...Why Black Lives Matter? Devontae Robinson Into to Criminal Justice January 23, 2016 Faculty Name Why Black Lives Matter? Why do Black Lives Matter? Black lives assert the lives of all black individuals including the disabled, homosexuals, black-undocumented, blacks with records, women and men. Each has been a target of abuse, racism, police brutality and violence. Black Lives Matter movement addresses the fact that black Americans for a long time are more than white Americans to die at the actions of police brutality, subjected to black on black crime, and the continuation of fighting for black equal civil rights. Black lives are not more special than whites or nay other race but it’s an irrefutable fact that black Americans in this country historically have been devalued, discounted, looked over and not mattered. Police Violence Each year hundreds of black lives have been assaulted, abused, and taken by police violence. Black men in America are murdered, beaten, and violated by officers of the law sworn to “protect and serve” them. The 4th amendment clearly states that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue without probable cause.” (Henry, 2015). The 4th amendment has not been followed, police when searching, arresting, obtaining, or securing black individuals have violated this to the fullest. Black women...
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...is related to the many blacks that have been shot by police officers, which have led to death or serious injures. This has happened numerous times across the United States. I do believe that African Americans deserve to be treated equally and the police officers taking part in these acts need to be held responsible for their actions. One of the first recorded incidents of racial discrimination towards African Americans was the action of slavery. Slaves were forced to work against their free will. Even though slave life depended on the slave holder, all conditions were not tolerable for a human being. Life as a slave meant working sunup to sundown six days a week, having food sometimes not suitable for an animal to eat, and living in a shack with dirt floor (“Slave Life”). This all took place while the slave holders enjoyed cracking the whip. After slavery took place for a long period of time, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President, issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 (Balser). The proclamation declared that “all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, and henceforward shall be free (Balser). As you can imagine, African Americans felt a feeling beyond anything else they had felt before and that was simply the feeling of being free. One would think that equality would have been present at this time, but that isn’t the type of society we live in. Nearly 500 years later, discrimination was still present in the lives of African Americans in...
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...up with the culture we should come together as one. Hatred always comes up and we became prejudice towards different racial group. African Americans came up with a movement called “black lives matter”. Black lives matter is an activist movement founded in the United States by three black activist: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Similar to the “all lives matter” movement that was in after Bush left the office. On Huffpost, David Goldberg came up with “"All lives matter" is a universal moral principle, a Kantian categorical imperative. Other things being equal, all lives matter, equally. Except when they don't. And they don't when other things are taken not to be equal. Like racial standing in a society such as ours. The universalizing politics of "All lives matter" is one of racial dismissal, ignoring, and denial. The insistence that Black lives matter accordingly is necessary only because, unlike "all lives," in this society, black lives are too often taken not to matter. Black lives are presumed too readily in the U.S. not to inhabit the universal.” This movement was to rebuild the black liberation movement. What started this movement? The Trayvon Martin incident after the murderer, George Zimmerman, wasn’t charged for the killing during the trail. Ever since that plethora of blacks getting killed by authority and unauthorized whites. We had Michael Brown who was shot by an Officer by the name Darren Wilson and was also not indicted by a grand jury. After that...
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..."Black lives matter,” the rallying cry of the new movement against racist police violence, is brilliant in its simplicity. But more striking than the slogan’s ability to express so much in so few words is how painful it is that its message needs to be asserted. What began as a small but fierce rebellion in a St. Louis suburb exploded into a wildfire that has engulfed the whole country. The movement has done something all too rare in our time: it’s escaped the control of the ruling establishment. Neither police repression nor Democrats have been able to stop the movement. which has confounded the politicians and the news media, accustomed as they are to using the same old scripts to discuss race and protest without challenge. City governments across the country had to accept the disruption of business as usual, as, for example, when activists from the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP 100) occupied Chicago’s City Hall on November 26, and marchers in New York City repeatedly shut down most major bridges and tunnels leading into and out of Manhattan in November, while police appeared powerless. Strong at its beginning In a matter of weeks, the movement shattered what remained of the notion of a “post-racial” America and reoriented the entire national conversation on anti-Black racism. The movement follows in a tradition of Black struggles in the United States whose impacts far exceed the numbers of people involved and go well beyond their point of origin. The civil rights revolt...
