Category: Black Lives Matter

A discourse community is a group of people who share a set of goals, which are basic values and assumptions, and ways of communicating about those goals. The ability to communicate is very important to a discourse community. It is important because without communication the community would not be able to convey information to each other, and they wouldn’t have the knowledge they need to do their jobs. An example of this would be the Black Lives Matter organization. I will be using John Swales’ six criteria to show that this organization is indeed a “discourse community” (Swales 215-227).

Goals:

John Swales, an American linguist, has given six criteria for a community to be considered a discourse community. One of the criterion is that the community must have an established goal and purpose. Black Lives Matter discourse community has a specific set of goals and purposes that have long been established as the heart of the movement. Black Lives Matter is an international activist movement that originates in the African-American communities. The organization was started on the 13th of July in 2013, after the acquittal of George Zimmeran for the death of black teen Trayvon Martin. The organization was founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. The purpose of creating this organization is to rebuild the black liberation movement and affirm the lives of all black people – specifically black women, queer and trans people, people who are differently abled, and those who are undocumented and formerly incarcerated. They focus on those marginalized within black liberation movements, imposing a call to action and response to state-sanctioned violence against black people, as well as the virulent anti-black racism that permeates our society. The organization focuses on the social movement of systematic racism and gun violence issued to the African-American community-especially to the men.The organization opposes the systematic racism that has existed in the United States for centuries,and even though slavery and Jim Crow laws have been abolished, Blacks still do not have the same rights as whites, which causes tension. The goals that the organization is trying to reach are ending the aim towards gun violence and police brutality against African Americans Police brutality is one of several forms of police misconduct, which is usual towards African Americans

Communication:

Through the interview I conducted with one of the members, named Charlene Jameson.I was able to get information on how the community communicate with each other. The primary platform they use for communication is social media. Social media is websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Jameson states that social media is the best platform to use for many reasons. One of the reasons she states is because it helps them to reach a wider audience, which could sometimes help celebrities to endorse them, such as Beyonce. Another way they communicate is through protesting on the streets and having rallies. Jameson mentions that these protests and rallies are always peaceful and non-violent. She states that they mainly go out to protest to reach out to the black community to help them feel safe again and heard for once.

Genre of Communication:

. They mainly use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Through the interview, I learned that their major social media website they like to use is Twitter. Twitter is a free social networking microblogging service that allows registered members to broadcast short posts called tweets. Twitter members can broadcast tweets and follow other users’ tweets by using multiple platforms and devices.

The second interview I conducted was with Jade Wadley. Through the interview with her, she told me that social media serves as a source of live, raw material and information. Social media helps the organization to assemble people and correlate their movements in real time. And it can also push back and inform “fake news” and media narratives with the click of a button. Through the interview she also explained to me the negative effects of using social media in the community. Despite the success the organization had in getting their information out, it has also became a platform where they are harassed and cyber attacked.. There was an article that she brought up that showed how they are affected by cyber attacks. The article states that, a subtler form of aggression has recently caused problems for nationwide advocacy groups like Black Lives Matter, and that is cyberattacks.

Cyberattacks can take the form of basic DDoS attacks, which make requests on a server until it is overloaded and can no longer handle its web traffic, denying access to legitimate visitors. Black Lives Matter was targeted by a group called Ghost Squad, which bills itself as “anti-racist.”The attacker claimed that “individuals in the BLM movement were acting no better [than the KKK].”Although the social media platforms have negative effects the good, outweigh the bad. Social media helps them reach people quickly and to spread awareness.

Participatory Mechanisms/ Threshold level of members:

Most organizations have a website that is used to spread to the world what kind of material and information they can offer. This will help interested individuals on what they can expect from the organization, but also to help the members in the organization to give feedback. The Black Lives organization has twenty-six different chapters across the United States and Canada, which can be quite hard communicating at once. To solve the problem they created a website-https://blacklivesmatter.com/. On the websites the members are allowed to see upcoming events in other states, they are able to access tool kits on how to solve problems within the chapters, and are also able to contact other chapters. The organization believes letting chapters contact each other is very significant, because it allows them to give each other feedback and strategies on how to get communities attention. The website also allows new members who want to join to do it on the website. In 2013, Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi formed the Black Lives Matter Network. Alicia Garza described the network as an online platform that existed to provide activists with a shared set of principles and goals. Local Black Lives Matter chapters are asked to commit to the organization’s list of guiding principles, but operate without a central structure or hierarchy. Alicia Garza has commented that the Network was not interested in ‘policing who is and who is not part of the movement

Lexis:

The Black Lives Matter organization uses many political slogans to demonstrate “black lives matter.” A political slogan is a memorable phrase which is often used in political speeches, marketing, or advertising. One of the many slogans are, “I can’t breathe.” The orgin of the slogan comes from when Eric Garner was held in a chokehold on Staten Island on July 17, 2014, by New York City police officer Daniel Panteleo, he yelled 11 times, “I can’t breathe.” “I can’t breathe” has become a slogan for the people, led by young African Americans, who have taken to social media and the streets to protest the killing of unarmed African Americans, challenging a system that fails to indict and calling for greater equality. The dying words of Eric Garner symbolize the black communities situation. “I can’t breathe” speaks from the grave and describes the circumstances faced by many who are being choked by a system that treats different races and classes of people unequally.

