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‘All Lives Matter’: Jess Glynne Reignites Twitter War Over Controversial Tweet

By David Cornell
Published on: 03:27 PST, Jul 7, 2016

“All Lives Matter” is one of the most controversial and misunderstood phrases on the internet today. Taken out of context, it is perfectly true. Everybody everywhere, regardless of their skin color, gender, or religion, matters. Unfortunately, social media activists take offense to it because of a string of deaths involving white police officers and unarmed members of the black community.

To them, it isn’t a phrase taken at face value. To them, it is a proverbial slap in the face after the time their ancestors spent in slavery.

It all started when George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, who thought he was a criminal just because he was a black person wearing a hoodie. Trayvon just happened to be walking where Zimmerman thought he shouldn’t, and when confronted, the victim defended himself and was shot dead.

Two years later, Michael Brown was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. It had become a disturbing trend for white officers to shoot and kill unarmed black men, and then Sandra Bland was the beginning of another string of deaths involving black women behind bars.

To the black community, who had been witnessing these events in the news over and over, something needed to be done. They formed an activist group called Black Lives Matter to bring awareness to these killings, and when white people began countering it with the phrase “all lives matter,” it sparked outrage.

According to NME, singer Jess Glynne, known for her crooning of the songs “Hold My Hand” and “Take Me Home,” is now under fire for rekindling the hate by using the phrase “all lives matter.” Her intentions with the phrase probably weren’t meant to offend, but it did. She was responding to the recent deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile within the same week. They were members of the black community gunned down by white police officers, and she attempted to offer support, but her intentions backfired.

Glynne’s said, “We are all humans and we all deserve a right to live … No one NO ONE has the right to take that from you. To the policemen who think they can do what they want cause they have a badge … You are truly sick.”

She followed it up with the #AllLivesMatter hashtag, contradicting what she had just said in the eyes of the black community and those supporting them.

Jess Glynne lost some fans when they read too much into the phrase, claiming she was attempting to undermine a movement that was bringing awareness to a problem with police. She hadn’t meant to do so, but that’s how several people took it. Those fans weren’t just black either, as several were white and understood the struggle involved with the movement.

The basic message they are trying to get across to Glynne is that yes, all lives matter, but for now, we are focusing on the black ones because they seem to be popular targets for officers.

[Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images]

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