A recent post by Facebook creator
Mark Zuckerberg caught my attention because it had to do with the
#BLACKLIVESMATTER movement. There is a
common misconception in America that those who support the Black Lives Matter
movement are therefore excluding all other groups of people as less important.
According to blacklivesmatter.com, this movement is not stating that black
lives are more important than others; instead this movement is attempting to
highlight and start conversation about violence and the ways that black people
are suffering in a culture dominated by a history of oppression and racism. The
movement “is working
for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally
targeted for demise.” Additionally,
from the outside the Black Lives Movement seems to have a vendetta against law
enforcement officers. This proclamation is also not true. The Black Lives
Matter movement is against the excessive violence often employed by law
enforcement against black suspects, which has led to deaths of innocents in the
hands of police an astounding number of times in recent memory.
Despite this clear goal, many
people have vilified the Black Lives Matter movement as a resurgence of the
Black Panther Movement, and as a result are quick to shout out “All Lives
Matter” whenever encountered by the statement “Black Lives Matter.” This type
of response is “unacceptable and malicious” according to Zuckerberg. This
brings us back to the incident at Facebook. According to Zuckerberg, there have
been several instances at the Facebook offices where instances of “Black Lives
Matter” being written on the walls has been crossed out and replaced by “All
Lives Matter,” which prompted Zuckerberg’s response. Crossing out “Black Lives
Matter” is seen as an attempt to silence another’s speech or assert that “one
person’s speech is more important than another’s.”
If I had to describe the Black
Lives Movement’s struggle I would use an analogy that I saw on an article
online (http://mic.com/articles/122541/heres-why-white-people-need-to-stop-saying-all-lives-matter#.OGxKSLVah).
Imagine a dinner table setting.
Everyone at the table has a plate full of food except one; lets call him Bill,
who has no food on his plate. Bill states, “Bill deserves food,” to which
everyone else at the table replies, “Everyone deserves food.” That is of course
true, everyone does deserve food, but this does nothing to solve or acknowledge
the fact that Bill has no food and everyone else does.
Perhaps one day the Black Lives Matter
movement will be successful in bringing about change in this country, but it
will require other groups to stop the marginalization of black people and their
struggle.
http://www.dailywire.com/news/3692/zuckerberg-endorses-blacklivesmatter-warns-robert-kraychik?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=121115-news&utm_campaign=benshapiro
Robert brings an important conversation to the table because this conversation has been so prevalent in the last year and a half. I think the idea the "All lives matter" is one that is whitewashed. Changing "black lives matter" to "all lives matter" is a selfish move mostly perpetuated by whites. In this movement, whit people have felt excluded (for once in their lives) and feel it necessary to insert themselves in this situation. I think it's a perfect example of what consistently happens in our society. White people feel overlooked when an all black greek organization is established, or black music awards, the list goes on. The point they are missing is that our society was and still is so intensely white washed. Not even until the '60s were our schools beginning to get integrated and not until the '80s did only some of our greek organizations begin integrating themselves. White people refuse to believe how exclusive they were and continue to be and in this way continue to perpetuate racism.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with the Black Lives Matter movement, I do however criticize certain points within it. Now, this could just be a skew from the media, but the Black Lives Matter campaign seems to mostly focus on law enforcement violence to blacks. You do touch on this in your post saying it is against excessive force used by law enforcement, but most of the time we hear about the Black Lives Matter movement is after a law enforcement related death in the black community. I do agree that excessive force should be outright prohibited by anyone, especially law enforcement, however one shocking thing I read recently was a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics that showed whites are statistically more likely to be involved in a police related death than any other ethnic group. Therefore I can see the rationalization behind the All Lives Matter change. Another thing that I find lacking for the Black Lives Matter campaign is that they do not seem to acknowledge the number of black related deaths from other blacks, or at least they do not make as big a deal. A recent interview that I listened to with the new Memphis mayor (Jim Strickland) brought about a reinforcement to this point. He stated that the crime rate in Memphis is demanding of attention, and that in 2016 alone, not even two months worth, there have been between 35-40 homicides. While I know not all of these are black on black crimes, living in Memphis my whole life I have seen the constant news reports of yet another homicide and typically it is black on black crime. I would be delighted if the Black Lives Matter group would make as big a deal about this as they did with the man that was killed in Ferguson. In my opinion, both are exceptionally important with regards to Black Lives Matter.
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