When learning about a discourse community, I found out that it is a group of people who share the same values and goals. They have their way of communicating about these goals. The reason this is important is because, without communication, these communities would not be able to relay information to each other. This would lead to them not being able to convey the knowledge that is needed to fulfill their purpose as a group. An example of a discourse community would be the Black Lives Matter organization. I will be using John Swales’six criteria to show that this organization is indeed a “discourse community” (Swales 215-227).

Goals & Purpose:

John Swales, an American linguist, has provided six criteria for a community to be considered a discourse community. One of the criteria is that the community must have an established goal and purpose.In regards to the Black Lives Matter community it has a firm set of goals and purposes establishes, these have firmly been established as the heart of the movement. Black Lives Matter is an international activist movement that originates in the African-American communities. The movement was founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi.

The organization was founded on the 13th of July in 2013, after George Zimmeran killed an innocent black teen Trayvon Martin. Zimmeran was arrested and tried for the death of black teen Trayvon Martin, but was found not guilty. This trial was crucially pivotal for the organization because they whole-heartedly believe for Zimmeran to be guilty. Therefore, when he was acquitted, they genuinely believed that in that moment Trayvon’s “black life” didn’t matter. It was believed that he did not receive the justice that he deserved. The goals of the organization are to raise awareness of the violence that is being brought down on the black community by police offices and regular civilians.

Communication:

A discourse community has to have a way for the members to connect and talk to each other. The communication process for this paper involved an interview that I conducted with Charlene Jameson, one of the members of the Black Lives Matter movement.Through the interview I conducted with one of the members, named Charlene Jameson. I was able to get information on how the community communicates with each other. The primary platform they use for communication is social media. Jameson states that social media is the best platform to use for several reasons. One of the reasons she states is because it helps them to reach a wider audience, which could sometimes help high-profile celebrities to endorse them, such as Beyonce. Another way they communicate is through protesting on the streets and having rallies. Jameson mentions that these protests and rallies are always peaceful and non-violent. She states that the reason that they gather for these peaceful rallies and protests is to reach out to the black community. They feel that this the black community to feel safe and to know that their voices are being heard.

Genre of Communication:

The second interview I conducted was with Jade Wadley. She also stated the importance of social media. In the interview she indicated that social media serves as a source of live material, and information. They mainly use Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Through the interview, I also learned that the social media that they prefer to use is Twitter.Wadley explained that social media assists the organization to bring people together and correlate their movements in real time. In addition, it gives the opportunity to push back fake news with a click of a button. Through the interview, Wadley explained the negative effects that social media has in the community. This may include harassment and being trolled by people online. She divulged that there were numerous times when she or somebody else in the organization were cyberbullied, but it does not discourage them to give up.

Participatory Mechanisms/ Threshold level of members:

Most organizations typically have an official website that is used to spread to the world what kind of material and valuable information they can offer. This helps to inform individual on what they can expect from the organization. It also helps the organization members to receive feedback. In the Black Lives Matter organization there are twenty-six chapters across the United States and Canada. This could lead to difficulties in communicating with each one all at once. There, members are allowed to see upcoming events in each the other states. Everyone has access to tool kits to assist them in solving problems not only within the chapter but also to contact other chapters. It is believed that by allowing chapters to contact each other makes a significant difference because it allows them to give and receive feedback on effective strategies. This, in turn, gets information out the local community instantly.

A threshold or levels of membership are required in order to be considered a discourse community. Through the website, new members who genuinely want to join can do so on the website. Although the organization has many chapters, each of them are told to operate without any type of hierarchy. The members of these chapters do not have the authority to decide who can and cannot join the organization.The founders believe that this movement should be an open community due to the fact that a new member may have a positive impact on the group

While white people may not be able to detect racism all the time, some encounter it and still do not act. Bell hooks recalls an interaction in her book, Killing Rage, when her friend is forced to move her seat after the plane had overbooked the flight. The white man who took her seat apologizes and claims that it was not his fault (hooks). While this may be true, hooks says in response that “it was an occasion for [him] to intervene in the harassment of a black woman and [he] chose [his] own comfort…” (hooks 9). White people could use their privilege to correct a situation that is wrong, however, many do not and allow the cycle of racism to continue. This may not seem like an overtly racist act on the flight attendant’s part; however, they automatically gave the seat to the white man instead of looking into it a bit more. The only solution in that moment for the flight attendants was that the man could get the seat. This happens very often, and for most white people, the excuse is that they did not see it. It is common for racism to escape the eyes of white people because they aren’t conditioned to see it. It also could be that white people don’t feel the need to look for it because they do not think it is an issue. It is very important for people to see racism, but it is pointless for white people to condition themselves to see it if they do nothing to correct it when they encounter it. Wise offers a story of his own when he called out a white man for telling a racist joke in front of a group of white people. After this man told his joke, Wise asked him why he thought a group of strangers, who only have the color of their skin in common that they know of, would enjoy that joke. From there, Wise explains that he was able to have a self-reflective conversation with this man for a more productive result. This is an example of white people using their privilege to call out racist behavior when they see it. Wise explains that “…[imposing] enough self-awareness and doubt into the mind of those who engage in racist behavior, we make it harder for such persons to blindly at on it” (Wise 197). If white people are regularly calling out those who have racist views, then those people will realize the errors they are making and the hurt they are causing.

