What happened is that people heard the phrase "black lives matter", and were uncomfortable with the racial specificity. They wanted to _clarify_ it with the true fundamental principle.
Why do black lives matter? Because: All lives matter.
That is a non-racist perspective, and it was attacked viciously because it undercuts a propaganda effort.
> They wanted to _clarify_ it with the true fundamental principle.
I don't think that's an honest portrayal of the actual actions that took place or their motivations. In the context of disproportionate black deaths, mischaracterizing focusing on that specific issue:
1) does not inspire any positive change itself,
2) prevents positive change by demonizing those who are bringing awareness to and proposing solutions to the problem.
Rarely do you see the "all lives matter" crowd calling for increased police accountability; in fact, given their close association with Blue Lives Matter, I believe those who throw the slogan around tend to fight for quite the opposite.
It’s a restatement of the first and most widely-known principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association [1]. I think that is why it resonates with many people.
Those people are then caught off-guard when they use the phrase and find themselves labeled “racist.”
I just don’t see how the vilification of a specific phrasing of a common sentiment moves us forward. To me it feels like playing power games with words.
I think you are forgetting what it was like when the "black lives matter" slogan was first becoming popular. If hadn't already been exposed to it, it was very easy to respond "incorrectly".
For example, here's a case of a Democratic governor, running for president, getting caught by this:
> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
Textually, that can be read as a fancied-up version of "all lives matter". Semantically at the time, it most certainly did not have an everyday lived reality that all people were equal.
At the time, women couldn't vote, Black people could be owned, and all people could be indentured servants, which significantly undermines the "Thomas Jefferson said 'All Lives Matter' almost 250 years ago" argument.
If OP’s point was that Thomas Jefferson said something close to “All Lives Matter” 250 years ago in the Declaration of Independence, therefore it’s not a reaction to “Black Lives Matter” today, it seems most reasonable to examine the contemporaneous context of the original words.
There was no "all lives matter" until there was "black lives matter" and people wanted to say they don't like the message.
People wanted to say they don't like being left out of the message.
Nobody seriously opposed "black lives matter", but noticed that proponents of that phrase got vicious when faced with "all lives matter"; the latter is not a political slogan, but a litmus test for racism.
It is quite dishonest to claim that this phrase is neutral and not a political slogan.