Black Lives Matter: Black Minorities In America
Our criminal justice system in America has offered the suggestion that being black is a crime. Each case that involved a police officer killing an unarmed black person has left society with an empty void every time the defender was determined not guilty. This social movement used theories framing and collective identity. To organize and be mobile the BLM relied heavily on social media presence on. The birth of #BlackLivesMatter hashtag was extremely popular and it was able to gain momentum after the Trayvon Martin case when Zimmerman was found not guilty, even had me mad. This group needed to express their frustration and they wanted to give others a way to express themselves and this was the perfect platform. Through social media, this group was able to organize protests, rallies and sit-outs in a very non-traditional way. The Black Live Matter movement was born in the new wave of social movement theories.
With new methods always brings about negativity. Even though Black Lives Matter was able to bring light on unfortunate events that were taking place their message quickly surged several other social movements such as #BlueLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter. The members/supporters of BLM were quickly viewed as racists because of their support for one race of people. In this social movement, there were some gains and some losses, the BLM gained a large recognition and was able to get people having the race conversation and they were able to shed light on the issues that were taking place in the background. They lost because people in America were using the All Lives Matter statement to twist the Black Lives Matter Movement into being anti-white instead of a celebration of being black. By doing this and focusing on the Black part of the Black Lives Matter Movement, they are not truly hearing the concerns that are being voiced.
Since the summer of 2014, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has grown into an international network of grassroots organizations in more than 30 US cities and four countries outside of the United States (Ransby 2015; Rickford 2016). I’d say with all the controversy between all of the hashtags, these organizations have done a great job of recruiting individuals and keeping the peace within their organization. Because this organization is so popular and has a major support of entertainers/political backing, the finance has not been an obstacle as of today.
In conclusion, The Black Lives Matter Movement is a new civil rights movement to fight against this new form of racism called colorblind. It’s stating that race matters in a society where race is considered insignificant to those who are not affected. The Black Lives Matter Movement is trying to shift away from colorblindness to color consciousness. It’s not ignoring that racism is still a problem in the United States. The Black Lives Matter movement needs to continue to grow as a social movement and go further than the NAACP and Civil Rights movement did in the 1960’s. They need to focus on gaining more support from other organizations, educating their communities and educating outside communities about being consciences of others culture.
The BLM still has a long road ahead to achieve the change they want to make in society as a whole but I believe it can be accomplished as long as they provide empowerment to those that are affected and provide teachings to those who need to understand why Black Lives Matter.