Many feel that racism is not longer and issue but clearly there is still much more work for our country to do. Currently many forms of resistance of racism are under scrutiny, like the Black Lives Matter Movement. The movement really started to pick up notice after the shooting of Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old African American teenager (Black Lives Matter). The movement has protested the violence against black people and their communities in the wake of murders of black men and women by law enforcement. While this movement is about the outcry of the black communities calling for change in our society, many instead feel that the Black Lives Matter movement is promoting the idea that other lives do not matter. All Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, and any other critical slogan that is used against the BLM movement, are all responses that people use to falsify the goal of this movement. This is one of the biggest examples that can be used to demonstrate just how out of touch white Americans are in the wake of racist ideologies in the country. These responses to the BLM movement create the notion that those apart of this organization aim to create the narrative that other lives do not matter, which could not be further from the truth. The unfortunate truth is, America does not value the lives of black people. And while that might be controversial to say, slogans like All Lives Matter, are created to silence these organizations who are calling for social reform. Yes. All lives do matter, but all lives are not being targeted by law enforcement in the same way that black lives are. All lives are not being killed at the same rate as black lives. All lives are not being incarcerated as much as black lives. So, for the rest of the country to pretend that the BLM movement is not about black people marching for their lives and for their communities, is all the evidence you need that white Americans are oblivious to the racism in this country.

I grew up in a conservative household in a town that was predominately white. My friends were white, and I could count the number of black people on my hand. Even though I lived with this isolation, race was still talked about in my house. I don’t believe my family to be hating people, and I don’t think they are overtly racist. However, growing up my family only watched Fox News and we often listened to nightly controversial commentary provided by Bill O’Reilly. My parents bought into a lot of the false narratives this news station puts out there. Most news sources bend the truth in order for a story to fit their message, however, Fox News tends to do this in an especially problematic way. When watching the protests in 2015 after the acquittal of the officers responsible for the death of twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray, my parents couldn’t understand it. My parents would often defend police officers, who severely harmed black people, by saying that the men who ended up being victims of police brutality “were probably doing something they shouldn’t of.” When the Black Lives Matter movement started to gain more national attention, my parents were also among those who used the critical slogans of All Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter. My family failed to see the racism in our society, and still fails to see it today. It is because of false narratives and stereotypes created from years of oppression that people, including my parents, cannot see the racism that is alive in all parts of the country. White people have been conditioned to believe in the stereotypes that were used to justify discrimination against black people. While I don’t think my parents are racist, I do think they have been influenced by racist behaviors and ideologies.

This is something I would have never been able to admit if I was still living in my white town with my conservative family. Bell hooks says that it was not until she left her home and went to school that she realized how much of an issue racism really was, and I feel that is the same case for me. I have always disagreed with my family’s ideologies on nearly everything, but leaving home has helped me to realize just how problematic some of my family’s beliefs are. It has provided me with having prime examples of people who believe racism is not an issue, therefore resistance to it is unnecessary. Tim Wise and bell hooks create an outline for people to reject the racism in our country today. Society has turned its eyes away from racism believing it to be “solved” and has allowed injustices against black people to continue. Racism will continue so long as people deny its existence.

Since the beginning of time people have been exercising their social media skills without even being aware of it. Referencing, telling stories, creating an identity for themselves and simply sharing information are all things that eventually escalated into the social media platforms we all know and love today. The first social media site ever created was called Six Degrees, it was created in 1997. It filled all the criteria of social media such as allowing people to create a personal profile and make online friends with other users. In 1999 is when some of the first blogging sites came out, the popularity of these created the social media sensation that is still popular to this day. A couple of years later around 2002 Facebook and Myspace became the first sites to have over a million users. Advances in time, technology, and society lead to thousands of new developments and social media platforms created thus bringing us to the media world we live in today.

What would be your answer if you added social plus media? It makes you think deeper into the simple word we all say daily and don’t think too much about. Social media is defined by profiletree as forms of electronic communication, such as websites for social networking, through which users create online communities to share ideas, information, personal messages, videos, and much more. But social media is more than just Instagram and Snapchat, it is a way of life. To understand it better you have to break it down, for starters, social. Social comes from the Latin socius meaning ‘friend.’ It can be described as someone who enjoys being around people and loves company. A social butterfly, someone who is friendly with everyone they meet, fluttering from person to person, just like a butterfly. When you’re being social, you are everybody’s friend. Then next comes the term media. Media is the plural for medium, which references the communication channels that we use to disseminate news, music, educational, promotional messages, and other data. It can include newspapers, magazines, television, radio, billboards, phones, the internet, and billboards.

A social movement that nearly broke social media a couple of years ago is the Black Lives Matter movement. To this day almost everyone sees at least one post dedicated to this movement or a #BlackLivesMatter hashtag somewhere in their feed. This is a social movement consisting of a group of activists who feel betrayed by the system. According to the black lives matter website, they aim to make everybody understand that ‘Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international activist movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people. BLM regularly holds protests speaking out against police killings of black people, and broader issues such as racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system.’ The BLM movement is iconic, it’s a political wake up call for a world that allows African American lives to be targeted for demise. One way to look at it is almost like a cry for help, but much stronger and more organized such as an affirmation of the black community’s humanity, contribution to the society, and resilience in the face of deadly oppression. The BLM is a humble movement, they make it clear that they understand there is already an abundance of activists out there that work hard to undermine, and overcome the stereotypes, but everybody’s voice is important, and deserves to be heard.

