In May of 2015, Bill Nye gave a commencement speech at Rutger University where he encouraged graduate students to be involved in lifelong social action pertaining to climate change and racial issues. In hopes to encourage the graduating class to vote in the next election to better the country, Nye states: “The color of our ancestors skin and ultimately my skin and your skin is a consequence of ultraviolet light, of latitude and climate. Despite our recent sad conflicts here in the U.S. there really is no such thing as race. We are all of one species. Each of us as much, much more alike than different. We all come from Africa… We are all going to live and die on the same planet. We have to work together (Svokos, 2015).” After having previously heard Bill Nye speak on a …show more content…
It is the ability of an individual to be able to exert authority in a situation and have an influence on the outcome. An example of a group of people who implement their power are people who work for law enforcement, or police officers. A significant part of the Black Lives Matters movement focuses on the police brutality that blacks have been facing by police officers, who are usually white. In a recent case, Sandra Bland, a 28 year old black woman was found hanging in her jail cell in Waller County, Texas in July of 2015. A video of her arrest shows Sandra Bland being pulled over for failure to use a turn signal to indicate a lane change. The officer asks Bland to step out of her vehicle and when she refuses he opens the side door and threatens to use a taser on her. The officer then pins her down to the ground and slams her head into the ground. Bland’s autopsy results showed that there was severe bruising to her back as if someone had pressed their knees against it (Sanchez, 1). Unfortunately, there have been many situations just like Bland’s, where it is common police officers use their power to give unfair and cruel punishments towards people of
Black Lives Matter movement was began by three African-American women by the names of Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza began in response to seventeen year old Trayvon Martin’s murder, resulting in the accused, George Zimmerman being acquitted in July 2013, and to add insult to injury, by many, Trayvon Martin appeared to have been put on trial for his own murder by being portrayed as the aggressor leading the jury to believe this resulted in his death.
"Five police officers died and seven were injured," because of the protest of Black Lives Matter. The United States is becoming a divided country because of racial issues. This country has been dealing with racism ever since 1776; when America became a country.
Amber Stockton’s topic # 1 Demonizing of law enforcement would be opposed by the Black Lives Matters Movement, supporters of the movement and knowledgeable African Americans too because the thesis statement asks a question that is argumentative and debatable. The opposition would know that the writer is not informed on the topic and has made a claim based off of what she believes the Slogan means rather than doing research to provide a logical reason for taking her stance. It is acceptable for the writer to take this type of stance, however the reason for taking it needs to be stated and supported with evidence. However, the thesis does state her opinion or claim and provides the audience with her stance on the topic. I would not refute the opposition because my position is with the opposition.
Much of the time when I take a class in Sociology there is always a point in time where I begin to consider how I can apply what I learn to my life in a professional setting. Although I’m not entirely sure what I would like to pursue as a professional career, all I know is that I want to improve the justice system. I know alone, I cannot construct change on a large scale, but what I can do, is start at home and make minor alterations, maybe those tiny shifts could trigger change on a national scale. The reading assignments on the Black Lives Matter unit was one of the issues that motivated me into wanting to take action. It astonishes me when almost every day there is new news about police brutality in our country. Instead of protecting, an
“We are outraged and heartbroken over today’s verdict,” said Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the N.A.A.C.P. “We stand with Trayvon’s family and we are called to act. We will pursue civil rights charges with the Department of Justice, we will continue to fight for the removal of Stand Your Ground laws in every state and we will not rest until racial profiling in all its form is outlawed.”
In the United States, there has been many cases of Racial injustice. From the beginning of the start of the United States of America it was the injustice to the Native Americans being captured and used for slave labor while their bison be slaughtered for sportsmanship. But this paper is on the specific race of the African Americans. There are many races that have been racially profiled and ostracized by the English people. But the treatment that African Americans have endured even till this day is disheartening. African Americans have gone through enslavement during the early 1600’s to the mid 1800’s. Then the African Americans were obstructed by the Jim Crow laws creating the ‘Separate but Equal” propaganda during the late 1800’s into the 1960’s. After the abolishment of the Jim Crow Laws, people were considered equal until the recent actions of many police officers using deadly force on African American youths in the early 2000’s.
