It is an established fact that black people are the victims of more police brutality than members of any other race. In fact, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, police violence is “a leading cause of death for young men in the United States.” Furthermore, over the life course, about 1 in every 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by police.
The study leader, Frank Edwards, told the Los Angeles Times that black men have “better odds of being killed by police than you have of winning a lot of scratch-off lottery games.”
These statistics speak for themselves and what they tell us is being a black man in America is not safe. The disgusting irony of this is that black men and black people, in general, are not safe from the people who took an oath to “serve and protect.”
This disregard for the lives of black people at the hands of police is what led to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter first began circulating on the internet in 2013, when George Zimmerman was found not guilty for the murder of Trayvon Martin. The hashtag became a movement and then grew into an organization, composed of black people and non-black people alike, united by the common purpose of standing up against the oppression of black people and our “systematically targeted … demise.”
The movement was created to attain justice for black people who are victims of unwarranted crimes and bring awareness to the oppression continually going on in this country. But some people couldn’t see that, so in retaliation, they created “All Lives Matter” to discredit Black Lives Matter.
Their whole purpose was essentially to say, “Black lives matter, but so does everyone else.” But what they’re failing to realize is that not everyone else is being gunned down by police at the same rate as black people.
The All Lives Matter movement is composed of the blind leading the blind. It has no other purpose but to oppose BLM, in turn oppressing black people more.
In a nutshell: ALM is a condescending and patronizing movement that has no other purpose but to criticize black people and supporters of the black community for fighting for our lives. The movement is like protesting an event for a particular disease holding a sign that says, “Other diseases matter too.”
BLM goes beyond the unwarranted deaths of black people at the hands of police. The movement was not created to discredit and bash white people or claim that black people are more important than any other race but to help liberate the black community from the overlooked oppression and injustices we face in modern society.
In this day and age, everyone needs to be educated on the reality of the world in which we live. There will always be people trying to tear black people down, but it’s up to us to fight for what we know is right, and the first step in doing that is education. Everyone has a voice and they shouldn’t be afraid to use it. I believe that in the day and age we live in, it is very important to let how we feel be known so we can fight the power. The power that continues to let ignorance run wild and minorities be oppressed. It doesn’t matter what race or how old you are — awareness and education is necessary to break the cycle.