It may seem inevitable for a movement like this to have been commenced but what caused it to take off was in the summer of 2013, after George Zimmerman’s acquittal for the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a young black man who had just bought a bag of skittles from the convenience store. Controversial times called for the BLM movement to officially commence. Three strong females Alicia Garcia, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi started the movement in 2013. The Next year another innocent black man Mike Brown was Murdered by Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson. This was a hard time for the black community, but people finally started to realize that they need to take a stand. The unethical mistreatment of people, brutalization, discriminated by law enforcement, as well as repeatedly tased and pepper-sprayed. The BLM movement hopes to give back, in a way that the victims of the social demise can be compensated by what matters, a stronger and more respected community base.

The Black Lives Matter movement is chapter-based, meaning anytime a milestone is overcome that calls for a new chapter. So far in 2019 over 40 chapters have been accomplished. The movement is expansive, consisting of an abundance of people who have strong beliefs and are willing to fight for them. These activists want to see change, but they’re aware that to take a stand, the spectrum has to be broadened. They need to get as many people on their side as they can from all varieties of ethnic backgrounds. Affirming the lives of black queer, trans, Hispanic, disabled, undocumented, Muslims, people with records, women, and all black people along the gender spectrum. The movement is working towards a world where no lives are no longer systematically targeted or demised.

The BLM movement began as one simple hashtag and expanded to a whole movement. With the help of all social media platforms such as a twitter account, facebook account as well as a whole website dedicated to the BLM movement. People seeing the posts and reposting them, making a post themselves, or using the hashtag allows for more and more people to become aware of the topic leading to a social media takeover. This ideology is similar to the ideas in the book “Writing on the Wall,” Chapter 3- How Luther went Viral: The Role of Social Media in Revolutions focuses on the ideology of spreading information whether its through word of mouth or reblogging somebody’s post. After the information is spread enough it then goes viral and it seems like it’s the topic of every post and conversation. The section “Like, Recommend, Share” does a good job of depicting this idea of how things go viral. The newest idea to the BLM movement is the #WhatMatters2020 which focuses on encouraging black voters to step up in the community, vote in the election and try to take a stand for what they believe in, every vote counts.

The Black Lives Matter movement has created many reactions, and the people’s perception of BLM varies considerably on race, shocker. The Phrase ‘All Lives Matter’ sprang up as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement, but has been criticized for attempting to dismiss the meaning of BLM. Another attempt to ‘steal the spotlight’ following the shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, the hashtag Blue Lives Matter was created to support the police, which created a whole other angle of angry activist outbreaks. The Black Lives Matter movement was created to address a sensitive but world-known topic of the continuation of racism in the 21st century, along with the police brutality and deaths of innocent people, which unfortunately just so happens to occur mostly in the black community. The activists of BLM are attempting to have their voices heard because no other race will ever have to worry about sending their son out of the house at night scared that a police officer may confuse a bag of Skittles for a weapon.

Bibliography:

1. Brown. “Home.” Black Lives Matter, 24 Oct. 2019, blacklivesmatter.com/.
2. Hendricks, Drew. “The Complete History of Social Media: Then And Now.” Small Business Trends, 6 May 2013, smallbiztrends.com/2013/05/the-complete-history-of-social-media-infographic.html.
3. Smith. “Social – Dictionary Definition.” Vocabulary.com, 2005, www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/social.
4. Standage, Tom. Writing on the Wall: Social Media: the First 2,000 Years. Bloomsbury, 2014.

#BlackLivesMatter is a movement that fights for the freedom and justice of black people in a world where these basic rights weren’t afforded to all. This movement was in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, George Zimmerman. It’s an ideological and political movement in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted – a declaration of Black folks’ humanity and resilience in the face of deadly oppression. This campaign has existed as inspiration for countless black and brown people across the country – especially young people. However, for whatever reason, demands made from the movement also made it the target of criticism and attack from right-wing responders. Most of which have occured on Fox News that have bashed Black Lives Matter as a “terrorist group” and have spewed other dangerous misconceptions about the movement. In this memoir, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, one of the leading co-founder of Black Lives Matter, talks about her backstory of where she came from. Cullors has experienced firsthand the prejudice and persecution Black Americans endure at the hands of law enforcement. Deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by a criminal justice system built to serve white and privileged people, Black people are subject to unjustifiable racial profiling and police brutality. In 2013, when Trayvon Martin’s killer went free, her outrage prompted her to co-found Black Lives Matter with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi. Condemned as terrorists and as a threat to America, together they created a hashtag that birthed the movement centered around demands for accountability from the authorities who continually turn a blind eye to the injustices inflicted upon minorities. By using a hashtag as their main rallying point they engaged the age group most present on the internet and social media: the youth. Taylor describes how Black Lives Matter has had a massive impact on US politics. Its emergence is due to protests by black leaders against the inadequate responses to racist police killings and brutality. Taylor identifies racism as having three historical molds: “a biological form (certain races are “naturally” superior), newer (often misguided concepts of color blindness or race is artificial), and a culture of poverty (perceptions of Black laziness, excuses, diet, absentee fathers, etc.).” She breaks down the tangling of class and race in American history, pointing to the cycle of poverty that has plagued the black community for centuries. The historic economic vulnerability that Taylor makes clear, helps explain the pattern of police brutality. It is much easier to brutalize and make marginal groups with little economic power, such as African Americans, than those with high socioeconomic status. This film taught more about the movement to those who are uneducated about it. It contained a massive amount of accurate information, detailing the backgrounds of the founders, their motivations, and their strengths. The film inspires many to become more directly active to stand up for their rights and become more deeply involved in their culture. Therefore, when thinking about this in the context of youth impact, the connection is simple: through movies such as this that explain the movement and offer ways to help with it, the younger generation can become inspired and impassioned to carry on the mission. This blog speaks on how Black Lives Matter has been seen as more of a human rights movement rather than a civil rights movement. With their focus being less about changing specific laws and more about fighting for a fundamental reordering of society in which Black lives are free from systematic dehumanization. According to this blog, what gets referred to as the Black Lives Matter movement is really the collective labor of a wide range of Black liberation organizations, all with their own histories. Organizations include groups like the Black Youth Project 100, the Dream Defenders, Assata’s Daughters and many more. These organizers have significantly changed locally and nationally since 2013. Pushing for an advancement so our offspring will be able to live in a world free of hate. I selected an opinionated source in order to help put in perspective on how people feel on the matter. Ransby states that the idea behind the model for social inclusion set forth by the Black Lives Matter network (and other organizations like it) is that when people on the ground make decisions and come up with solutions the results are more likely to meet real needs. She even brings up that Ella Baker, an N.A.A.C.P. field secretary, believes that “strong people don’t need strong leaders.” This has inspired various black organizers to take that message to the heart. This emphasis on the ‘power of the people’ can help empower a new generation to take matters into their own hands and push for social change themselves rather than relying on others to do the work for them. For example, in segregated cities, grassroots campaigns could help bring minorities together to stop the slander on their respective communities.

