I turn on the news, my fingers trembling and my heart beat pounding inside my ears. Another death. Another ‘one of us’ as a statistic. Another victim of a racist and cruel police violence. Another Black Man dead, my dad says as he shakes his head with disappointment. Unanimous gasps echo through our living room, as our family becomes witnesses of a man being choked to death on live TV.
“I can’t breathe.” “I can’t breathe.” “I can’t breathe.”
How many times do those three painful, agonizing words have to be forced out from a human being to receive contrition? Wat justice is found in the murder of a 12-year-old boy, mistakenly targeted, because he had a BB gun in his hands? How can a mother and her child walk through the enraged streets of Missouri, Ferguson when a body lays soaked in blood for hours?
The deaths of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Michael Brown, respectfully, left behind a nasty burn that is still slowly healing for the Black Community. The tragic deaths seemingly blocked what many African Americans were so thirsty for – a mark of progress. That introduces this burning question: have we made
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For instance, other players followed into San Francisco 49ers Colin Kapernick after he sank to the ground during the entire national anthem. He declared his reasoning behind protesting a “country that oppresses black people and people of color.” Perhaps the act of kneeling down while the national anthem play son live TV infuriates many, but sometimes the voice of a public figure is the voice of millions of obscure Americans. To emphasize, watching Kapernick initiate a form of civil disobedience allowed me to have a sense of ‘being heard’ or even better – understood. I was grateful to find someone who had the courage to share my, as well as many others’, frustrations of brutal police violence and other racial disparities toward African
Colin Kaepernick a form NFL quarterback sparked controversy when he kneeled during the national anthem. Nancy Armour a writer for USA Today explained why Kaepernick took a knee over racism and discrimination because, “people don’t like to address that and they don’t like to address what the root of this protest is”. What Armour is explaining is that most people don’t want to address a problem at all and when there is a problem as big as racism in the present most wont deal with it. I think there could be better ways that to get the point across than Kaepernick did; on the other hand, it did spark a lot of talk about the subject and bring it to the eyes of the public. Kaepernick provides a good explanation for his actions when he told the press,
In February 2012, a 28-year-old man followed a 17-year-old youth and killed him on a residential street. The youth hadn’t done anything; he did not commit a crime, and he hadn’t provoked the older man. He was shot simply because he seemed “suspicious.” This was the story of Trayvon Martin’s death in Sanford, Florida at the hands of George Zimmerman (Cooper). Zimmerman, the killer, is a white man while Trayvon was an innocent black youth.
Justice Department announces that no federal civil rights charges will be brought against George Zimmerman, who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in February 2012”. Equally important, one contributing factor that has become evident is race. A big factor in the Trayvon Martin case was claimed to be racism; a diversity of people claimed Zimmerman as racist; I strongly feel if Trayvon Martin was white the situation, and results would have been different. In addition, the most notable racial profiling occurs mostly towards African Americans, specifically young black males. In other words, Justice is not being served for people of color, such a tragedy, African Americans have developed their own powerful movement of national protests and distributed all over social media hashtags such as
The exctuaray pain of a death of a child is a mother 's worst nightmare. They feel it is the only way to raise attention. In the city of Ferguson, Michael Brown was an unarmed black teen and was shot by police; this was the beginning of a wave of uprisings against police brutality nationwide. Michael Brown’s death proved how race played a role in the police system. The alteration was a interracial conflict.
On that note; does ‘Black Lives Matter’ mean that only black lives matter; or is it the concept that Black lives mattering is a precondition for all lives mattering? This paper will discuss in the rationality of the movement. The movement was created by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for Trayvon Martin’s death. It underlines the “racism and policing that shatters the illusion of a colour-blind , post racial United States” (Keeanga-Yamahtta, T., 2016).
On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by former officer George Zimmerman. Instantly media had blown up with headlines involving the tragic fatality. Protests occurred titled as “Black Lives Matter” during the trial of Florida v. Zimmerman. These protests led to distrustful actions toward American government and American Law Enforcement. This protest wasn’t just a segmented time period event, it’s lasted from 2012 to present day and occurs daily and is expanding rapidly.
The death toll among these police brutality victims is extremely alarming. Every year police in the United States kill hundreds of people—461 in 2013, according to incomplete FBI statistics based on self-reporting from local law enforcement agencies, and more than 1,000 in 2014 according to Champion, which combs through media reports. The fatal shooting in August of 18-year-old Michael Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer in an interaction that began over jaywalking propelled the issue of police violence and excessive force into the national news cycle. The police response to subsequent protests similarly propelled the issue of militarized police into the national news cycle (Champion,
“During a medal ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, two African-American track athletes made what would become one of the most famous political protests” (Araki, Zachary). These protest show that the legal system is unfair to African American citizens. The only way to stop these is to protest what is wrong in America and how it can be fixed. Kneeling during the national anthem is just another way to protest that the justice system is wrong. Not only does it show the wrongs but it raises awareness about the topic.
Para 1.) “After police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old. The fatal gunshots, fired by a white police officer, Darren Wilson, on 9 August 2014, were followed by bursts of anger, in the form of protests and riots. Hundreds and then thousands, of local residents, had flooded the streets. The killing of Michael Brown created a new generation of black activists, with thousands taking to the streets, and a hashtag used more than 27m times.
Civil Disobedience is an important moral responsibility of a citizen, however it should not get to the level of illegal activity under any circumstances, because great reform can be brought peacefully not violently. In the title named "On Civil Disobedience" by Mohandas K. Ghandi once said: “No country has ever become or will ever become, happy though victory in war”(Mohandas K. Gandhi , 148). Even that long ago, when war was at high, and people embraced it, he knew that the only thing war brought was death, and depression among civilians. This method of civil disobedience has only resulted into more wars, and no real solutions. The most efficient way to the be civilly disobedient is to be peaceful, but willing to stand up for your cause.
Images and video of Eric Garner’s murder by police generated outrage and protests across the nation. Many wept for the loss of this innocent, but for Black America, it was just another offense in a long series of transgressions against the black body. To them, the pain was familiar—they had known it by many names: slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration. Police brutality was nothing new. This situation was different, however.
As Ong did with his articles, society can become united against injustice if it is brought to light. Police brutality that had gone on quietly for many years has finally reached the news with an explosion of media posts with powerful phrases like “Black Lives Matter” being crowned in the process. Words turned to actions where all across the world people were chanting Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown and many others. This international outrage at injustice was due significantly to the media coverage that was finally given to the issue. As well as, the people began taking coverage into their own hands through social media.
Whether you like guns or you hate them, you must understand that the ownership of firearms is a right; A RIGHT…NOT a privilege. You must understand that America is a republic, NOT a democracy. That means that our rights cannot be changed or ended by a vote. ““The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.” – Samuel Adams” It is your right (as protected by the first amendment) to oppose the 2nd amendment.
People's justification to engage in civil disobedience rests on the unresponsiveness that their engagement to oppose an unjust law receives. People who yearn for a change in a policy might sometimes find themselves in a dead end because their “attempts to have the laws repealed have been ignored and legal protests and demonstrations have had no success” (Rawls 373). What Rawls says is that civil disobedience is a last option to oppose an unjust law; therefore, providing civil disobedients with a justification for their cause. Civil disobedience is the spark of light that people encountered at the dead end and they hope that this spark of light will illuminate to show that an unjust law should not exist at all. Martin Luther King, Jr, in his “Letter from
When you think of Black Lives Matter what do you think? A hate movement? Violence? Well it is in fact none of those things and this article is going to help you understand why. After the murder of Treyvon Martin in the year 2012 the Black Lives Matter movement was created in response to this unjust death.