Racism Against Blacks and the Black Lives Matter Movement
Introduction
Racism, extremism and segregation are the processes which have always left their
negative and dark consequences everywhere, globally. It develops a sense among people which
make them live on stereotypical and hatred beliefs about others. This feeling has always made
these countries and people with alienation and separateness, except for increasing unity and
togetherness. Whenever we talk about racism and segregation, the first example of this situation
makes us remind of the Blacks, who have been historically victims of these negativities. Blacks
have the long history of slavery, segregation, hatred, brutality, and social exclusion.
Racism has always been resulting from the causes of conservative attitude of nations
and people towards others, which increases the sense of social exclusion within those regions.
However, we should never forget or ignore the consequences which this hatred or feeling bring
with it, for the victimized group. As it highly influences their ways of living and make their
lives miserable. As a result of such attitude and long history, the people of similar ethnicity,
religion or group unite to develop a sense of nationalism which may protect their rights
altogether, by taking steps against the oppressors. The Black power movement was also a
movement of this kind which started its campaign against these oppressions and worked for
the protection of Black people’s rights.
Under this movement, the Black Lives Matter Movement is one of the prominent and
longest movements which have played their important role in making others know that Blacks
are the humans like others and they also need rights and freedom to live. This research essay
will highlight the purpose of this movement and will investigate the importance and
contribution of this movement in helping Blacks and other colored groups. Furthermore, it will
analyze the importance of such movements against the racial and segregated attitude.
Research Methodology
This is a qualitative research which will qualitatively analyze the important aspects of
this Black Lives Matter Movement. This essay will be based on reviewing the important
literature available regarding the information about this movement. For analyzing the data, this
research will use content analysis approach and methodology. Through the information
collected, it’s content will be analyzed to explore that what situations result in the start of these
movements, and how these movements contribute for the betterment of social situations, like
racism and extremism. Along with this, the data analysis will also explore that what role this
movement has played for Black people and their communities.
Data Collection
The data will be collected from the relevant articles related to Black Lives Matter
movement. The articles for research will be collected carefully by incorporating only those
who are from the reliable sources, like google scholar, New York Times, etc. The unreliable or
less reliable websites like encyclopedia or Wikipedia will not be used to collect information.
Literature Review
In regions like America, where people and institutions are highly affected by racial
and segregated beliefs, the prevalence of discrimination based on color is highly existential.
The miseries of Black Africans are on the top, with the other color groups, who continuously
face discriminating consequences on their lives. The priority or imperialism of Whites put
others into the category which is thought to be unvirtuous or inferiors. This white frame in
these regions consist of the factors like: 1) stereotypical beliefs attached with the Blacks and
with other groups of color. 2) the visual image of these color people based on the reputation
and image shown to the Whites. 3) Racial based emotion which people have attached to these
people of group. These all factors altogether contribute to heightening the discriminatory
behaviors which make the situation worse (Nummi, Jennings, & Feagin, 2019). These
circumstances and attitude lead the minorities or groups of color to start movements or
campaigns which may speak for their rights and freedom.
The pure example of this hatred and racism was the introduction of Jim Crow Law in
America, which forbade Blacks from entering to the restaurants and places, where Whites were
going, they were not allowed to use or drink the things which Whites used for themselves. In
simple words, they were being discriminated on the national level, to show that they are inferior
to Whites and that any other group differing from the Whites have no right to live with freedom
and with full liberty as they don’t deserve that higher attitude and respect. The Black Lives
matter movement started in 2013, after the boy named Martin got attacked by the police and
by some man based on the racial identity he belonged to. This movement was started after the
hashtag posted by the girl named Alicia, which made others start a movement called Black
lives matter (Çetin, & et. al. 2020). This was a movement which can be regarded as both;
political and social movement, as it advocates the violent and discriminatory attitude towards
Black people at social level, and political level. It started as a social movement but became a
highly political movement which speaks politically for the rights of Blacks.
Some of the basic elements of structure of this movement includes: 1) this
organization is a chapter-based organization which have various branches all over, run by the
members, 2) the movement has an online structure based, in which hashtag Black Lives matter
is being used as a sign of social movement which people use to speak against the oppressors.