The article talks about one of the creators of #BlackLivesMatter, which was a direct result of the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2013. Jenkins states that Cullors isn’t a terrorist but a crusader. She will go down as a pioneer of the movement and her memoir shows the journey that she went through until she founded the movement. She first wrote the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag in a comment on a Facebook status of another co-founder Alicia Garza, who was lamenting the acquittal of Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman. Lowery creates an overview of police killings and observes his own professional evolution. The guilt he has as a reporter to constantly approach victims’ families and to ask them for more personal reflections about the victims’ lives. The families often appreciate the chance to clarify their loved one’s name. Their humanity is expressed in a respectful manner but an even-tempered way. Lowery doesn’t try to portray ‘angels.’ Lowery points out that the media focus on the things that the victim did wrong rather than the objective representation of what actually happened – all as a way of implying that they deserved to die. By presenting a more holistic view of events, Lowery helps inspire people to act as they realize how unjustified some of these killings and instances of brutality really are and the pain they cause the families of the victims.

I’ve been interested to see a flurry of activity and debate over the past few weeks within our local community regarding Black Lives Matter and racism in general. I have contributed my opinions and debated with people, been pleased that so many are actively discussing issues and ways to eradicate racism and equally dismayed to realise that some people are opposed to the fight against racism.

Once again, I have been told “f you don’t like this country, why don’t you leave?’ as a supposedly reasoned response to a rational argument. Non-white people disproportionately have to live with the idea that we are being judged on whether our behaviour is consistent with having the right to be in our own country. Being told to leave your own country has become a normalised response suggesting that if you don’t say the things that people want to hear then you should probably leave. This insidious racism is engrained in society and often difficult to identify and eradicate. It infiltrates every aspect of our society and can go unseen by anyone who is not on the receiving end, anyone who is not a black or minority ethnic person.

Within this context, it should come as little surprise then, that in light of the recent Black Lives Matter and anti-racism activity, the ‘less-tolerant’ amongst us are starting to feel uncomfortable. After all, ‘racism’ is a word that most people don’t want to be associated with. So, instead, we hear phrases such as ‘this movement is divisive’ ‘it will set race relations back by decades’. If people standing up for equality is leading to greater racial divisions, then the implication is that any racial harmony we may have had must have been based on oppression.

Some opposers have quoted a study published in 2019 that suggested Britain is one of the ‘least racist countries in Europe’, expecting a pat on the back. Well, the fact is that least racist is still racist. Instead of point-scoring, let’s channel our passion and awareness into real change.

I feel that those who have criticised the recent Black Lives Matter protests have somehow completely missed the point.

Black Lives Matters is against racism and systemic injustices against the Black Community. The slogan ‘Black Lives Matter’ doesn’t mean that Black Lives matter more or non-Black lives don’t matter. It is that Black Lives Matter just as much. The goal being – equality for everyone. Reactionary cries of ‘White Lives Matter’ or ‘All Lives Matter’ demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of Black Lives Matter, creating an absurd false equivalence. Such cries also have the effect of diminishing the plight of a community that has suffered violent subjugation in the past and continues to feel the residual effects of history, with overt and subtle racism still evident today.

Institutional racism permeates through every facet of our society. We have heard a lot recently about examples of this within our criminal justice system. Hate crime rates have more than doubled since 2013. Stop-and-search became more common against all ethnic minority groups apart from white and Chinese people between 2014 and 2019, and Black individuals are almost ten times more likely to be searched than white individuals. This is the country where, in the last 10 years, the Windrush scandal, the Grenfell fire and the hostile environment are symptoms of a very deep-set racism.

Systemic racism is also deeply embedded into our education, our housing and our healthcare systems. The latter being most evident recently with the disproportionate number of BAME coronavirus deaths in the UK.

It’s all well and good for a white person to oppose the protests and dismiss the impact of racial injustices in our society, but unless you have been the victim of racism throughout your life, can you really judge what its like to live that life? Should we not take this opportunity to let those who are suffering speak out and for us as a caring and supportive community to listen and rally round that particular group? It doesn’t diminish or discredit any other group. It is not an exercise to make any other group feel guilty or less important. It just serves to bring awareness and support to the group that needs attention.

