Words Matter: Why The Black Lives Movement Should Change Their Name

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.

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement is a movement against police brutality. This movement began after 17-year-old boy, Trayvon Martin was fatally shot, and his killer, former police officer, George Zimmerman was acquitted for the crime. (BLACKLIVESMATTER.COM) As Black Lives Matter has continued to make a difference through peaceful protests on a mass scale , such as kneeling during the national anthem at sporting events or peaceful protests after a shooting. Many have claimed that the movement is extremely offensive, against police officers, or that African Americans are claiming superiority over other races, while others continue to support the movement. The fight between Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, and Black Lives Matter continuously strikes violent riots, but the question still stands- what is the Black Lives Matter movement really trying to accomplish?

Black Lives Matter is an international activist movement that started within the African-American communities. This movement is organized by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Ever since the black people have stepped on American soil, they have continued to be victims of racism and violence. From slavery to lynching to segregation, the black people have suffered alot in this country. In the past few years, there are so many of them that have been targeted by the law enforcement authorities across the country. This movement’s goal is to raise awareness of racism and violence against African-Americans. They wants African-American to live with dignity and respect like other Americans do.

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.

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)”.

On a day to day basis African-American individuals are diminished on account of prejudicial biases. Therefore, the movement “Black Lives Matter” has been constructed. It is a network of people working together to rebuild the black liberation movement. Black Lives Matter became a hashtag in the summer of 2013, when Alicia Garza posted a Facebook status called “a love letter to black people.” This status was posted as an assertion for a distressed community over George Zimmerman’s exculpation

The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2013 after George Zimmerman was found not guilty of the murder of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin. About a year after Martin’s death, an 18 year-old unarmed male, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. That sparked weeks of protests. Years later, Asians, Latinos, and some whites joined in and realized how big of a problem this was becoming. As the years go by, the BLM Movement will keep growing and will not go

As echoed in Bell Hook’s We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, the culprit to the Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) movement is masculine patriarchy which, in turn, reinforces racism and oppression. However, the general public fails to recognize that the Black Lives Matter Movement stemmed from oppression to black males, not the black community as a whole. Furthermore, even though this movement is intended to fight anti-Black racism, it is attempting to focus on the empowerment of black women.

The Black Lives matter website also states that their “common vision” is to continue to move towards a world in which the full humanity and dignity of all people is recognized. While doing this, BLM also intends to include other groups of people who experience oppression. Such as the LBGTQ community, women, Muslims, people who were previously or currently undocumented and much more. One of the major arguments of the Black Lives Matter movement is to end the war on black people.

The above narrative is just a mere glimpse of the hurt, anger, and pain in the black community after George Zimmerman was acquitted of charges of second degree murder against seventeen year old Trayvon Martin. These emotions were the stepping stones of a highly significant movement, the Black Lives Matter movement. The Black Lives Matter movement is a response as well as a stance against police brutality against African Americans, which uses the tragic deaths of teenagers Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown as a head for its cause. Many people on social media know the black lives matter movement or refer to it #blacklivesmatter, especially on twitter. The Black Lives Matter movement was founded by Patrisse Cullers, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza. Which is defined as an “ideological and political intervention in a world where black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.”

EVEN IN THE SPLINTERED AND OFTEN FRACTIOUS world of social justice movements, Black Lives Matter doesn't fit easily into existing categories. Few grassroots uprisings have done as much, in such a short period of time, to focus attention on long-neglected issues of racial justice, gender, and economic inequality. Yet so far, BLM has not followed up on its initial victories by building the kind of lasting, hierarchical organizations that grew out of the civil rights movement; nor has it dedicated itself to a single, easily identifiable goal, like enacting the Voting Rights Act. How are we to make sense of organizers who themselves remain so loosely organized? And if Black Lives Matter isn't devoting itself primarily to bringing about substantive legal and legislative change, then how can it hope to transform its resistance into lasting and meaningful gains in human rights?

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.

Ultimately, the Black Lives Matter movement indicates that the lives of black people are not considered as important and does not matter in

the focus of Black Lives Matter is being articulated less as a demand for specific civil or political rights, and more as a broader claim for “black humanity.” Martin Luther King also used the language of human rights to internationalize the issue of racial inequality in the United States. BLM movement is following in king’s footsteps, taking a stance and demanding action. Both movements fight for freedom but in ways that seem to be opposite of the other, one in love, and one in hate.

In 2013, a movement called Black Lives Matters was started after George Zimerman was found not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin. Many Americans complain again the injustice and rallied together to form the Black lives matter movement. The Black lives matter movement though has many issues within their movement, but the main issue is that the people of the movement are segregating themselves from other races whenever they say the words “black lives matter”. That’s why the phrase “All lives matter” has come about. The term “All Lives matter” is stating that people of this movement care about all people instead of just one color, that the movement does not support the supremacy of a race & Radical Organization, and show that the police force is not discriminative towards any one race.