According to BlackLivesMatter.com, every 28 hours, a black man, woman, or child is murdered by police or vigilante law enforcement. An estimated 25 percent of black women live in poverty, higher than any other ethnic minority.
From the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 to recent extrajudicial killings, the past few years have seen profound oppression and unprecedented resilience. The killings at the hands of police forces towards African-Americans have been the subjects of many conversations. These homicides have brought about massive protests that America can no longer ignore.
#BlackLivesMatter was started in 2012 after the killing of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of the killer George Zimmerman. The movement grew even larger in the wake of the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black male who was shot down by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer Aug 9, 2014..
The movement’s demands are simple. They ask for justice for Michael Brown’s family and the immediate arrest of Officer Darren Wilson; the discontinuation of military weaponry given by the federal government to local law enforcement; and the release of the names of the officers involved in killing black people within the last five years.
Since Martin and Brown’s deaths, Eric Garner was choked to death on July 17, 2014, by an New York City Police Deparment officer. Garner’s death was one of the first police brutality acts that was caught on camera. Garner, in the video, can be heard saying “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.” Since Garner’s death, the Black Lives Matter movement looks towards social media to spread the video and awareness. T-Shirts were made saying “I can’t breathe” or “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” on them.
Another video of police brutality swept the internet on April 4. In South Carolina, Walter Scott, a 50-year-old black male, was shot in the back eight times by a police officer in an attempt to flee. Originally stopped for a broken tail light, according to the officer, Scott was reaching for his taser and in self-defense, the officer shot the victim. The officer has since been charged with murder, one of the only recent cases in which this was the result.
Since Garner’s death, another prominent name that has arisen amongst the various news stories about police brutality is Martese Johnson. On March 18, Johnson, a student at the University of Virginia, was arrested and brutally beaten in a bloody encounter by alcohol regulators. Johnson’s iconic bloody face spread to every corner of the internet, spurring heated Twitter debates, countless Facebook posts, and numerous blog attributions. Johnson’s court case against the police brutality is ongoing.
In recent news, supporters of the Black Lives Matter have taken to the streets in a violent riot in Baltimore over the recent killing of a young African-American male named Freddie Gray. Gray was arrested on April 12 for unknown reasons, and by the time he arrived to the police station, he was unable to breathe or talk, suffering from severe wounds. Gray died on April 19 due to spinal injuries. According to The Atlantic, his injuries looked as though he had been in a major car crash, and while the police car made two un-noted stops on the way to the police station, the officers in the vehicle claim there was no brutality towards the victim.
The streets of Baltimore erupted on April 25, leaving behind vandalized police cars, store fronts, and other buildings in the city. Thirty-five African-American males were arrested that day. A citywide curfew has been since placed on the city and a state of emergency has been declared by the mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.
All black lives matter. To be black in America is a complex idea to comprehend now-a-days. Starting the conversation about state violence, in which according to Blacklivesmatter.com, “Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state,” is of the utmost importance to redefine what it means to be black in America. Black Lives Matter is working towards an America and a world where black lives are no longer systematically targeted to fail.
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