Our forward-thinking Stortford schools have already committed to making changes and to create an agenda for action to tackle racial inequality within schools and to decolonise the curriculum. Surely it is time for the rest of the community to follow suit?

This doesn’t mean that other groups of people don’t suffer in different ways. Let’s not divert the conversation by saying ‘what about me?’. The Opinion article in Independent felt the plight of white working-class men was being glossed over. Well, these white working-class men (and women) are part of the same fight. We are on the same side. Our goal being equality which by definition applies to all.

The reason these injustices remain is because people have continued to turn a blind eye and say ‘they are not me’. Well we are all society. We all live among each other. Being quietly ‘not racist’ is not enough. We have a duty to each other to shape the kind of society we want to create for future generations.

Blacks is a reflection of lawlessness and engagement in crime. The nexus between such a view and the reflection of the blacks as criminals is reflected in the following contexts.

Dukes and Gaither (2017) indicate that persons of color are often reflected in the media as criminals. The prevailing social stereotype is that blacks are inclined to crimes. Since such stereotypes are socially constructed, they need a system that perpetuates them. Dukes and Gaither (2017) reflect that a biased reflection of criminal cases is inclined towards reflecting blacks as criminals. Commercially, such stories often gain a great readership since they are perpetuating a debatable social value.

Leopold and Bell (2017) indicate that the media houses aim at making revenue through the news. Thus, reflecting instances of crime or negative elements of the BLM movements is a way of supporting such approaches. The analysis carried out after a six-month period supported the theme that blacks are inclined to crimes. The indirect approach is that the BLM movement ought to be portrayed within the same lens used to report all other aspects that are related to the black people. Inadvertently, therefore, the need to reflect the negatives or harmful elements within the BLM is a top priority of the media houses.

The “sensationalization” and politicization of the BLM movements, according to Umamaheswa (2020) is aimed at increasing publicity of the media stories. In other words, the media is not fair. It is not “about what happens,” but about “how is it reported” that matters. In other words, the nature of the reporting often trumps the content of the material reported. Arguably, the media reports about the use of force by the police, for instance, to curb instances such as the destruction of property by the protestors under the BLM movement. The context, therefore, focuses on elements that will attract the attention of the readers or the viewers.

Pampeno and Leopold collected news articles over the years. They commonly found that the articles did not objectively report the events of the BLM movement. The typical reflection is that the deviation towards the portrayal of blacks as criminals was common. In other words, the media appeared to champion for a common agenda; showing the shortfall.

Contextual reflections are whether the instances of crime occur within the BLM protests. Oliver (2020) indicates that there are instances when the police are brutalized or killed during the BLM movements. The media often reports such contexts as part of the headline stories. Oliver (2020) does not, however, address the nature of the scope of the reporting adopted by the media houses. Though the BLM movement is already aware that it is negatively reflected by the media, there is a little reflection within the media to show that police often use violence as a means of engaging the protestors. In other words, there is a strategic approach aimed at portraying the blacks in bad repute.

In conclusion, the people of color have been latently subjected to discrimination and racism in the United States for long. The instances of police brutality highlight the sprung of the BLM movement. The media has played a critical role in popularizing the agenda of the movement. Platforms supported by the Internet, such as the media platforms, have aided the objective reflection of the BLM movement. The paradigmatic shift in reporting often fails to interrogate the issues raised by the protestors but focuses on events that might go wrong around the process of the protests. However, there is a deviation between the reflection of the BLM movement by the mainstream media and the social media platforms.

Conceptually, the media works as a profit-making enterprise. The need to make a profit is contextualized within the reporting of the BLM movement protests. Thus, it is common for the media to reflect the BLM protests as violent to support a socially constructed view that black people are predisposed to crime. The media supports the common agenda adopted by society, the conceptual view that associated the blacks with the crime. The approach is a common theme among the mainstream media, such as the broadcast and the print media. In some contexts, the BLM movement often receives more coverage when the conflict between the protestors and the police occurs. There is no underlying research to determine whether the police overstepped their mandate. The common theme is to paradigmatically report the contexts of the BLM to reflect the criminal nature of the protestors.

The media is biased in line with the prevailing social stereotypes. The media is at the center of propagating racial stereotypes against black people. The BLM suffers from the conceptual reflection of the black people as criminals. Since the context of the inclination to crime is socially constructed, it is socially commercial. The media’s paradigm reflection of the BLM movement satisfied the social and commercial elements of the stereotyped black people.

An issue that has faced society in South Africa is race/ethnicity/culture. The issue that we face is that because there is little understanding of the race/ethnicity/culture of and within the people of the country, those who are rich in these areas are often discriminated against. My dad is Tshivenda and my mom is Xhosa. The first language I spoke was IsiXhosa, however when I went to preschool, at the age of 3, it was evident to me that speaking my language wasn’t accepted so I quickly learnt English and put the beautiful language in a cupboard to save for later. On heritage days I would always wear the most beautiful traditional attire representing either my Tshivenda or Xhosa heritage, my grandmothers knew ladies that would make them for my sister and I, and these would be upgraded almost every year. When I got to prep school I recall being so excited to show off my newest Nwenda as heritage day became my cultural red carpet, I’d even speak in Tshivenda to the staff who were also Venda. I got many compliments on my “African prints” and their beauty, but the one thing that hurt was when a friend of mine spoke down on my people and our culture calling us “poor, dirty and unable to speak good English” ; our food was “disgusting and smelly” despite her never tasting it. I then came to high school where I was told that people from Venda sound like washing machines or like they’re underwater when they speak, and despite it being a joke it still offended me because that was the beautiful and intricate language spoken by my family and my ancestors.

