If there was a pithy way to summarise the damaging identity politics myth, it would be with the anti-Black Lives Matter slogan, ‘All Lives Matter’. Like the heavily memed ‘economic anxiety’ trope, ‘All Lives Matter’ has become facetious shorthand, an eye-roll, calling out logic that swerves the issue by using whataboutery. This is the tool of universalism. It sidesteps specific concerns by dismissing them as special treatment tantrums, thus avoiding engaging with, or invalidating them. ‘All Lives Matter’ does not only suggest that black lives are not lost more brutally and more frequently than
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