3) It is the largest movement in USA based on the Black power movement, which is being
organized nationally and it also incorporates training programs and sessions. This movement
has based on almost 40 chapters, mainly running in USA, Canada and in some parts of the
Europe. This can also term as an innovative movement, as it utilizes the online and more
broader ways to help out the Blacks, who can utilize online sources to speak about their
problems and issues. The main founders of this movement were Cullors, Garza and Tometi
which formulated a network which could speak of the fact that Black lives matter and they
should be treated with equality (Nummi, Jennings, & Feagin, 2019).
Unlike other social movement for the Blacks power, Black lives matter became a
center to organize the protests and rallies based on the guiding principles which could make
these protests effective and fruitful outcome oriented. This was the reason that it started
becoming an international movement which gave a platform to all Blacks living in any region
of the world. The distinctive feature of this movement was that it differed from the previous
movements which demanded direct concentration or working of the social or political policies.
The linguists report that the quality feature of this movement is that the members utilize
influential tweets and content to psychologically influence the people for protest. Altogether
this movement proves itself to be a new and advanced social movement which differs in its
structure and organization from the previous social and political movements (Tillery, A. B.
2019).
Black lives matter is the movement which has actually made people aware of the issue
which Blacks, especially African Americans are facing. As already discussed, that this
movement started as a response to the cases of public and police brutality and their violent
attitude towards Blacks. Based on this movement many protests and rallies are utilized by
Blacks to speak for their rights and to show their struggle to get equality and recognition in the
society. As an approach to increase the influence of this movement, we can now see that many
renowned and influential people have become part of this movement to spread the message of
quality and peace for Blacks and for everyone. This has provided people with the platform
which they can utilize to act like a united group which may work together to make people aware
of the actual situation prevailing in their society, where still people are not getting their rights
properly (Iorio, D. 2017).
As the name ‘Black Lives Matter’, speaks for itself that this was the movement mainly
focusing on protecting the Blacks’ rights, whereas this movement has also contributed to show
their solidarity for other colored groups too. It kept on addressing the issues which other racial
groups were facing regarding the civil rights violation. The main purpose of this broader
solidarity and concern is to bring change in the societies like America, where racial disparities
issues are rising. Along with this, the chapters of this movement are in connection with the
other campaigns and movements worldwide, who are also struggling to cope with this
challenge of racism and segregation (Nummi, Jennings, & Feagin, 2019). So overall, this
movement was in response to the discriminatory policies and injustice attitude of Whites and
others towards colored groups, which give birth to such campaigns and movements. However,
on positive side these movements are the source of non-violent and positive campaigns on ways
to speak against injustice.
According to the report about this movement, critics to American colorblind ideology
argue that this movement is actually the outcome of their racial attitude which is either
intentionally or intentionally thought to be non-prevailing. Whereas people’s beliefs and
thoughts are still racial stricken who are contributing to discriminatory behavior and attitude
even in the post-civil rights era. However, people highly responded negatively to this
movement, and the evidence of this criticism is in the form of starting ‘All lives matter
movement’. This showed that people are still believing in the success of their colorblind
ideology and think that this movement is starting a discriminatory movement (Siscoe, T. 2016).
However, the real purpose behind starting this movement was to put an end to the negative
attitude of people towards Blacks, who get victimized to people’s hatred and violent attitude,
which result in huge number of incarcerations, killings and sexual harassment cases.
If we look at the evidence related to brutality and violence against Blacks, we can
assume that this criticism against this movement is just not right. America has historically
contributed to the violence and discrimination against the colored people, and this issue is not
something new after the start of this movement. It has always been seen that whenever there is
this society wants change, they simply label these minorities and people as responsible for
inciting the violence and for increasing the crime cases. Even this time, the actions have been
used repeatedly to label this movement as a source to incite violence, ignoring the fact these
violent cases and attitude always existed in the society throughout the history till now (Iorio,
2017). However, this movement is working to bring the issues on front, so that these issues
could be resolved.
