All Lives Matter: A Critical Analysis of Racism in America

In this work 'Racism in America: All Lives Matter Essay', we will raise the topic of racism in America, the creation of the Blue Lives Matter movement, and its importance in fostering tolerance towards other races, as well as the creation of the All Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter movements.

“What do black dudes and apples have in common?” the young white boy asks my friend. “I don’t know…what?” she responds awaiting his answer, but he didn’t take much time before revealing his punch line – “they both look good hanging from trees.” Utter shock poured over my friend’s face. She said if her skin would’ve been lighter, you would be able to see the pink rise on her cheeks. I remember this moment as if it happened yesterday. It was one of the first times I’ve ever witnessed racism in the flesh. Growing up in South Carolina in a predominately white area, exposed me to these types of insensitivities and privileged personalities. It seemed as if people began to normalize these racist accounts, but what even is racism and why is it still a problem in this country? How is something like race structured among different people? This class, experiences from my friends, and my own witness accounts have opened my eyes up to theories on how subjects such as race and racism have developed over the years, along with problems still existing in the United States regarding these subjects.

I was only in seventh grade when a former white classmate directed his ‘apple comparison’ to one of my best friends who is African American. He and his friends thought the joke was a real riot, but my friend obviously wasn’t laughing. She recently reflected on the experience and states that “I should have told the teacher right then and there before class started. However, I didn’t because I had already felt powerless due to the ways of racist America, a concept I was just starting to fully understand because of the murder of Trayvon Martin.” If you’re unfamiliar, Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old African American boy who was shot and murdered in early 2012 by a man named George Zimmerman. His defense was because young Martin looked like he was up to no good. I remember when this story was all over the news, and the trial shocked the country. Many of my classmates, especially my friend, felt scared, confused, and angry due to this event. My best friend said that she talked to her grandmother about Trayvon Martin when it happened and why Zimmerman hadn’t been arrested. “We had a long talk that day. My grandma said that they kill our young black men and get away with it. It’s either death or they lock them up, that’s the way it’s always been. I learned about slavery and about the Jim Crow era, but it was 2012. I thought we had overcome that. I could go to school with white kids, use the same bathrooms, eat at the same restaurants and go to the same movie theaters with no designated seating. If the ending of Jim Crow did not kill racism, if the first black president being elected was not enough, then what was?”

My friend, who to remind you is African American, mentioned that she thought electing a black president would help racism sort of vanish. The sad truth is that is not the case. However, she isn’t the only one to think that. Terms such as new racism and colorblindness (also known as covert racism) define this phenomenon. According to Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, “the white commonsense view on racial matters is that racists are few and far between, that discrimination has all but disappeared since the 1960s, and that most whites are color-blind. This view, which emerged in the 1970s, has gone viral with the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008. Whites seem to be collectively shouting, “We have a black president, so we are finally beyond race!”. In other words, colorblindness is basically an unseeing race. It’s argued that white people lack of realization in knowing the importance of race and do not see that race matters in their lives. Again, examples of this may include people thinking they aren’t racist if they voted for a black president such as Barack Obama, or thinking his presidency would solve the whole race conflict. Another example of this was when the Black Lives Matter movement was very apparent in the media. Black Lives Matter was formed in 2013 when a lot of African Americans were seen being murdered or punished by many white people, even by police officials. A lot of my classmates in school were huge advocates for this movement. I saw items such as shirts and bracelets being worn around school to celebrate and get behind this movement that was extremely big at the time. However, other students and even some teachers at my predominately white middle and high school seemed outraged by this. Colorblind racism came into effect when people started movements such as All Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter to sort of take away from people indulging in the Black Lives Matter movement. Here start the topic 'black lives matter vs all lives matter essay'. Of course, the Black Lives Matter was a peaceful way to bring awareness to unfair treatment that black people were receiving, but in my opinion, was ruined because of all these other groups being formed to criticize them. I saw the debates all over my school, all over my town, and was even a huge talking point during the 2016 presidential election.

