TORONTO -- America wasnât 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 .
By mid-morning, the hashtag had reached the top of Twitterâs 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 Americaâs day of independence? The hashtag is a not-so veiled parody of the âAll Lives Matterâ slogan, which some people have used in response to the âBlack Lives Matterâ movement.
The âAll Lives Matterâ phrase has been widely criticized as diminishing the significance and drawing attention away from the âBlack Lives Matterâ campaign.
Beverly Tatum, a psychologist, former Spelman College president, and author of the books âCan We Talk About Race?â and âWhy Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?â recently explained the problem with using the phrase âAll Lives Matter.â
âThose who say âall lives matterâ may be interpreting âonly black lives matter,â which isnât the case,â she explained to CNN in June. âWhen someone says âall lives matterâ without acknowledging the movement, they're ignoring the anti-Black racism that there are so many examples of regarding police interactions.â
As racial tensions continue to simmer in the U.S., supporters of the Black Lives Movement and anti-racism protests voiced their disapproval of âAll Lives Matterâ by using the hashtag #AllCountriesMatter on the July Fourth holiday.
The hashtagâs 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 âAll Lives Matter,â many Twitter users also wished America a happy birthday in their posts.