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Essay / The BLM and Alm movements as victims of societal overgeneralization and misunderstanding
AllLivesMatter and BlackLivesMatterSocial media has revolutionized the way social movements operate. In the 1960s, the Southern Catholic Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had their work cut out for them; there was no uploading of videos of prejudice or injustice to YouTube, nor the promotion of events via Twitter and Facebook. Fortunately for the now controversial BlackLivesMatter movement, the revelation of mass media and social media has transformed the role of information in society into something markedly different. It took a single tweet to spark the movement, in response to the death of Treyvon Martin in 2012. Since then, the names of dead black men, women and children have been transformed into hashtags spread across Twitter with outrage. Videos of police shooting unarmed men have been viewed millions of times. In five years, the problem has become almost universal within the black community, and even outside it. BlackLivesMatter was created because African Americans feel oppressed; by the government, by the system and by the police officers who patrol their neighborhoods. In response, the AllLivesMatter movement was founded to refute BlackLivesMatter. AllLivesMatter supporters disagreed with BlackLivesMatter defenders on so-called "key issues," insisting that "cops are not racist" contrary to what they thought BlackLivesMatter representatives were saying, and interpreting BlackLivesMatter as a supremacy movement; two things that couldn't be further from the truth. As someone of white descent who grew up in and around the black community, I believe that BlackLivesMatter and AllLivesMatter are not mutually exclusive or contradictory; Both the BlackLivesMatter and AllLivesMatter movements are victims of overgeneralization and misunderstanding when, in reality, they fundamentally advocate the same goals in different ways. A happy medium can be found between these two movements. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay It is a sadly little-known fact today that good cops exist. There are many good police officers who do their job to the letter and perhaps even go above and beyond their duties to serve their community. Police officers who save lives, participate in their community by raising awareness among young people and help those less fortunate. Simply put, these “good” police officers don’t make as much headline news as a dead black man. The media has bowed to the BlackLivesMatter movement because these days, journalistic integrity has been replaced by the need for clicks and views to generate ad revenue. This has fostered an altered reality in which all cops are killers, when in reality bad cops make up an astute minority of the police force. However, while police officers may be good people, that doesn't make up for the fact that the system that employs them is oppressive. Cops are pressured by their superiors to generate revenue for the city and neighborhood. There is a motivation to write as many tickets as possible; which often involves making more traffic stops than necessary. And it’s no coincidence that the areas that typically generate the most revenue are also home to a statistically high population of African Americans. Due to the focus on income rather than securityand the equitable application of justice, black people are unwittingly victims of the system. The police officers as individuals are not guilty, but they are agents of a machine that puts the best interests of the people second. Unlike civil rights organizations such as the Southern Catholic Leaders Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the BlackLivesMatter movement is not an organization and has not no more defined direction. Although the movement may not be a monolith, its advocates agree on several core principles. The movement's founding belief is that the system is stacked against African Americans. However, it goes much deeper than that; Most activists agree that the police are not the only ones at fault and that it is up to black communities to work together and empower each other. One of the problems with the movement is that because it is not a formal organization with a hierarchy, all black people are assumed to be part of BlackLivesMatter. For this reason, the actions of extremist groups such as the New Black Panther Party are attributed to the movement with the aim of destroying the moral foundation built by BlackLivesMatter. They cannot be “victims” if they respond with violence; although any incidents of violence are in direct contradiction to the ideals of BlackLivesMatter, as self-proclaimed leaders of the movement such as Deray McKesson have emphasized peaceful protests. The BlackLivesMatter movement is not guilty of anything outside of association. Being black is not automatically part of BlackLivesMatter, it has to do with how you act and behave: violent protesters and terrorists act independently of the movement and on their own. AllLivesMatter gained much support and controversy during the 2016 Presidential Election, and was formed directly in response to BlackLivesMatter. The general consensus behind the movement is that its supporters claim that BlackLivesMatter is a racist, anti-white movement that neglects the importance of other races. Most of the time, literally take the “all lives matter” stance. Throughout the 2016 presidential election, tensions rose between the two movements, with AllLivesMatter criticized by the media and by various celebrities and politicians. AllLivesMatter has been described as "the right movement at the wrong time" and is commonly seen as a sarcastic expression intended as a slap in the face to the BlackLivesMatter movement. However, there is some truth to this movement. All lives matter; they should count. Unfortunately, many people who advocate this idea don't realize that not all lives are equally important. BlackLivesMatter is a movement founded with the goal of making black lives equal; no more important. The simple fact is that not all lives matter. As authentic as the phrase and movement may be, they operate under the false assumption that all races are equally threatened and therefore hinder the progress of BlackLivesMatter. BlackLivesMatter is misunderstood as a statement when it is actually a response. This is a response to hard facts, disturbing statistics, and shocking reports that all seem to suggest that black lives don't matter. AllLivesMatter is the end goal of the BlackLivesMatter movement; we cannot all count until we are all equal. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized item now from our.