In case you haven’t been paying attention, race relations in the United States aren’t so hunky dory these days. In fact, many would argue that they’re more strained than they’ve ever been. 

Despite the swirling delusion held by many that justice prevailed and racism somehow permanently vanished into thin air following the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, this ain’t a magic show. This is reality. And racism is alive and well. It’s on our campuses. It’s in our workplaces. It’s in our homes. And it’s destructive. Racism isn’t just an unsavory and uncomfortable term tossed around social circles and situation rooms. People are dying. In Louisiana. In Minnesota. In Texas. In America. Racism is ravaging this country, its communities and its families.  

While it’s staggering that some refuse to accept the notion of racism as a reality, it’s perhaps even more alarming that those who acknowledge racism as a problem refuse to have an open and honest dialogue about it. We’re lazy. We circumvent the difficulty of addressing racism and prejudice in general by throwing everyone into one big group and saying that everyone “matters.” We try arrogantly to reduce something so systematic and complex into something so conceptually simple and seemingly commonsense. Yes, I’m talking about #AllLivesMatter. 

#AllLivesMatter has become a lethargic and indifferent response to the 2013-spawned #BlackLivesMatter. While many have adopted #BlackLivesMatter as a banner for pride and a rallying cry for the contemporary struggle for equality, even more have chalked it up as inflammatory, backward and narrow-minded in its own right. Within the last week alone, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani claimed the three-word sequence to be racist. But those who relegate #BlackLivesMatter to racist framework don’t understand racism in the first place. 

Enter: #AllLivesMatter.    

#AllLivesMatter sounds appropriately inclusive and practical. But in truth, it’s a slack alternative to actually trying to understand racism. The problem with #AllLivesMatter is that it’s unnecessary and insensitive. We know that white lives matter because the system has never suggested otherwise. As a white male, I’ve always known that my life matters because I’ve never been systematically singled out, targeted or found at the losing end of literally any kind of disparity one can think of. I’ve never felt oppressed. My mother and father never had to give me specific instructions before I left the house because they were in fear I wouldn’t come back to them alive. I’ve never been put in a position to contemplate whether or not the people who were supposed to be protecting me are actually authors of genocide. 

Let me be clear, all lives are valuable and should be treated as such. This is especially important to keep in mind in the aftermath of Dallas and the senseless bloodshed which the vast majority of the black community condemns just as the vast majority of Muslims condemn Islamic State-perpetrated terror. Every person is entitled to basic human decency. But for those who don’t carry the burden of what it is to be in the minority, this simply goes without saying. I’m sure it’s easy to deem something as discriminatory when we look at it so ethnocentrically. But when we forego #BlackLivesMatter or #MuslimLivesMatter, we undermine the struggle for equality.  

As a society, we’ve become so consumed with semantics and politics that we can’t even have compassion for our fallen brothers and sisters. We can’t mourn or make sure the deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Lorne Ahrens, Michael Smith, Brent Thompson, Michael Krol and Patrick Zamarripa are not in vain because we can’t even fundamentally grasp what’s going on. 

Do all lives matter? Absolutely. But if we’re going to have a productive conversation, we need to be diligent, mindful and honest about what this all really means before our world becomes irreparably broken. If we don’t, we will never find a solution. More violence will be wrought, and understanding and innocence will always be the first casualties. 

As cliche as it is, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that there is one to solve, not sweeping it into the corner of the room until the next time it creeps back. We propose solutions before we even understand the root of what’s causing the problem. We need to change our thinking about racism and each other.

After all, how do we ever expect to get something done if we can’t even get past the first step?