'm the easiest target that isn't racist yet. I can be sucked in and I can have my mind slowly poisoned with prejudice.
The first way ALM sucks you in is by its name. Black lives matter vs All lives matter. On its own, the statement that black lives matter doesn't negate other lives mattering. But when ALM introduces itself, it looks like BLM is claiming that black lives are the only ones that matter. That's how it looked to oblivious baby redtail. They use a nice phrase, that all lives matter, not just black ones, to catch you. Especially if you're white- you feel more included by them. It's a trick but it works.
The next thing they do is they start making up lies. They'll create strawmen of BLM, they'll use the extremists that may not even be real as the faces of the movement, claim BLM hates white people and they all want to kill white people, they paint the whole movement as a hate group. And none of it is true. When you're a smarter person, who understands fallacies and can really understand things, you see these tricks and you don't fall for it.
When you're a ten year old white kid, who has never been online before now and is unaware of systemic racism, you fall for it hook line and sinker.
ALM's next job is to slowly ease you into prejudice by spreading lies that start off not too blatantly bad about the black community. But it just gets worse and worse and the goal, eventually, is to turn people who entered as oblivious into racists.
What got me out, I don't remember, but it may have been some of the more blatant racists that I saw pretty early on before I could be eased into it. Or it might have been BLM supporters talking about how BLM doesn't believe other lives don't matter, they just want to shed light on the lives that are being threatened the most. Perhaps it was a mix of both.
The All Lives Matter movement is deceptive. It's not just for racists because they don't make it blatantly racist. They trap the people who are blind to real racism by seeming like the better group at first glance, by having a kinder name, and spreading misinformation. Then they shape you into someone who's racist, at without even noticing your prejudice at first. They'll use more lies, false evidence, and scare tactics. And it sucks that the people who can't spot their fallacies, and don't realize what they're doing, are kids. Kids who just got online and they don't know any better. Kids who are easy to influence into being racist if done right. Kids who lack the ability to see through fallacies and are likely to fall for them
Little red fell for it.
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They Upon Their Thrones
I am afraid. I stare at my feet as I walk, looking up through the strands of my hair at the people who pass me by. I am on alert, always ready for the danger that lurks in every living, breathing thing. Someone looks at me, and I dare not catch their eye. I am small, I am meek, I am not a concern.
The fear is choking me. Someone is screaming at me; mouth right next to my ear or a mile away, it doesn’t matter. The words are the same, scathing and threatening. They sear into my flesh. They carve into my bones. They are built to hurt, to shatter me and break me apart. I can feel something crack in my chest.
I am in danger. A gun is pointed at my head; at the heads of those around me; at people so far from me I could never hope to reach them; at the world itself. The gun is wielded by someone who wants only violence. It was given to them by those who swore to protect me.
There are chains around my wrists, around my ankles, around my throat. They have bound me to a fate that was never meant for me. A leash is clipped to one of the links, tugging harshly until I choke. I stumble forward, trying to ease the tension, but I am never quick enough to satisfy the one leading me. A tight fist pulling me along, faster and faster until I am sprinting to a place I am not supposed to be.
A scalpel, glinting dangerously in the light, is ready for surgery. The person holding it is smiling down at me, whispering comforts as they slice a line across my forehead. A saw whirs, cutting in a circle around my skull. The top lifts off, revealing my brain. They poke and jab, cutting out all the bits that do not conform to what they want me to be. They are tearing me apart and stitching me back together. I am a puppet filled with rotting organs.
I look around me, and I see people who are different from me. I weep for them, knowing that they will be culled down like the rest. Everyone who is different will be sliced open, bits and pieces replaced until they are the exact same as everyone else. This is what they want.
They. Them. Sitting on thrones of red. They stare down at us, smiling, laughing. They open their mouths and spew poison and vitriol. They hold billions of strings, playing with us as though we are their puppets. This is their game, and they grin with lips stretched far too wide as we destroy ourselves trying to untangle from the wires that have come alive to strangle us.
