The execution of African-American George Floyd prompted a surge of public indignation unparalleled in the United States, both on the streets and online. The event was the final straw for the country’s minority groups, bringing up concerns of racial inequity and police brutality, and protests continue today. The Black Lives Matter movement has greatly outpaced earlier protest movements, such as the Women’s March in 2017 and civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s (Strickland, 2022). Black Lives Matter is a movement that has great importance; it is a need for minorities.
The anti-racist Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, a decentralized and “leaderless” movement defending the rights of African Americans and other non-white races, was at the heart of the demonstrations. It originally appeared as a hashtag on social media in the summer of 2013 in response to the acquittal of a white assassin of an African-American teenager (Nicaise, 2020). In surveys, 92 percent of Americans support more training for police officers on peaceful means and the restricted use of guns (Geran Pilon, 2020). Meanwhile, the idea of demolishing and moving monuments to American historical heroes is supported by about 25 percent of Americans, while demolishing Confederate monuments also fails to garner a majority of votes – just 43 percent (Geran Pilon, 2020). The early BLM acts drew notice for their daring, which did not appear conducive to public sympathy: activists in the United States and the United Kingdom handcuffed each other during rush hour, blocking busy motorways, including those leading to airports.
Black Lives Matter is a necessity because the themes of racism and inequality in society are most relevant in today’s society. Although the situation in the U.S. is far from what it was in the mid-twentieth century when African Americans could not attend American universities for whites and had to ride in the back of buses and use other restrooms, many sociological and statistical markers show that racism is not dead. Blacks have about half as much median income as whites, African-Americans have relatively low representation in leadership positions, and prison populations are disproportionately high. Of the white population, young people are the most supportive of BLM (Yoo et al., 2021). This modern instability, authoritarian-populist revenge, and the surge of protest activity is part of a global clash of new-age values with the established and not always resilient values of previous eras. According to polls, two-thirds of Americans face inequity in various sectors, including the legal system and criminal law (Drobotya et al., 2021). The Ku Klux Klan demonstrations, which have no consequences for the participants, are another prime example (Heikkilä, 2021). However, anti-Ku Klux Klan protests often gather twice as many people the next day.
Many people were inspired by suffragettes’ ability to gain recognition, so these actions can be considered the forerunner of such movements as Black Lives Matter. The suffragette movement emerged in Britain and the United States in the late nineteenth century against cases where women were dissatisfied with their social status. The term “suffragette” was first used to refer to activists in an article published in the Daily Mail newspaper in London by journalist Charles Hands (Stewart, 2019). The suffragettes fought mostly peacefully, including collective public appearances, hunger strikes, and spectacular stunts. It was this movement that gave impetus to the struggle for social equality.
I believe that Black Lives Matter is necessary in today’s society; people must think about problems such as inequality, as there is no place for oppression today. Society must eliminate old prejudices and stereotypes to ensure modern people’s safe and happy future. In a world of constant progress, people must pay attention not only to technology but also to the social component of the world.
References
Drobotya, Y., Baldzhy, M., Pecheniuk, A., Savelchuk, I., Hryhorenko, D., & Kulinich, T. (2021). Overcoming poverty and social inequality in Third World countries (Latin America, Africa). IJCSNS International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, 21(3), 295-303.
Geran Pilon, J. (2020). 2020 America and the cancel culture of fools. Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 14(2), 183-196. Web.
Heikkilä, N. (2021). Racial Myths and the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan. American Studies in Scandinavia, 53(1), 21-41.
Nicaise, A. (2020). What can historic sites tell us about the movement for women’s suffrage in New York State? Free Inquiry. Web.
Stewart, E. (2019). The Suffrage Pageant Play: Making and Performing Women’s History in Cicely Hamilton’s A Pageant of Great Women (1909) and Christopher St. John’s The First Actress (1911). Caliban. French Journal of English Studies, (62), 73-97. Web.
Strickland, C. (2022). The Fight for Equality Continues. Phylon (1960-), 59(1), 71-90.
Yoo, H. C., Atkin, A. L., Seaton, E. K., Gabriel, A. K., & Parks, S. J. (2021). Development of a support for Black Lives Matter measure among racially–ethnically diverse college students. American Journal of Community Psychology, 68(1-2), 100-113. Web.