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...Jimmia Clayton Dr. Camille Passalacqua English 1110, Section 25 9-22-15 The Break Down Of “The Truth of ‘Black Lives Matter’” Imagine you get a phone call at 10 o’clock at night from the police station saying you son has been shot and killed by a police officer. After your hysterical screaming and crying you scramble up the strength to ask what happened and they begin to tell you that the police officer who shot your son “assumed” he had a weapon and proceeded to shoot him in “self-defense”. You among others begin to protest and then the people you trust to run your country tell you that you’re wrong for it. In the editorial, “ The truth of ‘Black Lives Matter’ ” published by New York Times Opinion Pages, the writer talks about how the Republican Party is trying to demonize the protest movement that is the result of “all-too-common” deaths of unarmed African Americans by police officers and uses logos and pathos to get his point across. The writer uses logos throughout most of this article. He adds an insert of former governor Mike Huckabee saying “ The Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were he alive, would be appalled by the movement’s focus on the skin color of the unarmed people who are disproportionately killed in encounters with the police.”(Opinion Pages Writers). The writer goes on to say that “This argument betrays a disturbing indifference to or at best a profound ignorance of history in general and of the civil rights movement in particular.” (Opinion Pages...
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...different or do we ignore the problem? There are several ways we can think outside the box and help with this problem one individual at a time. Racism plays a big part in today’s society, however racial profiling is not always the case when it comes down to where the problem lies. Racial profiling is a problem because people feel like they are being targeted at times that they are really not, which in return put people on the defensive. People tend to automatically think that it is a race issue when in fact at times it is not. Being able to identify and separate the two are hard for some who are set in their ways and want to believe that everything that happens to them has to deal with race. People tend to live by what they were taught. If a person was raced up with racial slurs and racial profiling they tend to believe that. In fact some goes as far to say, “I...
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...has engulfed the whole country. The movement has done something all too rare in our time: it’s escaped the control of the ruling establishment. Neither police repression nor Democrats have been able to stop the movement. which has confounded the politicians and the news media, accustomed as they are to using the same old scripts to discuss race and protest without challenge. City governments across the country had to accept the disruption of business as usual, as, for example, when activists from the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP 100) occupied Chicago’s City Hall on November 26, and marchers in New York City repeatedly shut down most major bridges and tunnels leading into and out of Manhattan in November, while police appeared powerless. Strong at its beginning In a matter of weeks, the movement shattered what remained of the notion of a “post-racial” America and reoriented the entire national conversation on anti-Black racism. The movement follows in a tradition of Black struggles in the United States whose impacts far exceed the numbers of people involved and go well beyond their point of origin. The civil rights revolt, for example, cracked open the Cold War conservatism of the McCarthy era and inspired more than a decade of mass social struggle on many other...
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...Roughly four in ten African American citizens actively support the Black Lives Matter movement. Black Lives matter protesters have not only been violent, but they are getting to the point where the protestors are killing and injuring citizens, but they also are vandalizing non supporters property. It began on July 23, 2013. Black Lives Matter protests affect African American lives, police lives, and American citizens live. The effects on the black lives matter movement on African American lives. The protests have affected a lot of lives. A young male named Michael Brown got shot by an officer in Ferguson, Missouri, that's how the Black Lives Matter protests rose. This is an example of how Black Lives Matter protests started and how African Americans feel about white police officers and their decisions. The shootings caused citizens to record videos on their devices because of the fights that happen between African Americans and police officers. That means that people have to record every time a police officer touches someone because if they hurt them then they have evidence against the officer that harmed the citizen, and they should go to jail and be fired instead of getting warnings like some police officers....
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...Do All Black Lives Matters? Do all Black Lives Matters? Since the being of the movement late last year that is the question running through most peoples’ minds. Whenever there is a story that is about Black Lives Matters it mainly focuses on straight this gender, males with the exception of Sandra Bland. We barely hear about black women being victims of police brutality even though the founder of the movement are women. We also never hear and get media coverage for LGBT+ victims even though they too have large murder rate. There is also a lack of support in the movement for people that aren’t perceived as “Black enough”. The lack of focus on black women, Eraser of the black LGBT+, and colorism shows the injustices within the Black Lives Matters movement. The first example of injustice within the Black Live Matters movement is the lack of focus on women. Black Lives Matters were created in 2013 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi after George Zimmerman was acquittal. Since then the movement has grown tremendously from being mentioned on every major news network, newspapers and websites, to even come up in the presidential debates. Yet there is no mention of the founders being females at all. . Being that the movement was started by women there is hardly any coverage on female victims of police brutality, with the exception of Sandra Bland....