I am sure that you have learned through your research efforts that the Black Lives Matter movement gained its notoriety as a result of the 2014 police shooting of an unarmed African-American 18 year old in Ferguson, Missouri, including other incidents that concerning the fatalities of African-Americans throughout encounters with law enforcement officers. According to Horowitz and Livingston (2016), approximately four out of ten Americans support this particular movement. Almost one in five Americans dispute it and roughly 30% claimed they did not have an opinion on the issue or were unaware about the Black Lives Matter movement. In any case, support for the cause among African-Americans remains high at 65%, plus 41% who firmly support it; while
The killings of African Americans by police officers is an outrage they are here to protect and serve not hurt, harm, or kill. According to Mapping Police Violence. Com in 2015 37% of unarmed people killed by police were black. I believe that the police are being paid to protect, but they are doing the opposite. It is true that all lives matter but at the same time the only lives that are being affected are the black lives. I believe that there is a lot of racial injustice in the world and ethnic profiling, judging people because of the color of their skin is just wrong. The overall killings of unarmed people that are African Americans are racial injustice and must stop.
This article is looking at the case of gun shooting in Charlotte, The United States which makes Black Lives Matter step in. Black Lives Matter is a movement which rising up at this very moment. This movement is basically about the discrimination of race. Yet humans are equal with no discrimination. And every human in this word are having the thing called human right without looking at their religion, race, skin color, or another status. It stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or UDHR, article 2. But then, the shooting of Keith Scott, who was waiting for his child’s bus to arrive, by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department or CMPD make the society become cautious. The shooting become a violation of the human right because
A young man’s brutal death at the hands of the police is found justified in a court of law due to his “suspicious” appearance: a black hoodie and his hands in his pocket. An elderly woman is fatally shot in her home for her relation to a suspected criminal. A married man with two toddlers is choked to death after a minor traffic stop by an officer who later claimed that his unarmed victim was wielding a gun. These people all have a few commonalities: the color of their skin, their presumed guilt at first sight, and their ultimate unjustified death administered by the law force. These are not uncommon occurrences. Due to the staggeringly disproportionate rate of African-Americans killed by the police, and the underlying rampant racial profiling, police brutality towards blacks in America must be called to light.
Excessive force and police brutality have become common terms for anyone keeping up with today’s current events. In 2014, the media covered numerous cases of excessive force that resulted in the deaths of several people of color (Nelson & Staff, 2014). The most widely covered cases by the media in 2014 were of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black male shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri; and Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black male in Staten Island, New York who was put into a choke by police officer Daniel Pantaleo until he lost consciousness and stopped breathing (Nelson & Staff, 2014). These cases brought attention to the seriousness of police brutality and the curiosity of how often it occurs (Brown, 2015).
Black Lives Matter is a movement against violence and systemic racism toward black people. At least 102 unarmed black people were killed by cops in 2015. In the essay by Brent Staples, he explains in one of his paragraphs, that he knew a black journalist that was working on a story on a murderer. While the journalist was in his car, cops came to him at gunpoint thinking that ha was the murderer. This is what Brent wrote,” I never fared as badly as another black male journalist. He went to nearby Waukegan, Illinois, a couple of summers ago to work on a story about a murderer who was born there. Mistaking the reporter for the killer, police officers hauled him from his car at gunpoint and for his press credentials would probably have tried
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.
We often connect ourselves to the world through our appearances. One of the first characteristics we notice about another human is the color of their skin. It is unavoidable, as the largest organ of the body, it covers and highlights our individual features and forms a protective wall against the elements. There is no escape from the social repercussions our pigmentation causes no matter what range of the very broad spectrum of color we fall into. I have never thought so much about the genetic and social evolution of skin and its properties until I read Nina Jablonski’s Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color. This book encompasses, in great detail, how our skin has evolved, adapted and mutated throughout time and in what
There has been much unrest in the United States over racism. A harsh is drawn in the sand between the two groups. On one side there is the Black Lives Matter movement, which is using radical protest to spark change in the way that African Americans are treated. On the other, there are people who refuse to believe that racism is a problem in America. In my opinion both sides are part of the problem. In order for there to be change both sides need to find some common ground to unite on to solve or to improve the situation.