Identity Politics: The Black Lives Matter Movement

A necessary and common fight for equality has been one that has survived throughout all of man’s existence. Due to recent racial divide and the product of racial profiling, a movement has risen up to combat these common issues. The most recent and most well-covered is the Black Lives Matter Movement. Even though it has been lauded by some media sources and individuals as the next great movement to champion for civil rights, the Black Lives Matter movement is not the same as the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s nor is it likely to be as successful. If the Black Lives Matter Movement continues with discrepancies in ideology, lack of clear leadership, and trends of hate, the movement is doomed to fail.

In August 2014, a young Michael Brown was shot and killed by Darren Wilson. What is

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.

Imagine the idea of living in a society where you are segregated from your peers as a result of the colour of your skin. Envision living in a place that you no longer wish to call home because the people around you are being eradicated left right and center.

According to my text book, civil disobedience is the voluntarily breaking established laws based on one’s moral belief. I strongly believe that civil disobedience is never justified, regardless of the situation. Yes, something might be wrong according to your morals, but laws are in place to prevent chaos. All these events mentioned; war protesters, anti-abortion activist, Civil Rights Movement, Black Lives Matter Movement, Charlottesville, Confederate statues, so on and so forth has created chaos throughout the United States.

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.

According to a Guardian study, young African-American men were nine times more likely to be killed by police enforcement than any other American, which recorded a tally of 1,134 deaths in 2015. After many incidents of innocent black people dying by the hands of police enforcement, America is forced to realize important narrative of race and inequality. The Black Lives Matter movement was formed to combat and expose racism and anti-blackness in the United States. Ever since its birth, many have joined the movement; creating and organizing protests, speaking against anti-blackness. But in contrast, many others have criticized BLM, calling it a “terrorist” organization and a hate group. The Black Lives Matter movement being classified as a terrorist or hate group is a misjudge argument and a malevolent narrative.

After what we heard about the brutality of police officers to the African-American community, Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement started by there strong women, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. The movement first started in 2013, when a police officer brutally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old student in Florida. BLM movement was first started on the social network website Twitter by the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. I heard the whole keynote that was presented by Bobby Vaughn. Actually his last statement had an effect on me “All lives matter, black lives matter, LGBTQ lives matter, muslims lives matter.” It made me realize that it is not only my life or my family’s lives, but also every human being. We need to be treated equally

Determining a new political direction for the entire movement that does not include continuing assimilation would be difficult since so many lesbians/gays/bisexuals (LGB) have already assimilated into the mainstream culture. However, that is exactly what the movement must do. It might seem beneficial to continue to assimilate, but assimilation only serves those who choose to police themselves and others. Even though many within the community have already decided to “integrate,” that does not mean that transgender, queer, and gender-nonconforming people have to as well. Even younger LGB can refuse to accept assimilation.

“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.”

Civil disobedience is a positive impact on free society. The ability to publicly protest without violence must be protected, like not standing for the pledge of allegiance and national anthem. Many people have decided that not standing for the pledge is a solid show of support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Their reasoning behind this is that the pledge does not speak truth anymore. The pledge preaches freedom to all citizens, regardless of colour, and with the racism in today's society, many people feel that America is not really a country of freedom.

The black lives matter movement can be deliberated to be a new social movement as it looks at some of the actions which are grounded by policy making and the ideology as the root of collective action. A procedures that fits into this movement is the Collective Behaviour Theory. The theory refers to the events that emerge suddenly and don’t often conform to the laws or rules but as in alternative which is often base on the issues at hand. For instance the Black Lives Matter movement came together as a community as their collective identity matches one another. (Being African American or loosing someone to police violence) This also fits under ‘Grass-roots’ as it is driven by the ‘locals’ who are often

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.

Is the Black Lives Matter movement good reason? To anwser, this stand torwards race discrimination is justified. This is because the things they go through compared to people who are not ethnic, are much more diffucult. From Brent Staples non-fiction essay, he explains the diffuculties of being a person of color. Even with “a discreet, uniflamatory distance” between him and the citizen, the stranger still fled in fear. That shows the unnessesary emotions directed at black people. During Clint Smiths TED Talk, he addresses as a little boy he couldnt even play outside with his friends without his father fearing the worst. This movement will prove that are precieving this race wrong. It doesnt make logical sense to let societies, citites, America’s,

The twentieth-century tendency to view human love and sexuality within a dichotomized universe of deviance and normality, genitality and platonic love, is alien to the emotions and attitudes of the nineteenth century and fundamentally distorts the nature of