Pictured: a DCSS dev telling me how it is.
A handful of people (and their sockpuppet alts) have given me grief about having the phrase "white lives matter" on this website. It is meant as a rhetorical jab. It is a reference to the Reddit thread wherein I was banned from /r/dcss. In it, I asked for clarification on the tournament rules - I wanted to know if politics were allowed in team names, as there was a team named BLACK LIVES MATTER. My question concerned the hypothetical team name: "White Lives Matter." Would that be allowed? Instead of addressing my question, I was insulted and banned.
People have used the presence of this phrase on my website as an argument that I am a white supremacist. Well, I'm not. But since it has been brought up, let's talk about the phrase itself.
The ADL claims that "white lives matter" is a phrase that is inherently white supremacist. At the time of this writing, Wikipedia claims that "The White Lives Matter movement was formed by several white supremacist groups, including the Aryan Renaissance Society and the Traditionalist Worker Party."
I reject all of this nonsense.
I reject the notion that I'm supposed to care about what a couple of "white supremacist groups" (that I've never even heard of) are saying. I reject the notion that they get to control language like this. And above all else, I reject inconsistency.
At the same time that I'm told that it's unacceptable to say that white lives matter, I'm also told that I cannot criticize "black lives matter" because the phrase merely means what it says - that black lives matter. I am supposed to ignore the fact that there are political organizations with the name "black lives matter." I am supposed to ignore the fact that they have endorsed actual political candidates. I am supposed to ignore the fact that they have organized what I would characterize as riots, and I am supposed to ignore the fact that they have misappropriated donations and directed them toward the purchase of absurd, garish McMansions. Finally, I am supposed to ignore the fact that these funds were raised with the help and direction of violent left-wing terrorists who would still be in prison today if not for a presidential pardon.
But: of course black lives matter, don't they? Well, I - Malcolm Rose - am a person who believes that they do. And I also believe that white lives matter. To me, these are all asinine platitudes - but they're also accurate. In short: anybody telling you that I'm some kind of white supremacist is lying to you.