Pro
Con
Pro
BLM is a vital movement that has sparked change across the nation, and in our own community
by Bricen Chitty, Web Director
After the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests started popping up all over the country in a battle to “eradicate white supremacy” (BLM mission statement). Over the last four months, millions of people have turned up to these protests holding signs with phrases such as “Black Lives Matter” or “No Justice No Peace”. The New York Times reports that Black Lives Matter could possibly be the largest movement in our country’s history, with over 26 million protest attendants as far back as June 14, 2020.
In the wake of these protests, however, many people have questioned the motives of BLM. Some people believe that Black Lives Matter is a domestic terrorist organization that only aims to destroy the country, with its ideals and beliefs and that BLM is simply a violent movement, taking advantage of the situation to destroy property, break the law, and physically assault people.
What few people care to highlight, however, is the positive impact that it BLM has had on our community and our nation. People are talking about race more than ever, and are inspired by this national struggle to get their own voice heard. Black Lives Matter has gotten us to talk about the issues in our country and community and helped push us towards solutions. We are more committed now to removing corrupt politicians from office and starting to ban “No Knock” warrants in places like Louisville.
Black Lives Matter has had a clear impact on our nation. Pew Research conducted a poll in June asking Americans if they had a conversation about race in the month after the death of George Floyd– 70 percent of the participants said that they had. This study paints a clear picture that these events are sparking conversation across the country about race and its important role in our lives.
We see that direct impact in our own community as well. In a sit down with the advisor for our Black Student Union (BSU) on campus, Alisa Bredensteiner, I asked her how the national coverage has helped inspire her students. She said,
“Because of all the excitement, like we’re, we’re in this national movement together and it’s exciting… finally, some voices that resonate with a lot of the students that are out there and people, literally, nationally coming together.”
The national coverage of this movement is encouraging our own community members to join in the fight for racial equality, getting people to join protests, or participate in events like the Chalk event that was held by our BSU on 09/12/20.
“Civil Rights March” by Athena LeTrelle CC
“Black Lives Matter march in Portland” by Matthew Roth CC
These organizations, like BLM, BSU, and the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) aim to educate and help people understand life from a different perspective.
As Kelen Macharia, president of the BSU presents the idea,
“…I think the majority of those organizations aim to educate people and to spread awareness… And so the more that we know each other, and what we go through, the better the world would be.”
These movements, as Macharia explains, are about unity, and bringing the community together to find a common goal. They help foster the idea of education and help us communicate sensitive issues in an understanding capacity.
BLM and similar organizations encouraged participation in the racial equality movement, but they have also presented tangible actions and plans to help better our country, including the banning of “No Knock” warrants, a warrant that allows police to administer it without announcing their presence after Breona Taylor was killed in her home in March. Police often serve these kinds of warrants when searching for drugs or disposable evidence so that they can get the drop on people, but according to the New York Times, the Louisville Metro City Council deemed them to be dangerous and are in the process of having them banned.
They have also removed many corrupt politicians from office, including Anita Alverez who failed to prosecute 68 cops, as well as Angela Corey who never convicted Trayvon Martin’s killer.
While there has been violence at these protests, that isn’t the goal of these organizations.
President of our local NAACP chapter Stephen Vines stated,
Courtesy of Stephen Vines
“Well, violence only creates violence, our organization is about solutions. So there’s no solution, the only solution of violence is you’re gonna get more violence. If that’s what you want, then that’s what you do. But that’s not what we want. The reason we are peaceful is because we want to resolve the issue and violence is just a distraction. It’s just going to make it worse…”
Vines said he pursues everything in his power to get unlawful protestors at his events arrested by having police and security present. These violent protesters are simply taking advantage of the situation, but in doing so they negatively impact the movement.
He is right. One bad weed can kill an entire garden, and trying to mislabel a movement’s intentions because of a handful of violent protestors is disingenuous. We should rather focus on the overwhelming majority of peaceful protests, because the people who choose to use violence only make up a small and insignificant part of this movement, and are outright condemned by these organizations.
At the end of the day, BLM has clearly had a positive impact on a national and local level. There may be some bad seeds, but the overall movement is striving towards positive change, and trying to create an equal opportunity for everyone.
Macharia puts it best,
“I think it’s important to know that in any situation, there can be some negatives. And there can be positives. But the more that we look into the positives, we realize that at the end of the day, it’s going to get better.”