The sky is pink and blue, white clouds drifting by lazily. A mist is in the air, refracting every beam of light to paint streaks of colour above our heads. The buildings are brown, colours warm and glowing. The ground is old, has been here since the beginning, is what first welcomed the settlers. The air is warm, far too warm, boiling hot. There are people walking around, age having barely touched them, hands grasping straps that are slung over their shoulders.
A woman walks down the street, towards a building so white it is blinding. When she enters, she is greeted by a ring of people. Them. They. Upon their thrones. She stands before them, and she begs. She pleads until her voice is hoarse.
They vomit on the ground in front of her. Monsters crawl up from the bile. Their claws rip into her stomach, opening her up. Red spills out, soaking the ground and covering up the tears on her cheeks. An egg is placed in the open wound, and then she is stitched up.
Up on their thrones, they laugh once again as the woman is dragged up to her feet and forced to walk back onto the street. She collapses to her knees, screaming. She tears into her own belly, spilling her guts onto the pavement. The egg will grow inside of her, entrapping her, and she will watch it hatch. It will join the world and become one of the people that age has barely touched, grasping straps that are slung over its shoulders. It is not one of those people yet, it could never become one, and yet they upon their thrones will force it to be.
They grin and tell her that she should be grateful, she’s been given a gift. She will get to watch this egg hatch, watch it join the world. Will watch it walk into squat buildings and cower in fear as a gun is pressed to its skull. A gun in the hand of a person who wants only violence, given to them by they upon their thrones.
I choke on my fear, grasping it in my hands to try and release the pressure. I can’t breathe, watching everything unfold before me. The woman with her guts on the pavement, forced to birth something given to her by they upon their thrones; the people far too young for the world being littered across the ground, filled with holes and eyes staring blankly upward, killed by they upon their thrones; machines tear into the earth, into that which was here before us, taking all of the pieces that make it what it is, forcing it to mold to what they upon their thrones wish; a wrecking ball swings through the streets, toppling the buildings coloured in brown, rendering them nothing more than rubble to be stepped over and built into something that they upon their thrones desire; the air is captured in giant jars, filled with acid and set ablaze until the sparkling rainbows within are rent to ash, leaving only the air that they upon their thrones want to breathe; the sky is torn to shreds by giant red hands, fingers tipped with claws to peel the sky back and reveal a blank white canvas, just like they upon their thrones. They upon their thrones, who toss oil and garbage into the ocean and light matches next to the dry grass, who crank up the heat until the dome around the world wears thin.
They upon their thrones, who look at all they have done and smile and laugh and spit their vitriol. They who tell us we must thank them for their services, for all they have done, for all they have wrecked and ruined and torn asunder.
The fear is there. It is persistent. It chokes me. I spit and cough, brought to my knees as I try to breathe. I stare at all that has been done, all that have been killed and ruined and destroyed. I stare, and stare.
Something boils within me, burning my stomach. It pushes up through my throat, tearing it raw. It spills from my lips, vicious and hot. It drips to the ground, black as tar. I stare down at it, watching this vicious thing drip from me and spread. It reaches the sky, the air, the ground, the buildings, the children, the woman, the earth. It covers them, this vicious tar. It wraps around them and they take it and make it their own.
They are all people. They are all broken, ruined, destroyed, torn apart by they upon their thrones. They are covered in vicious, boiling tar. They stand tall, stand proud, as white and red monsters crash around them.
There is screaming and shouting. A ferocious thing, congealing together into one. We march, we scream, we show what has been done to us. We burst into that white building and face they upon their thrones. They laugh down at us, and we scream up at them.
The black tar spread, reaching their podium, crawling up their seats, covering their hands and eyes and mouths. We scream, and we show them what they have done to us. We show them the world they have broken at every turn, at the people they have betrayed and killed. They do not care, and we scream louder.
I am full of rage, and I will show them with my teeth and fists.
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