The Black Lives Matter Movement

Sandra Bland, Mike Brown, and Tamir Rice – these are just some of the names of the unarmed Black people whose lives were taken by police officers in the last year. The alarming rate at which young Black men and women are being killed is evidence that their lives are not held with high regard. Police brutality against young Black men and women has been perpetrated at alarming rates. Yet, we have not seen much, if any, consequences or responsibility taken by the policemen committing these crimes. Often times, the families of these young men and women who, because of their race, have been killed by police officers have not seen any justice, instead the names of their loved ones go from headlines to outdated hashtags. Not only do young Black men and women face the chance of being criminalized on the street, but also such targeting begins at a young age in institutions that are typically regarded as “safe places”, such as the classroom. We see evidence of this in the way students are racially profiled and in the growing number of protests that are currently being held on college campuses nationwide. While it may seem as though we live in a post racial society, since overt racism, such as legalized segregation, is a thing of the past, institutionalized racism, a system that distributes opportunities based on the racial hierarchy, still remains and is deeply rooted in our education system, which inhibits any potential academic success by restricting resources and criminalizing

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.

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)”.

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.

The widely popular and controversial Black Lives Matter Movement not only draws attention to police brutality against black bodies, it also expose institutional racism seen within the public school system. Therefore, this movement becomes a valuable opportunity for both teachers and students to discuss race relations in classroom. So, how can classrooms benefit from and contribute to this movement? Studies show that if classrooms actively engage in relevant social issues teachers can improve the quality of instruction and actually maximizes students’ learning experience (Perlstein, 2002). A successful example of a revolution beginning in the classroom happened at the Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School (OCS) established in 1971 (formerly

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.

In 2012, a movement started so called Black Lives Matter. It started after Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted for his crime, and 17-year-old Trayvon was put on trial after his death for his own murder. This movement is a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of black people by police and vigilantes. African-Americans horrible died after being turned away from hospitals reserved for whites. “Black Lives Matter” focuses mainly on the fact that black citizens have long been far more likely than whites to die at the hands of police, as a matter of fact polices have gotten to the point of shooting them to death. It has been going on for years, Negros have been treated like trash, and they have been slaves for years in the early

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.

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

Racism has been around for ages; it’s just something that we can never put in our rearview mirror. Even when we thought that the racial prejudism was over in the 60’s when the Jim Crow laws were lifted, they weren’t. We are now seeing that here within the past few years. It has something to do with “almost 90 percent of white people being bias towards white people instead of black people” (Article 31). The racism has grown to hatred from both the black community and white community towards each other. What was once white people having a dying hatred towards black people has gone to black people having hatred towards the white community, including all police officers; we can see this hatred through the Black Lives Matter movement.

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.

A member-led international network of than 40 chapters, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is an ideological and political intervention for intentional violence targeting black communities by the state and vigilantes (Garza 1). BLM has stirred up countless arguments that the phrase should be “All Lives Matter” which homogenizes very different experiences of racism and domination in America (4). Reverting back in time, slavery was the theft of millions of people for free labor; in modern time, racial inequality still exists in various aspects of everyday life such as politics and education. There are a plethora of reactions of different races towards the BLM movement and many of them are inspired to take action. Furthermore,

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,