The Black Lives Matter movement is often likened to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and it's rather self-evident why people would make that connection. But the major difference between these two movements is that, back in the sixties, the issues they were tackling were much more (no pun intended) black and white. In fact, the name Black Lives Matter would probably be much more suited to the movement of the sixties because its main goal was to prove to white Americans that black lives were equally as sacred as white lives, and thanks to their peaceful tactics, their tenacity, and the leadership of heroes like Martin Luther King, they were able to accomplish this goal and work together with The U.S. Government to pass legislation forcing the bigots of America to treat them as such.
The people running Black Lives Matter are, without a doubt in my mind, trying to do nothing but good for America, and I know that they really believe that what they are doing is promoting equality and starting healthy debate on the topic of race. In fact, if any group has a serious chance of amassing a large enough following to truly force a reform of the police system, it is undeniably them. But, due to their inflammatory language, their lack of focus, and especially their name, the group is taking away from the message of equality that they are trying to send and instead are helping to fester a dangerous level of racial tension and division that is only growing throughout The United States.
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An enormous problem with the movement has to do with its lack of clear unflinching focus on specific social change. If you look at Civil Rights, Women’s Lib, or any other movement that has actually succeeded in creating effectual and lasting change, you can immediately identify what the group wants, as they were incredibly pointed directly at one core issue that they felt needed to be addressed. And though members of these groups may have also been champions of other types of social change, they did not detract their focus from the one goal they were moving towards.
Black Lives Matter, however, does not do this, and takes away from their focus by the second line of the mission statement on the homepage of their website:
“Black Lives Matter is a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes. It goes beyond the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within some Black communities, which merely call on Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black, keeping straight cis Black men in the front of the movement while our sisters, queer and trans and disabled folk take up roles in the background or not at all.”
-Black Lives Matter homepage
A mission statement should say definitively what your group is trying to accomplish. That looks like what they are doing here, but even if 100% of their members are also for the advancement of LGBTQ people, the single issue that has sparked interest in the movement, that they are known proponents of, and that they are now in a position to possibly effect is not trans rights or racial equality, it is police reform. Though raising awareness for issues that the group finds important is an honorable move, but, if they want to create a lasting social progression, it has to focus specifically on one definitive change. No other group relating to police reform is on the level that BLM is with media, politicians, and sheer name recognition, and all of this has come solely from their connection to police brutality. This doesn’t mean that the group shouldn’t speak out on issues relating to racial inequality or gender identification, but putting these issues on their mission statement, removes focus from the only issue that they are currently in the position to change, and in the end hurts the chances of police reform becoming a reality.
Another major problem with the movement that not only has to do with lack of focus, but needlessly inflammatory and divisive language, is in the name “Black Lives Matter”. Now, as a hashtag or a marketing campaign, this name is incredibly effective. At a time where the mainstream news was flooded with story after story of high profile cases of police violence on young black men, they used the growing public awareness and went for a name that catches your attention and immediately garners a knee jerk reaction. This worked incredibly well for them, and to the movement’s credit, this name is a large part of how they became so notorious, and why they have as much sway as they now do. But, with the level of recognition that the group now garners, a large part of the reactions towards the movement are entirely based upon their name, hence spawning groups like All Lives Matter, who are against BLM entirely because of the inflammatory and exclusionary nature of the name. This is fine for a small group of protesters trying to gain recognition, but when a group reaches the national level like this one has, this effect can quickly snowball and do real harm to both the movement and the social change that it can potentially orchestrate.
Now the reason that this shows the group’s lack of focus is that the name of a movement should clearly address its goal and what it wants to change, and raising awareness of the fact that Black Lives Matter is not what the group is really doing. This is exactly why the name doesn’t work. Specifying one race in an issue that effects all races, police reform, propagates ignorance, and, worse, is inherently exclusionary.
As much of a joke as the All Lives Matter movement is to proponents of BLM, it is a clear example of the harm that the movement’s name is doing. An entire collection of people, who may otherwise agree with the end goals of BLM, are opposing it simply because their name is so provocative and exclusionary. The logic commonly used against All Lives Matter is that going to a Black Lives Matter rally with a sign that says All Lives Matter is like going to a breast cancer rally and being outraged because they aren’t saying anything about heart disease. The problem with this is that police brutality is, in no way, just a black issue.
Unlawful police brutality is exceedingly prevalent in neighborhoods consisting of all creeds and colors. In fact, the only commonality between the neighborhoods with the highest amount per capita of unnecessary force by police, is that they are incredibly poor and have high crime rates. Police officers almost always do not shoot innocent people based entirely on the color of their skin, it has much more to do with the way the person is dressed and the murder rate of the neighborhood that they are in. The majority of the time, cops don’t pull the trigger and risk their job and their life based solely on hatred. Much more often than not, it is entirely because of a fear of the reputation of the place that they happen to be. Yes, this happens in black neighborhoods, but it also happens in neighborhoods that are predominantly white, or Hispanic, or Asian, or anything.
Being that the real issue has much more to do with class than race, the worst thing that BLM is doing with its inflammatory rhetoric is dividing people. People of every single background in this country suffer from all of the same issues as black people do. Poverty, violence, and drugs, are problems that bleed into every kind of person, and that includes white people, despite the group’s assertion that all white people are inherently privileged. To put one race aside as separate from the others, even if it was their ancestor’s fault from the start of slavery, to the civil rights movement, does not help black people, and is the definition of racism. It is commonly accepted to say in 2016 that white people have no right to speak on certain issues entirely based on the color of their skin. This issue is not entirely the fault of BLM but BLM’s propagation of this belief that all black people are inherently unlucky and all white people are inherently lucky is only causing more hate, and affirms the untrue belief for many impressionable black youth, that there is nothing they can do for themselves because the system is rigged against them in every facet. People need to be brought together, not divided based on race, and BLM’s sheer focus on race is doing nothing but divide in a time where racial tensions need to be bridged.
The reason that I am so passionate in criticizing Black Lives Matter is not because I don’t think they are trying to do something good, or because I think that there are no problems with race in America. It’s because this movement is our best chance to start protesting and working with government to try and reform the justice system starting at the police level, a reform that our country desperately needs. But if the group doesn’t become more focused and inclusive of all types of people that are affected by this plight, then it risks the possibility of losing its opportunity. And that is something that all Americans, not just blacks, cannot afford.
But more importantly, I am asking Black Lives Matter to change because their tactics, though good for starting a discussion, are helping to divide America into racial pieces. If our focus continues to be on our race, if we look at someone and immediately connect them to some sort of stigma based on how they look, then we are always going to be separate from one another. We are all just monkeys, brothers and sisters. We may be different colors, shapes, and sizes, but we’re all the same, and looking to what we have in common, not what sets us apart, is how we will learn to love each other. If you want to stop racism, forget about race.