On the other end of the spectrum we have people who love the appearance of our race/ethnicity/culture so much that they mimic it. The issue with this is that there is often no understanding of the meaning behind tradition and it is merely worn because it is pretty. For many Africans and South Africans culture and ethnicity became more than just a practice, it became their identity. During the horrific days of colonialism and later apartheid South Africa, those of rich ethnic or cultural background were discriminated against and taken advantage of due to these factors as well as race. Their race, culture and ethnicity kept them going as it helped them stick together as a community and through song many were able to overcome or survive these difficult times. Mimicking culture, ethnicity or race without the full understanding of practices strips them of their importance and belittles them to a fashion statement to be exploited and forgotten about by next spring. Wearing a hijab, kimono, nwende, sari or any other form of cultural attire as well as getting braids, beads or henna without understanding what it means doesn’t feel like support but rather like once again our people and practices are being taken advantage of, and by continuing to do so without the knowledge of the culture we will never be able to stop cultural, ethnic and racial discrimination.

The Black Lives Matter movement was founded on the 13th of July in 2013 by 3 African American women, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. Their aim is to “build local power and to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes”. The movement is American and therefore focuses on racial discrimination of African Americans within their society. The movement rose to fame when they protested against police brutality as a result of racial discrimination, hence the name Black Lives Matter. The discrimination of people of colour in America has been an issue since the colonisation of the country and carrying through to The Great Depression. In the year 2019 1, 099 people were killed at the hands of police officers, with 24% of them being African American, despite them making up only 13% of the American population. African Americans are three times more likely to be killed as a result of police brutality and the police claim that this is due to the fact that they are armed and refuse to abide by procedure, however African Americans are 1.3 times more likely to be unarmed than white Americans. The problem at hand is that innocent people are losing their lives due to discrimination, and more often than not these officers are getting away with it. In 2019 only 27 out of 365 days saw Americans not being killed by police officers supposedly serving the state. People can get by with hearing rude remarks/comments regarding their race but killing people who have done nothing wrong is what provoked these 3 women to protest. Since the BlackLivesMatter movement began there has been an increase in police brutality with 426 in 2013 to 1, 147 in 2017. Between 2017 and 2019 there has been a decrease of 48 deaths which can be credited to the Black Lives Matter movement creating fear in the police department to commit the crime. Police departments nationwide have also changed regulations and procedures to include measures to avoid police brutality as a result of the awareness.

Although police brutality isn’t as pressing an issue as it is in America, the issue of racial, ethnic and cultural discrimination largely affects South Africa and so a programme such as Black Lives Matter could help. It could do so by creating a forum for black people in the country to connect and relate, although I think that it would be helpful to open it to all people of colour and white people in support of the cause in South Africa as there is strength in numbers. Educating those within the community of people of colour would make it easier to educate those around us and it would increase cultural appreciation once we realise how similar and interlinked our cultures. In order for it to be successful, support from the government and political party youth leagues etc. would be needed to create a sense of national agreement in that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

As spoken by our late ex-president “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” and I believe that if we educate those around us about the importance that race, culture and ethnicity hold in our lives, and teach them about individual practices we will be able to move forwards. As a member of society I will speak up when jokes about my culture, race or ethnicity are made in hopes that society will use that to change the way they act and think. I will also speak in my South African languages with pride and teach my friends and those around me about these languages. I will try to make sure that I’m not part of the problem by respecting the cultures, races and ethnicities of others around me and choosing to learn about them rather than discriminate against them. Intelligence isn’t measured by your ability to speak English, and I will continue to spread this message to those who feel the need to mock others’ accents or inability to speak fluently or any language. When people here Latino languages or British accents it is sexy, however other languages are not. To combat this I will teach people the beauty of my languages and I will learn the beauty of others so that all South Africans can be included in this beauty.

Reference List

1. Philosophy Talk. 2020. What is Cultural Appropriation? | Philosophy Talk. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.philosophytalk.org/blog/what-cultural-appropriation
2. Black Lives Matter. 2020. About – Black Lives Matter. [ONLINE] Available at: https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/Black Lives Matter (@blklivesmatter) profile on Instagram • 615 posts . 2020.
3. Black Lives Matter (@blklivesmatter) profile on Instagram • 615 posts . [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/blklivesmatter/Wikipedia. 2020.
4. Colonial history of the United States – Wikipedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United_States. Mapping Police Violence. 2020. Mapping Police Violence. [ONLINE] Available at: https://mappingpoliceviolence.org.
5. Cambridge Core. 2020. Black Lives Matter: Evidence that Police-Caused Deaths Predict Protest Activity. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/black-lives-matter-evidence-that-policecaused-deaths-predict-protest-activity/BFA2E74F4BCB25C3C222807E8B1111D4/core-reader.
6. Wikipedia. 2020. Police brutality – Wikipedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_brutality#United_States.
7. Trinity College. 2020. The True Impact of Black Lives Matter – Trinity College. [ONLINE] Available at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1079&context=fypapers

African Americans struggle daily with racism or racial slurs. Black lives should be respected and not taken as a joke or being harm by other races. By the color, of their skin, etc. African Americans are being attacked everyday by police or sociality. It should not happen because we are all equal. It does not matter by the race or region or who they support.

