Black lives matter 1

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What is more important: Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter? That topic has been the

subject of several discussions and dialogues across the United States in recent months (Edwards,

2015). The All Lives Matter reaction was formed to attack the Black Lives Matter Movement,

and it operates under the notion that the movement is no longer necessary in America since the

country has transitioned to a post-racial culture. This thesis examines race theories, racial

development in the United States, and racist ideology in the United States throughout the pre-and

post-Civil Rights eras to demonstrate why the Black Lives Matter Movement is necessary. It

examines the impact that colorblindness has on the United States Criminal Justice System as well

as the response to the All Lives Matter movement. At the end of this thesis, I explain why the

Black Lives Matter Movement is vital and offer suggestions for the next steps that the Black

Lives Matter Movement may take to achieve its aim of social justice for black people (Taylor,

2016).

Police brutality (particularly against African Americans) is not a new problem in

America, but the recent shootings of unarmed young black males by police officers in towns

around the country have elevated it to the top of the national conversation (Edwards, 2015). There

have been numerous protests and riots in response to police officers not being indicted for the

deaths of unarmed young black men, and as a result of these protests, a new social movement

known as #BlackLivesMatter was born. The hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was created on Twitter

and has since spread throughout the world. While there has always been a civil rights movement

in the United States, this specific movement comes at a time when the country considers itself to

be a "colorblind" or "post-racial" culture (Taylor, 2016). This suggests that the majority of

individuals living in America feel that they are not racists and that they do not discriminate

against people based on the color of their skin, as opposed to other countries. Colorblind
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ideology, which is widespread in the post-Civil Rights age that America is now in, believes

everyone to be nonracial or not belonging to any race, and therefore does not discriminate (Van

Cleve & Mayes 2015). However, while colorblind philosophy appears to be the ideal answer to

inequality, this is not the case in practice.

This colorblind mindset has led to the systematic flaws that have arisen across the

criminal justice system, which have eventually resulted in disparate racial repercussions

manifesting themselves (Edwards, 2015). It is a new sort of racism that has emerged in the post-

Civil Rights period, and it is linked to the unfavorable reception that the Black Lives Matter

Movement has had in recent years (Taylor, 2016). There has been a backlash, similar to that

experienced during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. The Black Lives Matter movement,

it has taken the shape of the hashtag #AllLivesMatter, which stands for "all lives matter." This

raises the issue of how America got to the point where it needed a Black Lives Matter Movement

in the first place. What is the link between the All Lives Matter reaction and the idea of

colorblindness, and how does it manifest itself? The Black Lives Matter Movement was founded

following the killing of Trayvon Martin and has continued to expand since the death of Michael

Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Both of these young guys were unarmed and of African descent

when they were shot and murdered.

Martin was a seventeen-year-old black male who was visiting his father in Florida when

he was shot and murdered by George Zimmerman in February of 2012. Zimmerman was a

neighborhood watch volunteer (Graff 2015). Martin was shot and killed by Zimmerman, who

worked as a neighborhood watch captain in a gated community. Zimmerman was tried and found

not guilty of Martin's murder. Michael Brown was a black teenager who was shot and murdered

by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in August of 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri (Taylor, 2016).
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Work cited

Matter, Black Lives. "About black lives matter." Retrieved June 11 (2020): 2020.

Ransby, Barbara. Making All Black Lives Matter. University of California Press, 2018.

Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. From# BlackLivesMatter to black liberation. Haymarket Books, 2016.

Edwards, Sue Bradford, and J. D. Duchess Harris. Black lives matter. ABDO, 2015.