Black Lives Matter and Racism
Racism is when a race believes that it is superior to another competition resulting in discrimination, hatred, and prejudice towards people based on their color, national origin or ethnicity. Most people associate racism only with the acts of violence, harassment, and abuses, but also name calling inappropriate jokes, or rather one being excluded in a group or even an activity due to one’s race. Racism can be seen in one’s attitude and also institutions, at times it’s hidden and cannot be seen at all in cases where a senior can choose not to call a specific person in for an interview due to their surname. Racism prevents one from enjoying equality and dignity due to their race.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international movement that started in 2013 by the African Americans fraternity, its motive being was to campaign against violence and racism against the black community, they hold protects that speaks against police killing black people, raciall discrimination, police brutality and the racial inequality in the US criminal justice system. It began in the social media after George Zimmerman went free in the killing of Trayvon Martin an unarmed black teenager shot in the process of a sstruggle at a gated Florida suburb that is On July 13 of 2013. In 2014 the BLM was known due to its first demonstration that left two African Americans dead. BLM is a decentralized movement and has no formal structure of hierarchy. The movement now got nearly 30 officials chapters also an outpost in Canada; they lack legal entity, It has other movements in it originating the streets of Ferguson like We the Protesters and Hands Up United.
BLM is said to be a rallying cry for all black striving for freedom. Its made up of collaborators whom strongly believe in a broad and large movement whereby they try and move beyond the nationalism prevalent in the black community to bring as many people into the movement and bring all members to the front. They affirm all live from the Black queer and trans folks, disabled, undocumented, women and even people with records. The network centers those marginalized within the black liberation movements. The primary objective of BLM is to create a world where the lives of the blacks are no longer systematically a target of demise.
The Black Lives Matter movement in October election year made a move to one of the most influential women in America Hillary Clinton by interruptingg campaign events forcing Politician to contest with radioactive questions of race and justice for 90 minutes. One of the organizers asked Clinton if she could keep her promise of closing private prisons while they were contributing to her campaign. This lead to Clinton denouncing mass incarceration asked for police body cameras on every law enforcement officer and suggested a new deal for the black community. Clinton gave a criminal justice platform from the activist’s idea which included plans to control police militarization and empowering federation investigations in misconduct cases she also refused donations from private prison lobbyists.
Observations:
In as much as the oppression on the lives of the black community is still present and the shooting and gun violence is still experienced, in streets like Ferguson where one could go to jail for over four months for a traffic ticket.
Black Lives Matter movement has made impacts in the lives of the significant others, the name alone made and gave a sense of pride to the black community which has grown to a considerable rights movement. It has raised social consciousness about black wants to like the many and appealing depictions of black characters by Hollywood also the group focus on police violence has caused an explicit conversation about state repression. Responses to police killing in some areas are also decreasing. In the past two years, two black prosecuting attorneys have been elected in St. Louis which contains Ferguson, they have promised a close assessment of police performance. A black teenager was shot at 16 times by a policeman on duty in Chicago which led to him being tried for the murder. This has made history has the first murder trial of a policeman there has been.
Conclusion:
The movement has so far been described as a transition which has majorly broadened from the usual police violence. This new approach is proving to be more thrilling in comparison to when the civil rights groups were led by middle-aged men who had minimal concerns and appeal for the youngsters today.
In general, we assert that racism as a social condition is a primary cause of both health and illness. Any movement made to curb this will automatically bring positive change to how people in a society relate. Thus, in essence, the BLM movement has come in handy to echo the concerns of the oppressed black community by the historical injustices in the system. Moreover, to improve the outcomes, racism must be tackled not only by those who work directly with the affected persons or those who are racial/ethnic minorities themselves but by all public health professional.