Black Lives Matter: The Purpose Of The Civil Rights Movement

For the past few years, racial tensions have been on the rise. Although many actions have been taken to prevent these conflicts from occurring, African Americans are still being undervalued by the state. As more African Americans are being turned away with little to no assistance from the American government, anger and the desire for change increased among them. When Trayvon Martin’s murderer George Zimmerman was acquitted for his crime, a great number of Americans were furious at the outcome. Three African American women named Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi expressed their view on a Facebook post titled “A Love Note to Black People” and it ends with “Our Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter” (“Black Lives Matter”). Thus, a new liberation movement for black people was born. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter rapidly spread throughout social media, bringing awareness of the struggles of African Americans. The Black Lives Matter movement is a call to action to eradicate the dehumanization of African Americans that exists in American society. With the constant targeting of African Americans by the police and the unfair treatment in the criminal justice system, the Black Lives Matter movement is a necessity to combat racism.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s effective policy of non-violence. Furthermore, the “Black Lives Matter” movement’s disruptive protest and impassionate public mission statement speeches about the persistent purpose of racial inequality have been disconcerting to many Americans who wonder what the real message for this new generation of civil rights protests are, and if their arguments, tactics, and cause is effective and productive to inciting change. To many times their stances have appeared contradictory and hate filled because of their lack of specific purpose and a central governing body. Responding to this criticism, Black Lives Matter leaders assert this is, “not your grandfather’s civil-rights movement,” to distinguish its tactics and its philosophy from those of nineteen-sixties-style activism. However, despite insinuating they are not typical of older civil rights movements they frequently allude to past civil rights

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a loosely‐coordinated, nationwide movement dedicated to ending police brutality that rose to prominence in late 2014. It takes its name from a hashtag started by three Black feminist activists Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi but the movement and the hashtag are not identical (Freelon, McIlwain, & Clark, 2016). BLM has achieved national reputation through their online and offline organizing, obtaining extensive news media coverage and glowing references in music and entertainment television. Based on a horrendous incident that sparked a concern for a lot of Black people across the world, the sudden need for a social movement was born called BLM. Black Lives Matter is a national organization working for the validity of Black life and also working to rebuild the Black liberation movement. Black Lives Matter broadens the conversation and highlight the incidents around state violence to include the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. This referring to the ways in which Black lives are deprived of basic human rights and dignity. According to the article The Murder of Walter Scott, which talks about race and class, “African Americans are less than 13% of the U.S. population yet they are nearly 50% of those killed by the police. North Charleston has a population of 104,000, 47% Black and the police force is 80% white (Miah, 2015)”.

With blacks being stopped more than half of the time, and Latinos being stopped around 30 percent, its clear why these groups along with other minority groups feel they are being singled out and picked on; in fact, Mayor Bill de Blasio even made a public apology for the policy’s negative impact after the New York Times (2014) claimed that Judge Shira A. Scheindlin described it as “a policy of indirect racial profiling.” It’s reasons like these that encourage people to believe this tactic is inherently corrupt. If police officers are not using clear logic and reasonable suspicion when stopping individuals, it can create a major separation between our law enforcement agents and society and allow for noble cause corruption. While this policy has the ability to create major distrust and dislike for the cops, however, it can also have a very positive impact as well. For example, if officers continue to improve the accuracy of their stops and become more successful in taking weapons off the streets and deterring crime, their communities should begin to back them and also this

In Baltimore, African-Americans are subjected to scrutiny by police officers and a study developed by the justice department demonstrates that “BPD officers made 520 stops for every 1,000 black residents in Baltimore, but only 180 stops for every 1,000 Caucasian residents,” (Ajaka et al., 2016).

Many researchers have conducted numerous studies analyzing the police interactions and arrest records of African Americans to see if there is a discernible disparity between the number of African Americans and Caucasians arrested. Studies conducted by researchers has led to the disclosure of many out of important stats including on which states that African Americans believe police do a poor job of handling their fellow officers accountable for misconduct and treatment of racial and ethnic groups equally (CQ Researcher,373). Addition research has shown that 57 percent of African Americans believe police use excessive force when detaining suspects while only 25 percent of white

Intro: This movement was created by three black community organizers which were Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi (Black lives matter). The BLM has drawn inspiratition from past and present civil rights movements such as the African American Civil Rights Movement, Black Empowerment, and LGBT social movements (The guardian).