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...The way things are said can have such a strong meaning to people.There is the obvious point like the slogan “black lives matter” it is obvious that they believe black lives matter. As well as the slogan “white lives matter” where they believe that white lives matter. Not to forget slogan “all lives matter” which shows that they believe that everyone’s life matters. This shows the fact that just the first word can give a meaning and change the whole idea. The first 2 slogans are so specific and focus on a specific race or skin color while the last ones says everyone’s life is important no matter what race or color you are. The saying “black lives matter” and “white lives matter” portrays the idea that one group of people is more important than...
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...Black lives matter is a very controversial topic. Some may see it is a ‘terrorist’ group, while others see it as an activist group. BLM has recently become a huge debate in the United States due to all of the police brutality that has been going on in many areas. The people that believe in this group understand that most of the events that lead to this movement were executed because of the color of one’s skin. Although there has not been a policeman or woman to admit that this brutality has occurred strictly because of race, there are many stories that seem to prove that the police definitely abuse their power when it comes to people of color. In the past, it has been said that, in specific, white people are killed by the police more than black people. People have gone off of that assumption for years. But according to Wesley Lowery’s article, “Aren’t more white people than black people killed by police? Yes, but no., after the population was adjusted, blacks were 2.5...
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... Do Black Lives Matter? What is police brutality? “Many citizens define police brutality broadly to include a range of abusive police practices, such as the use of profanity, racial slurs and unnecessary searches, not entailing the use of physical force”. (Holmes and Smith 6) One of our nation’s biggest epidemics is police brutality and more specifically the rate in which it affects most African American communities. I stress the importance of this issue because law officers are supposed to serve and protect but in most communities comprised of mainly African Americans, the police are often looked at as the aggressor and the instigator in most altercations. I plan to show how this injustice affects African American communities. Due to the social networking sites we visit every day, and the fact that majority of Americans have portable audio and video recording devices right in their purse or pocket, we’re able to see some of these gruesome altercations unfold right in front of us. From the Watts riots in 1965 to the 2016 Jamal Clark incident, that happened right here in Minneapolis. Most of the people that chose not to accept the fact that the police officers their tax dollars pays to employ are committing a genocide of an entire race; typically argue that these individuals brought it on themselves. A tactic police try to use to justify these horrendous acts, is to refer to the individual as monsters that needed lethal force in order to be “put down”. As a black man who...
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...In order to fully understand the motives behind the organization Black Lives Matter one must know the history behind the struggles of African Americans in the United States. Throughout history African Americans have been pushed down, forced to do the work of the white man, and criticized for the color of their skin. Some of the most violent and unforgettable tales of American history date back to the 17th century. During this time period the slave trade was introduced to the state of Virginia (Carson 19). Millions of innocent African Americans were targeted by colonists who bought these slaves for their own profit (Carson 19). Years of torture, malnutrition, and neglect had passed by and there wasn’t much hope for a bright future for those...
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...Black Lives Matter is an organization founded by Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza. The group was started in 2012 after George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin. The goal of the group is to not just focus on the police brutality aspect on black lives, but also to spread awareness of black love. “Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, Black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all black folks along the gender spectrum” (blacklivesmatter.com). Black Lives Matter believe in not only the equality of “normal” black people, but those of all sexual orientations, lifestyles, and etc. Some individuals, such as Elisabeth Hasselback claim that the group should...
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...are enslaved. We are the victims of unspeakable injustices. They do not want us to prosper. This is why I stand for “Black Lives Matter”. Some might even try to push us away and contradict our ideas with “All Lives Matter”. Yes, all lives do matter, but at the moment it is black lives that are very important. What people do not realize is that Pro-black is not anti-white. People try to bring us down, make us lesser than they, but we only want to be seen as equal. We all deserve...
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