Valerie Fu / Daily Nexus

A huge uproar has been recorded among America’s racist uncles, as their battle cry for the last decade has been turned upside down. In 2013, the “Black Lives Matter” movement spread rapidly across the country, gaining widespread support, condemnation and general attention to the inequalities Black Americans face throughout the country. Yet “All Lives Matter” was the response from the collective “free-thinking” hivemind of 65-year-old white uncles. After all, Thomas Jefferson said that all men are created equal, not just Black people. Ignoring the fact that this rationale completely misses the point of the movement, it is also false, as anyone with a bad roommate would know that some lives matter just a bit less than others.

Yet it took just one 17-year-old niece to shatter the mantra. As the conversation turned toward politics due to Black History Month, she said unto her uncle, “Hey Leonard, if all lives matter, that means Black lives matter too, doesn’t it?” 

Leonard, a man who decries participation trophies (despite wearing a “Vietnam Veteran” hat) paused for a few moments. His eyes went blank as he stared into the distance, then were suddenly filled with a fiery rage as he opened his mouth to speak. But instead of a speech to rival the most fervent Southern minister, only air escaped. He then grew despondent, lowering his gaze to his half-eaten plate of beans as the corners of his mouth turned down and tears began to fill his eyes. Leonard excused himself from the table.

The news of Leonard’s rhetorical defeat and subsequent pilgrimage to the Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid in Memphis to cleanse his soul spread quickly, as uppity young folk began pointing out this fact to over 65 million uncles across the nation. The reaction to the campaign was fairly uniform, with most reacting as Leonard did. Some reacted more aggressively, loudly declaring that minority groups already had it good enough in “their country” and “should be grateful,” which prompted many long-winded and universally useless discussions into the many implications of that line of reason. Others chose to take the opposite approach, forming several anarchist groups to combat racism, all of which claimed the others were illegitimate splinter groups.

Ultimately, very few minds, in a relative sense, were changed for the better. But every cloud has a silver lining, and this one is no different. Young folks, by virtue of being young, grow old and replace the current generation of old folks who go to live on the farm with your childhood dog and that one toy you lost. So, in 30 years, the generation of uncles could be complaining about how, back in their day, there were only two world wars and humans generally had two eyes, as their nieces and nephews roll all three of their eyes and continue on eating.

Marcus T.C. is currently in the streets of Santa Barbara crashing family dinners as a “long lost relative” and starting heinous arguments.