The Problem With 'Blue Lives Matter'

Recently, in a dramatic display of political theater, black students at Dartmouth College tore down a Blue Lives Matter display set up by campus Republicans and "reclaimed" the space for the Black Lives Matter movement.

The knee-jerk reaction to this story is to scream about censorship and the death of classical liberalism on the college campus, and I get that. But I can also sympathize with these black students in a big way.

The “Blue Lives Matter” reaction to Black Lives Matter is more than just a political response to some of the overblown anti-police rhetoric we’ve heard lately. It is, as these students realize, an attempt to co-opt and obfuscate the message of Black Lives Matter, which is that the gunning down of unarmed teenagers in city streets is an occasion for outrage and a national conversation about police tactics and the value we place on the lives of young black men.

“Blue Lives Matter” steers the narrative away from this and plays into conservative notions of Black Lives Matter “really” being about justifying criminality, breaking down police, law & order and, ultimately, the safety of white people. (See the recent right-wing media—Breitbart, etc.—reactions to the Section 8 policies of Julian Castro, framed as an attempt to flood the suburbs with poor nonwhites.)

The Dartmouth students’ need to “reclaim space” and the belief that Blue Lives Matter “facilitates the erasure of black lives” can be understood in the context of a whole host of passive-aggressive narratives circulating today that seek to minimize, trivialize or turn the conversation away from the historical concerns of black people. Replace “slavery” with “state’s rights.” Replace “protest” with “political correctness.” Replace “black” with any of several once-disadvantaged European ethnic groups (ignoring the historical reality of white privilege and white economic mobility). Replace “black” with “blue.”