(Featured Image left to right)
“Riot” by chaddavis.photography is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
“BLM Protest Norwich” by RooLPitt is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Con
BLM’s Ironic Disregard for Black Lives
by Miguel Muniz, News Co-Editor
The BLM movement started in 2013 in an effort to “eradicate white supremacy” (BLM Mission statement) but recently has surged in popularity in the months following the tragic death of George Floyd. As time progresses statistics from Pew Research show a decline in Americans that somewhat agree with The BLM Movement to 55 percent down from 67 percent and strong support has fallen from 38 percent to 29 percent. This may be due to the increase in popularity causing a rise in the questioning of The BLM movementś motives; US occupants inquired as to how BLM had affected black communities and what their plans moving forward seemed to be, and in doing so they often realized the ulterior motives or malicious intent behind this movement.
Many are beginning to realize that The BLM Movement is a tool that politicians are using to strawman/villainize opponents in an effort to win the black vote. Despite all statistics from The FBI and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention showing that their strategies have only harmed the communities they swore to protect: raising crime and unemployment rates.
BLM is a phrase built on a lie that the US is systemically racist. The phrase was intentionally designed to misrepresent others’ beliefs.
A phrase designed to be impossible to deny. Its sole purpose being to straw man opposers’ beliefs.
Frequently we see people say phrases similar to, ¨I disagree with BLM and their views on systemic inequality.¨
This often leads to a blatant misrepresentation of their views from BLM activists by claiming that this person doesn´t believe ¨black lives matter¨ conflating the movement with the phrase because they are phonetically identical. (If you disagree with us you are a racist)
¨No matter what opinion someone has they will be judged for it. There is no safe answer or belief.¨
This quote from Madison Holbrook (A student at PRHS) illustrates the outcome of a movement based on misrepresenting others as hateful people.
Whenever the question of racism is mentioned, left-wing politicians such as Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are forced to cite anecdotes because statistics will show you that The Black Community isn’t disproportionately harmed by ¨The System¨.
¨The police have unfairly targeted black and Latino people for decades now, and I think it’s phenomenal that people are finally getting together to do something about it.¨
John Seden-Hansen (A Student At PRHS) wrote when asked why he supported the BLM movement.
This is currently the most popular issue among BLM today. It is based on a common statistic that is misrepresented to support the idea that systemic oppression exists in the US Policing System: In 2019 black men made up 25 percent of police killings (FBI) despite being only 13 percent of the population. This criticism is quickly debunked when you consider that black Americans make up over 35 percent of the violent crime and half of all homicides (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention) violent crime arrests are the most likely to end in fatalities from the police regardless of race. This data reveals the shocking reality that law enforcement disproportionately protects the lives of the black community.
The black communities’ high poverty and unemployment rate are often used as evidence of the US being systemically racist; like all other currently known data this is real numbers being presented in an intentionally misleading way. Almost the entire income deficit and the high unemployment rate are accounted for when we consider the black communities’ single motherhood issue. Single mothers are often the hardest workers in our society, but it is very difficult to instill all necessary morals in a child; Especially when a child is being raised on one income and missing a second parental figure to look up to. When we take into account how absent fathers affect the average child’s future we find that this societal issue is the heart of black America’s problems.
Left-wing politicians have reacted to this by instituting programs that incentivize single motherhood with government subsidization which has caused the single motherhood rate to spike in Black America from 25 percent in 1969, to 77 percent in 2015 (Census Bureau).
Despite all of this, politicians continue to support and campaign on these programs instead of attempting to fix the issues. There’s a lot of speculation as to what the motive may be, such as politicians may be too incompetent to interpret available data, they are unaware of this information, or they are too scared of the backlash they may receive if they say otherwise. The most common presumption is that what they are most afraid of is these people succeeding.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Politicians have realized that giving impoverished communities handouts instead of jobs secures their vote for as long as they are reliant on these institutions. Leaving millions of Americans unknowing that their poverty isn’t the reason for these programs, but instead the result.
We all want these communities to succeed, but to help them we can´t continue to support them with methods that have proven to worsen situations. It’s clear now more than ever that the black community doesn’t need a politician to lift them out of poverty. They need fathers, not a check, they need hope, not a victim status, and most importantly they need a societal shift, not systemic change.
(Featured Image left to right)
“Riot” by chaddavis.photography is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
“BLM Protest Norwich” by RooLPitt is licensed under CC BY 2.0
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
Politicians have realized that giving impoverished communities handouts instead of jobs secures their vote for as long as they are reliant on these institutions. Leaving millions of Americans unknowing that their poverty isn’t the reason for these programs, but instead the result.
We all want these communities to succeed, but to help them we can´t continue to support them with methods that have proven to worsen situations. It’s clear now more than ever that the black community doesn’t need a politician to lift them out of poverty. They need fathers, not a check, they need hope, not a victim status, and most importantly they need a societal shift, not systemic change.
