A unidentified law professor at an unidentified law school is receiving praise for schooling their students on everything that’s right about Black Lives Matter.  A first-year student’s initial criticisms of the professor wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt to lecture resulted in the professor boiling down their entire argument into a “premise” and “critique” breakdown. Photos of the initial complaint and the professor’s response – with identifying information redacted – can be found on imgur. We’ve included excerpts below.

Premise: There is an invisible ‘only’ in front of the words ‘Black Lives Matter.’

Critique: There is a difference between focus and exclusion. If something matters, this does not imply that nothing else does. If I say ‘Law Students Matter’ it does not imply that my colleagues, friends, and family do not. Here is something that matters: context. The Black Lives Matter movement arose in a context of evidence that they don’t. When people are receiving messages from a culture in which they live that their lives are less important than other lives, it is a cruel distortion of reality to scold them for not being inclusive enough[…]

As a general matter, seeing the world and the people in it in mutually exclusive, either/or terms impedes your own thought processes. If you wish to bear that intellectual consequence of a constricting ideology, that’s your decision. But this does not entitle you to project your either/or ideology onto people who do not share it.

In its entirety, the argument breaks down pretty much everything Black Lives Matter opponents try and cite either on their social media accounts, on television screens or, for the brave ones, to your face. In case you ever felt like you were at a loss for a response, the 6-page letter is definitely worth a read.

 

Photo: Wiki Commons