TORONTO -- America wasn’t the only country being celebrated on the Fourth of July as people around the world took to Twitter on Saturday morning to share photos of their own homelands with the hashtag #AllCountriesMatter.
By mid-morning, the hashtag had reached the top of Twitter’s top trending list as more users took part in the effort by sharing beautiful photos of countries other than the U.S.
So, why are Twitter users celebrating other countries on America’s day of independence? The hashtag is a not-so veiled parody of the “All Lives Matter” slogan, which some people have used in response to the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
The “All Lives Matter” phrase has been widely criticized as diminishing the significance and drawing attention away from the “Black Lives Matter” campaign.
Beverly Tatum, a psychologist, former Spelman College president, and author of the books “Can We Talk About Race?” and “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” recently explained the problem with using the phrase “All Lives Matter.”
“Those who say ‘all lives matter’ may be interpreting ‘only black lives matter,’ which isn’t the case,” she explained to CNN in June. “When someone says ‘all lives matter’ without acknowledging the movement, they're ignoring the anti-Black racism that there are so many examples of regarding police interactions.”
As racial tensions continue to simmer in the U.S., supporters of the Black Lives Movement and anti-racism protests voiced their disapproval of “All Lives Matter” by using the hashtag #AllCountriesMatter on the July Fourth holiday.
The hashtag’s inception began at least a month prior when people on social media began talking about using it for the upcoming U.S. holiday.
Even though the #AllCountriesMatter hashtag mocks “All Lives Matter,” many Twitter users also wished America a happy birthday in their posts.
