Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter has greatly impacted American society to stand up for what they believe in,
stand up for their rights and freedom, to speak up for what they believe is true. Black Lives
Matter shows the world that we should all fight for equality, everyone matters, no matter race,
ethnicity, religion, etc., everyone in the world matters. Nobody should be treated differently
based on who they are, but instead treated based on what they have done. I believe that Black
Lives Matter positively influenced American society, in spreading awareness and showing the
world that we should fight for what we think is right. I believe the street protests have been
effective in the Black Lives Matter movement. As Mazumder stated, there are ways to evaluate
protests, two of them are to raise awareness and did the publics opinion change (Mazumder,
2020). Based on these points, I think that the street protests both raised awareness to the issue
and helped shape and change the public opinion. Speaking for myself, I wasn’t familiar with the
Black Lives Matter movement until I started seeing the protests all over the country. The
protests helped open my eyes to an issue that’s constantly happening in the United States, and
that these activists and people are fighting for a right they should have. Street protests are
effective in doing both, raising awareness to an issue and changing the public’s view on the
issue, as it brings it to light causing people to learn and understand more. A protest is as
successful as you make it, how you communicate and state what exactly you want to achieve
from the protest. Another way it’s effective is through social media platforms, where protests
are spread through all social media, shared, and posted, and getting news media coverage to
help spread more news. Besides communication and media coverage, an effective way is to get
different people from different communities to help protest, get as many supporters as
possible, this way the cause is spread and fought by others and not just the one community
fighting.
Black Lives Matter activists are trying to propose certain changes. One of the major changes
that BLM wants is defunding the police. One argument highlight that during COVID-19, nurses
were struggling to get PPE but police officers were showing up at protests with all manner
equipment and weaponry (Austermuhle, 2020). BLM want to remove the funds from the police
departments and have them places elsewhere, where it’s necessary and is required, such as
public schools and institutions. Although they make valid points as to why they want to defund
the police, I think this is unreasonable, and the likelihood of this being enacted is extremely
low. Police play crucial roles in society, they serve to protect, although they didn’t protect
George Floyd or others, they are there to serve and protect the greater society. Instead of
defunding the police, but I do think the police officers should not get away with certain things
just because they’re officers. I think they should be held to the greater extent of the law as any
other person who would commit the same crime. Another change BLM is looking to change is
to ban stop and frisk. I believe this is a reasonable proposal, one that would be enacted.
According to Austermuhle, in New York City, a class action suit was done against the mayor and
police department due to stop-and frisk, which after 5 years have found that the tactic violated
the constitutional rights of minorities because of the pattern and practice of racial profiling in
the stops (Austermuhle, 2020). If New York City can ban stop-and-frisk, I believe all other states
can do the same. This does violate a person, especially if it’s a black person, they know they are
being targeted.
References:
Mazumder, Shom. 2020. What Protests Can (and Can’t) do. FiveThirtyEight.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-protests-can-do/
Austermuhle, Martin. 2020. What Black Lives Matter D.C. Wants to See Change, and where the
City stands. DCIST. https://dcist.com/story/20/06/08/dc-black-lives-matter-blm-demandschange-how/