Black Lives Matter is a movement intended to stop racism & police brutality to the African American community. The Black Lives Matter organization was created on July 13, 2013. It was created in response to the death of Trayvon Martin. A 17-year-old boy who died from getting shot. In May 2020, when George Floyd died hundreds of riots started across the united states. Since then, the movement has just gotten bigger & bigger. Many controversial things have happened such as riots yet that’s kind of what the rioters were going for.
George Floyd
George Floyd is a man who was killed on May 25th, 2020 in Minneapolis, MN. After buying cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill the clerk called the police. George was apparently reaching for something when officers arrived which some think was a knife or weapon but it was later learned that he was shoving some of the counterfeit money into the side of his seat. When officers arrived Derek Chauvin pinned Floyd to the ground & kneeled on his neck for 8 minutes & 46 seconds. During this, George Floyd was constantly saying he couldn’t breathe & for him to stop. Chauvin did not stop & when he did Floyd was dead. There were three other officers there with him yet none of them tried to intervene. This entire thing was filmed & later went viral on social media. The day after protests & riots started occurring all over the united states.
Protests & riots
For the next few weeks following his death thousands of people attended protests. And a couple hundred people attended riots. The news only really showed the riots & that’s where it went downhill. Because everybody started assuming that the riots were the protests which they weren’t. The riots consisted of burning down buildings, raiding stores, breaking statues, graffiti, etc. people immediately assumed that the protesters were the ones doing this so protesters immediately got hated on. An important thing to note is it is a right for people to peacefully protest which is what the majority of people were doing. The rioters are not the same. So blame the rioters, not the protesters, & even then, rioters sometimes have reasonable intentions.
Rioters
one of the things they were doing was tearing down statues of generals & confederate soldiers. They weren’t tearing them down for no reason though, the statues they were tearing down were slave owners. Some people say they are “changing history” or that the generals owned slaves to give them a better life. These are complete lies though, It’s not like you will completely forget them if there isn’t a statue & they aren’t that important of people in the first place. And people owned slaves because they could & they got more money. And even if they did want to give them a better life why did they have to own them to do that? If they actually wanted to give them a better life they would let them live their own lives, without an owner. They were also burning buildings down & raiding stores, some being Wendy’s & target. They did this since they’ve been protesting for so long & no one has listened to them so they had to take it a step further for people to pay attention to them. And if you actually believe that burning these buildings is more important than the people they are doing it for, you are part of the problem. These buildings can be replaced, lives cannot.
BLM vs ALM
ALM means All Lives Matter. People say this in response to BLM because “their life matters too”. But saying ALM is completely selfish. White people obviously matter, but so do black people. White people do not face police brutality, white people do not have to worry about people being scared of them. Black people do. An example of white privilege is a white boy who murdered several people & got peacefully arrested, not even tased, yet George Floyd died from a fake dollar bill. White privilege is real & if you don’t believe that, again, you are part of the problem. BLM is a movement to raise the voices of black individuals & stop these kinds of things from happening. There is no reason why someone like George Floyd should have died, he & every other black person should get treated the same as white people.
Conclusion
BLM is a good movement whether or not some of the people partaking in it are bad. Obviously, it hasn’t done absolutely astonishing things since there are still black people dying & getting hurt from police brutality, but many officers who have partaken in police brutality have gotten fired, arrested, & more. Protests & riots are still happening today all over America. They will most likely continue to happen until a major change has been made. People will continue to hate this movement until the day they die but that is just how people are. People are going to hate, regardless of the movement. If you care, do what you can to help, may seem small now, but if we are saving people that’s all that matters.