When people think black lives do matter, they thought or think of how African Americans get racial profiled by the color of their race. And the police put African Americans under false arrest which include: intimidation, racial profiling, political repression, surveillance abuse, sexual abuse and police corruption. Black Lives should not be a joke in our sociality. “Black Lives matter because black people are persons. One of the greatest tragedies in American history was the myth that America could flourish without blacks flourish as persons”. People’s public opinion about it, “A majority of Americans have an unfavorable view of Black Lives Matter, although opinions on the protest movement cut sharply along racial and partisan lines, according to a new poll’. An amid of the swirl of public opinions the polls have been commissionable and it’s a slippery business. The violence being against “black and brown bodies has deep and inextricable roots in the history of the United States”. Back in the day public schools could not teach black slaves to write or read. Today, it’s not illegal and now black children can be able to read and write. BLM haves a bold mode of advocacy and it makes demands than of proposals also it can be identified for more challenges other than the victories. The split is not why we fear Black Lives Matter it’s for a far-reaching call or “reaching out for change implicate long-standing institutions”. BLM is considered as a “radical” concept for three major reasons.

The Black Lives Matter Movement it’s unrelenting the work on the issues of the police corruptions and it also helped incite of the release “of four unprecedented U.S Department of Justice reports that confirm the widespread presence of Police” for corruption in these areas: Baltimore, Ferguson, Cleveland, and Chicago. A lot of sociality has suggested that is erroneously for the BLM movement that been silent down in time of Trump. The nonetheless, it would have been a mistake for to assume that BLM haves been “dwindling away simply because the cameras are no longer present”. BLM purpose is to show a public land for a variety of the uses like energy development, recreation, ensuring natural, livestock grazing, and timber harvesting while ensuring natural, cultural, historic resources are maintained for present and future use.

Black Lives Matter is a Global Network with a member-led organization for a mission to build a local power and for to intervene with violence.

Way before BLM, it ever captured an public spotlight with an variety of people with groups that had a issue with thoughtful reports with an detailed policy of recommendations of how to decrease the police violence for African Americans groups or communities. The average number of police that are officers came intentionally killed each year. It was dropped to its lowest matching during the Barack Obama’s presidency- the antipathy corruption is still a day to day repeat in the United States, also “ many feel that state-wide policies to curb it should be extend beyond the black community” to include for the police themselves. BLM have now described itself for a “chapter-based nation organization working for the validity of black life”. For the article in the Washington Post least 1,502 people been shot and killed by the police that are on-duty. This been going on since 2015 beginning of that year. Black Americans are mostly likely to be shot and killed than white Americans who been killed by police officers also.

Black Lives should matter anyway regardless, not by their race, color, or their sex. It’s because of that all of us are all equal and all of us bleed the same blood and process the same. The sociality now separates black lives and there are not being treated the same as other people with a different skin color. At the end of day, the police should not be pulling the race card on African Americans. Most of the time it’s a false arrest. Most people separate African Americans all the time and not be able to be threaten the same as other races. African Americans who get attacked by police, 32% where unarmed and did not have a gun on them. That’s more than white people who are also unarmed and get attacked or killed by police. Black Lives are equal to other people lives all of them should be able to be threaten like other races the same way.

The protest group black lives matter was founded on july 13th 2013 subsequent to when the young 17 year old, trayvon martin was shot and killed by a local police officer, Geroge Zimmerman on february 26th 2012. There are based on the majority of us, because America is where most black people police related deaths are located. The statistics show that 7.13 million people out of the 18.26 million people that were killed wrongfully by the police were black in 2014.

The issue they are concerned about is racial bias, prejudice and police brutality against black people in U.S. This is because america has the most black people being killed and abuse wrongfully in the world. In 2017 the amount of people that died by police brutality were 1,100 and majority of those people were black. The founders had felt that they have had enough that being treated differently because of your race was wrong so they decided to diminish the amount racial prejudice in america to create a safe and welcoming environment in U.S.

The Founders Of BLM are Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors. Alicia Garza is as an editorial writer and civil activist. She has organized protests for/against student services, racism, rights for domestic workers and putting an end to police brutality. Opal Tometi is a writer and human rights activist. She tries to build an organized community where race is not a factor for any decision which is what she does with the BLM group. She is co-founder of BLM where she focuses on racial inequities faced by black people. Patrisse Cullors is a activist, artist. She advocates prison abolition. She is also a co-founder of BLM.

The methods of protest were marches. They went for a nonviolent approach because they would be no better than the oppressors who at the time had already shown traits of violence. For example when trayvon martin was shot by his local police officer the BLM group didn’t do a destructive demonstration they blocked the roads with a march on March 31 2012. When Eric Garner was choked to death they did a march on staten island, next to a store where Eric was choked by police officer, Daniel Pantaleo.

I don’t think the methods were very effective, because the amount of police killing black people went higher since they started in 2013. In 2017 the numbers were 1,100 but in 2018 a whole 3 years after the groups was founded the numbers were 1,502. This means that their goal of lowering the amount of black people dying from the police isnt happening for the number of people dying is going higher instead of lower.

No idea of a hopeful future would be a future with no police brutality or police killing people wrongfully. The idea is nowhere near reality and that means that the BLM protests were not enough to help the black people in america, which was BLM’s goal. I think if their protests were more forceful the police departments would look at them as a threat and not as a phase. I think they should try to get people to say we need to do something instead of don’t worry they’ll stop eventually which is what i believe the police departments and the government are saying. For example when the police department drop cases like the Trayvon Martin one, or when they do things like only firing the guy who choked eric garner these aren’t serious threats i think they aren’t protesting enough.