Several things prove just how much of a problem this is. Racial minorities make up about 37.4% of the general population in the US. On the other hand, the make up 62.7% of unarmed people killed by the police. African-Americans are much more likely to be arrested for drugs, even though they're not more likely to use or sell them (German Lopez). A project was done, called 'The Sentencing Project' that concluded that "throughout various time periods in the past few decades, the higher crime rates in African-American communities only explained about 61-80% of African-Americans overrepresentation in prisons.” (The Sentencing Project) This means that up to 39% of imprisonment is up to other factors, potentially, racial bias or past criminal records influencing a prison sentence. If things continue to go this way, 1 in four African-American males born today can expect to spend time in prison during their lifetime (Bernie Sanders). If we don’t address this issue, it just communicates to police that minorities are a safe target for abuse. In central New Jersey, for example, 99% of police brutality complaints are never investigated. In Chicago, there were 10,000 abuse complaints filed against the Chicago PD between a short period of time, and only 19 of them “resulted in meaningful disciplinary action.” Meanwhile in Ferguson, where the white policeman, who shot an unarmed black man, was exonerated by

Everywhere on the media, African Americans are losing their lives seemingly due to the complexion of their skin. And each time, it seems unjust verdicts are placed on the police officers responsible for the turmoil. In response to these killings and verdicts, the Black Lives Matter movement rallies in opposition. Though they opt for justice, the Black Lives Matter movement is ineffective because its approach is too aggressive. (Barbara Reynolds, “I Was a Civil Rights Activist in the 1960’s, but it’s Hard for Me to get Behind Black Lives Matter.”)

Racism exists in our American justice system… many years later. Many assume that racial profiling is a problem that just arose recently, due to multiple infamous incidents where “justice” was served to innocent victims. Most people have this assumption because the extremes of racial profiling has been making national headlines. When in fact racial profiling has been around and in use since the 1700s. By definition racial profiling is the use of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or national origin by law enforcement agents as a factor in deciding whom to investigate, arrest or detain absent evidence of a specific crime or criminal behavior. In other terms it is using racism and stereotypes to assume the worst of people. Racial profiling is executed by law enforcements by multiple tactics, such as a stop and frisk , vehicle or bag search search, a pat down, etc based on the police having a reasonable suspicion that the individual is going to commit or has already committed a crime whether it is a felony or misdemeanor. Racial profiling has destroyed our trust in police officers due to the fact that the law enforcements can use this to their advantage by using discrimination to interrogate citizens or immigrants, whom are by a large percentage African American or a minority. According to the U.S Bureau of Justice Statistics, African American males have a one-in-three chance of going to jail in their lifetime, a rate more than six times higher than whites (Knafo,2013). This statistic however is not based on crime rates yet based on illegal drug offenses. Although most african americans are incarcerated due to drug crimes it is a proven statistic that African Americans are ten times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes than the rate of white men.

In recent years’ police departments have been brought into the public eye based on the public belief that police brutality has become a norm within the police system in recent years. Yet this has occurred for decades in police departments, not only that but there are multiple forms of brutality to take account of in the criminal justice system specifically towards African-Americans. The criminal justice system has become accustomed to creating a system of racial control after the ending of the Jim Crow Era. Causing every level of the system to work in a way that limits the freedom of African-Americans the most common being that of police misusing

As a child, growing up you are taught that in America everyone regardless of race has certain civil liberties and freedoms that many of our ancestors fought for and paid with their lives. But as you age and grow wiser, you face the fact that many of us are still discriminated tormented and even killed because of their race.You come to the realization that black people today are not truly free. The Black Lives Matter organization has proved to the nation that black people are far from true equality and freedom. They fight against the institutionalized racism and oppression of black people that continues to plague our society today by speaking out and protesting against the cruel ways Black people continue to be treated. The movement breaks the

For decades black Americans have been treated as animals, looked at as if they are monsters, and killed like bugs. Actions like Police brutality and racism is what caused Black Lives Matter. The creation of the Black Lives Matter was a response by the black community to give a voice to black Americans affected by the increase of wrongful deaths due to the law enforcements and vigilantes across the country. This has been going on for so long that it seems like we are stuck in the past. For years, even decades black Americans have had to live the struggle of being equal. Even when things are going good and we think we finally have the same rights, something happened to change that. It is time to shed a light on the real purpose of Black Lives Matter and why they are important to today's society.

The Black Lives Matter movement has created a police reform on the policy agenda and made society rethink about how it values African Americans lives. The movement was created to transform America’s systemic hatred against African Americans. According to the website, the movement is a chapter-based national organization working for the validity of Black life. We are working to (rebuild the Black liberation movement. In “A Vision For Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom, and Justice several reparations were mentioned to help advance African Americans lives in society. The reparations were included to discuss changes to current policies that seemed unjust. By free education, forgiving student loans, ending housing discrimination,

The Black Lives Matter movement has swept across America. It 's branched out with chapters in over 31 cities and held rallies and boycotts across the United States(Sidner). The Black Lives Matter movement started with the outrage of the death of a young man. It continues to take over headlines and raise awareness on police brutality and inequality. However, the movement has met resistance from the All Lives Matter group. This group thinks that Black Lives Matter is a movement to express hatred towards other races. However, statistics, the views of fellow citizens, and the overall purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement, can prove that the movement wasn 't meant to express hate on other races and that we need to support the movement instead of going against it.