I also found it interesting that my friend had brought up the Jim Crow Laws when she was reliving this experience. As we all know, Jim Crow was a time of institutionalized state racial policies, that basically made it legal to segregate people based on race. Some people argue that the Jim Crow era has never died. We are still seeing racism and Jim Crow ideology still to this day, meaning that my friend’s words could be true – if the Jim Crow era was actually dead, why didn’t racism die with it? But what exactly is racism? According to Omi and Winant, something is “defined as racist if it creates or reproduces structures of domination based on racial significations and identities”. Based on this definition, we can argue that my classmate in 2012 stated a joke that can be seen as racist. He directed it toward my African American friend and implied that black people are just as good as dead because of the color of their skin. The comparison to the apple alone could also be argued as racist. He compared black people to just being an inanimate objects when we all know that everyone has more value than just that. The whole entirety of the joke was such an inhumane and uncalled-for remark that made my friend feel powerless and targeted, especially since it was weeks after a young African American teenager was murdered. She expressed “who even taught them that joke? Not only was that just hurtful, but looking back at that incident, it was also cruel. Trayvon Martin’s death had made national news, my classmate had to know the impact of those words. After that talk with my grandmother, my hopelessness was so strong I could not bring myself to stick up for me, to report such racially charged behavior.” It often makes me wonder how other kids this age deal with racist remarks similar to my friend’s experience. Are they scared like my friend was? Do they take action? Do they educate the other party on why they shouldn’t say things like that? My friend even asked who taught them the joke. I find it sad that they may have gotten the joke from someone like their parent, which concludes that all ages may need some type of education or enlightenment on the subject of race and racism.

We now know that racism can be expressed in numerous ways and can be pressed onto someone no matter what race they are. However, what even is race and how is it constructed? One theory to answer this question is the Theory of Racial Formation developed by Omi and Winant. According to them, race is a social construct that categorizes people and can be seen as either objective or illusory. This formation and categorization can also be defined as “the sociohistorical process by which racial identities are created, lived out, transformed, and destroyed”. In other words, a social formation is basically an organized process of how race is made.

Another theory that defines what race is and how it is constructed was developed by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. He believes that there are three approaches to race and that a racial structure exists. Bonilla-Silva states that racial structure is “the totality of the social relations and practices that reinforce white privilege”. Racial structure reproduces and is in place for structural purposes. For example, Bonilla-Silva goes on to say that celebrities or actors that are white, also known as the dominant race, receive many benefits such as money that helps them maintain privileges. Those who are not considered to be the dominant race, end up struggling to change white privilege and exist to benefit those of the dominant race. A real-life example of this can date all the way back to the 1950s. Emmett Till was a 14-year-old African American boy who was lynched to death by white men after being accused of offending a white woman. I make this comparison between Bonilla-Silva’s theory and the Emmett Till case because it is the perfect example of white privilege and getting away with murder because you are considered to be part of the dominant race. We later found out that the white woman was lying and falsely accused young Till, but he was still brutally murdered and justice was never rightfully served for him because he was considered to be part of a subordinate race.

Speaking of white privilege comes back to the All Lives Matter movement. It definitely was not a tactic to make sure everyone was treated equally, yet it was a tactic to revolt against the Black Lives Matter movement. White privilege sort of goes hand-in-hand with covert racism because white people are sometimes too blind to see the issues dealing with race. Another thing to think about is what the consequences would’ve been for my friend or anyone who was black if the roles were reversed in her scenario spoken about earlier. Of course, that joke would’ve offended anyone, but would the consequences have been different meaning a more harsher punishment?

In 2012, I was thirteen years old. I woke up every morning and went to school without any care in the world. However, I realize now that it wasn’t like that for everyone and it still isn’t. Some students feared their lives because of the color of the skin, much like my friend did as she went on to say that “after Trayvon Martin’s murder after that vicious joke was told to me, I felt unsafe in that predominantly white space. I did not withdraw myself from my white friends but the way I saw the world changed. This vision of a racially harmonious world I once had was no longer as clear as it used to be. America was flawed and in its flawed state, people that looked like me would be the ones to suffer the most.” 2012 was such a turning year, especially for African Americans after Trayvon Martin and other people like him were killed. It’s not fair for people to live in fear because of the color of their skin, I just hope people can become more educated on these topics. Even though it’s argued to be a touchy subject, it’s important to be enlightened on what racism looks like, how to not be insensitive, and to be hopeful for the future. We must continue to break down these walls and remember that race is just a concept or illusion, that groups together and signifies people’s interests and differences based on what different humans look like.