Black Lives Matter Movement: Double-Sided Op-Ed

(Image courtesy of dailymail.co.uk)

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By: Zoe Howes '21

When you were a child your parents tried their best to create this censored world around you. Since you were young, they wanted you to believe that we live in a place filled with sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns. Unfortunately, as a black child, you can’t grow up in this fantasy. You have to learn early on that you are going to be treated differently because of the way you look.

When I was seven years old, I remember my parents sat my brother and me down and said that they needed to talk to us about the police. My brother and I sat there in confusion wondering what was going on. My mom began by saying that as black children, we were going to be treated differently in this world. One day we might be confronted by a cop in a racist manner. We probably didn’t do anything wrong. We most likely were following all the rules. She told us that when this happens, no matter what, we must stay calm. We have to narrate everything that we are doing to this officer. Never talk back. Write down the cop’s name and badge number. But most importantly, get home safe and alive. As an anxiety ridden child, I was perplexed by this. I wondered to myself, “Why would a cop want to hurt me because of my skin color? Aren’t these people hired to protect and serve?” As I got older, I understood that no child should have to go through this. No family should have to go through this. And no parent should have to worry if this is the day that their child might be killed by a cop.

As I grew older, I still tried to be optimistic for change in this society. I wanted to believe that racism wouldn’t be present when I got older. Unfortunately, in 2020 we still live in a world full of hatred. On May 25th, 2020 the world was shaken to the core by the death, no, the murder, of George Floyd. George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis police due to a false claim that he used a counterfeit bill. George Floyd should still be alive. The worst part of it all was that no one would have believed us if it wasn’t caught on camera. This story has been going on for entire generations. Whether it was in the 60s when police attacked black people with rabid dogs and firehoses for fighting for their rights or now when protestors are met with tear gas and batons. There needs to be change.

How can you help? First of all, stop using performative activism. Don’t think that posting a quick post on your Instagram story will save the day. If you can’t go to protests, sign the petitions, support your black friends, and most importantly, educate yourself.

The other day, I was talking with a friend about the upcoming elections. I had said something along the lines of, “I can’t be friends with someone who supports Trump. I just can’t.”

She responded with, “Well everyone is entitled to their own opinions and he has some good ideas. Like how he has helped the economy. You shouldn't stop being friends with someone for that reason.”

I stopped in my tracks for a quick second before I replied, saying, “Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I get that. But Trump is a depiction of hatred. He doesn’t want people like me living on this earth. Yeah, sure, he helped the economy for white people, but the unemployment rate for people of color is at an all time low. Trump thinks that cops do have the right to kill me on the basis of my skin color. I have to live in this world with a different lense than you. I have to act ‘proper’ around cops, I have to work harder to get jobs and interviews, I have to fight against the stereotypes that were placed in this world. So no, if someone supports Trump, they don’t support me. And I will never put my love, loyalty, and kindness into someone like that.”

She was quiet for a couple of moments and then she smiled. She understood and I knew deep down that she was going to educate herself, so that she could become a better ally. I told this story because it shows that your friends, peers, and family can educate themselves with a click of a button. As a black woman I don’t owe you anything. I don’t have to explain to you our history or what a bantu knot is because you have the power to do that on your own. You can do it.

The murders of innocent black women and men by police will never be a wound that will heal. As a society we need to defund the police. We can’t live in a world where the streets crawl with racist cops ready to pull out their guns and kill and get away with it. Stop saying that we will do better. You need to take action. Use your privilege. Go to those protests. Sign every petition. Educate. Love your black friends and always show support for them. No cop can take away who I am. I am a proud black woman. My brothers and sisters in the black community are powerful. In our community, we are taught that our words are mightier than the weapon. We are taught kindness over hospitality. Most of all, we are taught that love is our greatest chance at making this earth a better place. But I want to ask you, “What side of history do you want to be on?”

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Oppose

By: Anonymous

In the past couple of months, the Black Lives Matter movement has gained a lot of steam with the disputed circumstances around the death of George Floyd and now with the shooting of Jacob Blake by the police.

If you ask virtually any conservative today about their opinions on the Black Lives Matter organization, they would all give you a similar response. All of them would tell you that of course black lives matter. I personally completely and totally agree with the statement as well. But what most conservatives do not agree with, is the organization of BLM.

BLM was formed in 2013 as a result of the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of a teenager named Travon Martin. The acquittal of George Zimmerman was a conclusion to the trial that almost everyone saw coming. There was overwhelming evidence that the shooting was in self defense, as Zimmerman had bruises on the back of his head and had a broken nose, according to CBC news. The shooting was therefore done in self defense. But the organizers of BLM, three African American women named Alicia Graza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors, saw it in a different way. These three women founded the organization of BLM on an empire of lies.

The organization gained prominence in 2014 with the shooting death of Michael Brown and the lie that he had his hands up and was begging the police to not shoot him. The Obama Department of Justice found that this was a total lie and that Michael Brown tried to shoot the police officer that was inquiring about what he was up to.

But none of this was enough for BLM. When the officer in that case got acquitted for his justified actions, the organization pushed massive large scale riots throughout the city of Ferguson, destroying many small businesses and really only hurting the majority African American community in the city. These actions in Ferguson also caused another unintended consequence. Crime rates in the city spiked dramatically as the police were no longer willing to proactively police the area, as they feared having their lives ruined if they made one wrong move.

Dubbed the Ferguson Effect, it was responsible for a 65% increase in the violent crime rate in Ferguson in 2015 and caused the violent crime per 100,000 residents statistic to go up from 545 to 790 per 100,000 residents from 2014 to 2015. The national average for that statistic was about 362 per 100,000 people in 2014 and went up to 373 per 100,000 in 2015. A national spike in violent crime was also witnessed of about 4% from one year to the next.

After that, the organization went on the backburner for a couple of years until 2020 and the viral video of the George Floyd killing came out. Within the next couple of days, I witnessed America go up in flames. But this wasn’t what I was expecting. The day of the killing, America had just launched 2 American astronauts on an American rocket and spacecraft for the first time in 9 years. I witnessed a national moment of unity just hours before the night of unrest in the country. We went from staunch patriotism to a deep hate for our great nation. I witnessed police cars attacked and the notion that there are always a few bad apples in any profession got completely thrown out of the window. And all for what? What really is the goal of this organization, and why are their means of achieving it so violent?

Needless to say, the moment of national unity had come and gone in the span of just a couple hours. I remember talking to my friends that night and about how that national moment of unity just slipped by in the blink of an eye. I then started doing research into what the organization really stood for.

In my research I didn’t have to go very far. All I needed to do was go to their own website. If you look at the website, at this point the “What We Believe” section has been completely erased. Just a couple days ago it was still up and it was appalling to me.

In that section of the website they outlined “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”

There is sadly only one problem with this idea. Many researchers have found that the astounding rate of single motherhood in the black community which hovers around 70% is one of the driving causes behind criminality in the black community. While this gets to my point of being a bad organization based on lies, there is one fundamental incurable problem with everything the organization tries to push.

Everything that the organization stands for is pushed by the fact that two of the founders of the organization are in their own words “Trained Marxists” who are versed in the theories of Marx. That should worry everyone. It seems that all the BLM movement is meant to do is forward the ideas of Karl Marx, which have been plaguing nations for over a century, and they are using black people as pawns to push the country towards socialism and communism, which is something we all hopefully don’t want.