Throughout since founding of Black lives matter movement, it has contributed highly
to the societies worldwide, with its influence and positive work. It has not only taken the issues
related to racism on front but has also made people aware of the issues prevailing in their
society which must be addressed jointly. This not only got appreciation from the people and
media but also got its appreciation from the respectable members of the government. Such as
President Obama used to call the representation of this movement to the White House. The
success of this movement was that it made everyone aware of the issue and invited them to
take part in mitigating the effects of these challenges arising through hatred, which made it a
part of every society’s culture that the unjust behavior and attitude is unacceptable at all means.
It actively highlighted the cases of brutality and police violence such as the case of Baton
Rouge, which was highly appreciated by everyone and its members got reward for this effort.
So, it is working on its objectives which has highly helped in improving the situation of Black
Africans and of other Blacks and colored groups (Iorio, 2017). These types of movements and
campaign provide the societies to speak in non-violent and effective ways to address the
systemic and institutionalized issues, which are otherwise difficult to cope with.
As for the supporters and believer of black lives matter movements, there is a need for
bringing series of changes which will help the movement in working properly to bring actual
changes in the society. According to them the voice of the oppressed will be heard by practicing
civil disobedience in non-violent ways, which will ultimately demand new laws and policies
by changing the previous racial stricken laws and rules. The civil disobedience is necessary to
gain attention of the institutions and people who can actually help them society in
implementing the strategies and policies which will bring a positive change. The real approach
and purpose behind such movements is to ensure that such laws and rules could be implemented
which will be neutral and which will not be just for the benefit of few, and by ignoring the
others. This was against the ideology which was apparently implemented in societies like USA
which ensured that race doesn’t matter, however the systems and policies were racially biased
(Siscoe, T. 2016).
Analysis and Conclusion
The literature reviewed above, was an attempt to highlight the important aspects of
Black Lives Matter Movement which has become the highly influential and largest movement
of USA. The analysis of the data shows that this movement has highly contributed to the lives
of Blacks and other colored groups worldwide. Unlike other social movements, it has utilized
new and effective ways to engage people in the non-violent ways to speak against the rights of
people on humanity ground. Since its foundation, till now it has actively engaged itself in
cooperating with the useful organizations, campaigns and movements to speak against violence
and injustice in the society. This campaign has made its use universal and international, which
provides people with a platform to protest for their rights and to protect their freedom to live.
Although this movement got high criticism too, in terms of taking people’s
negativities towards it and in terms of getting counter movements and programs, but still its
success can be seen through its worldwide engagement and working. Starting from a twitter
post with a hashtag, it became a social and political movement which allows people to raise
their voice against the social and political injustices except for tolerating the unjust and hatred
attitude. This movement aims at bringing change in the society, which will transform the
society into a non-discriminating and just society, where everyone will have equal right to live
and to speak.
In conclusion, this essay can assume that this movement has the potential to change
the society in effective way, by engaging itself the way it is working since its foundation. This
has provided the negligent with the helpful hand which may lead them towards equality, just
representation and appreciation on humanity grounds. It can be hoped that the society will
move towards a positive change in regard of coping with the racism and extremism related
challenges.
References:
Çetin, Berk & Turhaner, Ezgi & Karusagi, Pamir & Canlı, Deniz & İpin, Fatih. (2020). Black
Lives Matter Movement- A Comprehensive Study on Institutionalized Racism, Sexism and Its
Approach Towards Intersectionality.
Iorio, D. (2017). The True Impact of Black Lives Matter. Trinity Publications (Newspaper,
Yearbooks, Catalogues, etc.). Trinity College.
Nummi, J., Jennings, C., & Feagin, J. (2019, December). # BlackLivesMatter: Innovative
Black Resistance. In Sociological Forum (Vol. 34, pp. 1042-1064).
Siscoe, T. (2016). # BlackLivesMatter: This Generation's Civil Rights Movement. Portland
State University.
Tillery, A. B. (2019). What Kind of Movement is Black Lives Matter? The View from
Twitter. Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, 4(2), 297-323.