Black Lives Matter

The documentary “Stay Woke” captured the development of the Black Lives Matter Movement. The Black Lives movement gained momentum with police brutality being televised and brought to the attention of those outside the black community. Unfortunately, with a new movement comes many misconstrued images and misconceptions. The movement is often wrongly framed as wreckers of public property, police murderers and frankly “not doing it right”. This framing does not just come out of the months of outwardly racist groups but in mass media. I would like to blame it on the poor advertising but really at some point, a person just has to educate themselves. It made the movement look as if it was here to murder police officers as retaliation for murdering innocent black men, women and children but really the movement is here to hold police officers accountable fo their actions. With that in mind, how do we do this?     I really appreciated the focus on thinking about next steps on how to mobilize from here. We have a spark now but what to do moving forward. The movement is definitely growing but without actionable next steps, it could easily fizzle out. With new movements comes with young protesters with little leadership. Although this is great that younger generations are coming out to grow the movement, it can also lead to protesting with little guidance. There needs to be organizations developing leadership and mobilization skills for our young people.     I could draw parallels from the “Stay Woke” film to the Children’s March documentary. Both highlighted the power of youth voice to navigate and lead these movements. Both these movements also had similar messages of holding police and others accountable for their actions. Of granting the same rights to black people that white people already are granted when they are born in America. The Children’s March documentary however to me felt like painted a picture that was much more pretty than in the Stay woke film. It highlighted some moments of turbulence that happened during the Children’s March, but overall the film ended on a positive note. The film captured the first hand accounts of those that were at that March and they remembered it as an empowering exhilarating experience but somehow I could still hear in their voices that there was still much to be done. The Children’s March is a good example of how mobilization can lead to action but I am not so sure of continuous action taking place. We can see the police brutality that happened in Birmingham that continues to happen all over the United States today. The Black Lives matter movement unlike the Children’s March hopefully is here to stay. Hopefully we don’t fizzle out and we can continue to bring justice to those that deserve and prevent injustice from happening in the future. We are all now aware but the question is will now people behave like they are aware.

P.S. To continue on with on discussion on intersectionality, here are some black trans organizations to donate to and if you are on instagram, here are some black lgbtq+ couples to follow. Also, hope everybody's Juneteenth was filled with education and remembrance. 

The image below by Campaign Zero is a good start to looking into how to defund the police entirely.