Some thoughts on race, part 1--What does Black Lives Matter mean?

I have a book called How to be a Gentleman. One rule says that unless he's an English teacher, a gentleman does not correct another's grammar.

Well, I AM an English teacher, and I want to observe (not correct, per se) something about grammar.

In the phrase Black Lives Matter, Black is an adjective modifying the noun Lives. Matter is the verb. What about the Lives that are Black? They Matter.

But grammar doesn't necessarily convey the variety of emphases we might want or experience. My son runs the drama club at my school, and he's always telling the young actors to find the word that they want to emphasize--to really hit--in a line.

So, do you emphasize the noun, as if to say that the particular thing (really, person/people) matters? (Go ahead, say it with overemphasis--Black LIVES Matter.)

Almost as if to declare that lives matter...because they haven't as much as they ought. And since you've qualified the thing with black, it's as if to say that those particular lives matter...in ways they might not have previously. Or, do you emphasize the noun lives to say that the thing that matters is the lives? As in, other black things (homes, jobs, cars) matter differently from lives....

Or do you emphasize the verb (Black Lives MATTER), as if to point out something that Black Lives "do" that you--or others--hadn't noticed they do? Or to emphasize that they do that? You know, like, Black Lives Eat, Black Lives Sleep, and Black Lives Matter. Nobody needs reminding that Black Lives Eat, but perhaps the creators of the phrase mean to point out that people may need reminding that besides eating, black lives also matter.

Or do you emphasize the adjective (BLACK Lives Matter), as if to say that a particular kind of life matters?

And, perhaps, that kind of life matters more than other kinds that are not that? The ALL Lives Matter retort apparently answers that last question YES, and is upset about that. Thus, the rejoinder is that ALL lives, not just Black lives, matter...to remind us of the status of "mattering" is for everybody.

But it's not necessarily as simple as that. One could counter that, yes, I'm asserting that specifically black lives matter because to this point they haven't mattered AS MUCH as other lives. I'm asserting that black lives also belong in ALL, where, to this point, they haven't been.

So the different grammatical and expressive emphases load the phrase with different meanings. And your own verbal response to the phrase implies both the meaning you took from the first phrase, and your own reply to THAT meaning. You do elevate one meaning above the others...we all do that. It can't mean everything to you all at once. It might mean everything across a group of people, because each person takes one of the many alternate views, but it won't mean everything equally all at once to an individual.

I suggest that if you want to quickly and emphatically retort that ALL lives matter, you are operating with the "black lives mattering specially, and perhaps greater than non-black lives" definition. As we've seen, that's not the only meaning available. So to assert that's the "real" meaning is to privilege (remember, I think that word is better as a verb) your view against other views of the meaning. I'm confident to say you're privileging your preferred meaning, because I've read, seen and heard plenty of black Americans point out that they are relying on something more like the "black lives matter...though to this point they haven't as much as others" definition,

to which the rejoinder of ALL lives matter really doesn't make sense.

It seems to me that if the phrase were "The lives of black people really matter more than they have to this point," we wouldn't be as confused. There'd be more definitional clarity, and there'd never have been a movement...nobody'd march in a protest under the banner of such a clunky slogan.