Black Lives Matter: The movement, the controversies, the distraction, the consequences and a broken society

This article explores the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement, delves into the controversies surrounding it, and analyzes a theory on why incidents that spurred the movement often fail to result in satisfactory justice.

The Birth of a Movement 

In 2013, activists Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi launched the #BlackLivesMatter movement. This initiative emerged as a reaction to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the man responsible for the death of Trayvon Martin. The aim was to build a Black-centered political agenda and advocate for transformative social change.

The Movement, The Controversies 

I remembered the first time I heard the slogan Black Lives Matter. It was around the time George Floyd was murdered in front of my eyes. I remember thinking, finally a movement that takes the execution of Black lives in the hands of law enforcement seriously. It struck a special cord with me because we had written a Letter to all Black MPs about this same issue the previous year that we got no response from. But here are actually a group of people that have succeeded in giving voice to the voiceless.  This is a remarkable feat and before I go any further I’ll like to say a Very BIG THANK you to Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, and all those that have worked tirelessly to help support them and their movement. Your efforts will not be in vain.

It wasn’t long after Black Lives Matter shot into global consciousness however that the distraction started, there were rumors about the lifestyle of people associated with the movement and court cases. But really though, really? Do some of these things really matter? Or are they just part of the bigger psychological warfare. Basically a distraction.

Stop The Distractions 

Stephon Clark, police shot at him 20 times, multiple times in the back too.

Four police officers fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo.

These and the many other unlawful killings by law enforcement officers should be the real focus of our attention.

Why do these incidents keep happening, why do so many go unpunished. Are we to believe the same excuse that keeps being used to justify these killings? The excuse being the law enforcement officers were scared. How scary can a person without a weapon be to a person who has a gun and is in a gang.

How many gun shots is acceptable as a warning shot to reassure a scared person. 1 shot? 2 shots? 3 shots? At what point under normal circumstances will the number of shots cross over to an intentional attempt to kill. The examples above average 10 shots per police officer.  Will a civilian be able to get away with shooting someone without a weapon 10 times with no justifiable reason other than an unfounded fear that they thought the other person had a weapon so they got scared?

Gang Signs: A Broken Society

After watching the documentary 137 Shots, I believe I have identified signs of a recurring pattern.

These incidents start with a scared police officer(s) that acts on their fears by cowardly emptying a significant amount of bullets in an unarmed victim. But what are they scared of when the victim is unarmed? Is it that they are scared that their training was inadequate? or are they scared that the wheel of justice is inadequate and if they were to do things by the book then justice won’t be served?  They could be scared of the unknown or the unfamiliar? Or maybe it’s exactly what they say, their fear has scared them so much that they apparently become delusional enough to imagine an unarmed victim has a weapon.

But let’s look beyond the incident and focus on what measures are taken afterwards to ensure that justice is served.

Do the union and the police ombudsman deploy an open policy? Or are they scared that the justice system that they are there to protect might not result in justice being served, so instead they create an environment that facilitates a blue wall of silence?

What is the blue wall of silence?, well a quick google search, took me to a wiki page that describes it as ”The blue wall of silence, also blue code and blue shield, are terms used to denote the informal code of silence among police officers in the United States not to report on a colleague’s errors, misconducts, or crimes, especially as related to police brutality in the United States.” For clarity a quick analogy that I can use to describe the concept of blue wall of silence is the gang mantra, “snitches get stitches”.

The pattern I’ve noticed is that there seems to be a bunch of scared people in the value chain of delivering real justice. The exact reason they are scared however is up for debate.

I’ll end with the famous quote “A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.”

All Live Matters? The Innovative Consequences

For my next point, we will need to look back at history in order to fully understand where we are heading next as a society.

But first, let me tell you an abstract version of a story I often heard growing up from different sources, the stories are never really the same but they all had similar themes and made the same point.

So the version I’ll use to make my point here is, “what’s wrong with the youths and gangs of nowadays. When I was younger, if we needed to fight we would use fists and sticks, but today’s youth? They use guns and knives, this is crazy”. From this story the message I want you to learn is that the next generation always seems to take things to the next level. Please bear with me, the reason I mentioned this story will become clearer shortly.

But first let’s look back at the history of modern civilization. I heard that back in the days (before I was born), there was a civilisation that came up with the idea of being the first to build an instrument that will be capable of destroying the world. The thoughts of this civilisation that classified themselves as being very very intelligent was that once they create such an instrument, they will be able to control the world, dictate to other world leaders what to do or face the consequences and no one will be able to stand up to them because they have an instrument that’s capable of destroying the world. This “very very intelligent civilisation” did end up being the first to create such an instrument (they even barbarically, or should I say despicably and disgracefully used it, twice, on another civilisation – but that’s a story for some other day), the inventors were surprisingly called geniuses, but the problem is their plans only work if they are the only people that end up having such an instrument. It didn’t appear that they took the time to think about the consequences of creating such an instrument, and how the same invention could impact them if the invention was in the hands of another civilisation.

The point I’m trying to make with the above stories is this, the term “All lives Matter” seems to have been coined as a counter argument to squash the Black Lives Matter Movement, when the truth is, to anyone that’s intelligent, we are all on the same side. No sane mother, no sane father regardless of race or occupation (police man or hustler) wants to get news that their child has been senselessly killed, because a delusional coward that was seeing things that didn’t exist was at the trigger side of a gun.

Instead of the “All Lives Matter” being a counter stance against “Black Lives Matter” the intelligent approach would be to support the Black Lives Matter movement as the cause of the Black Lives Matter movement is a prelude to where society will end up, as eventually law enforcement officers will be able to take any live (any race or any other protected characteristics) at will, with no impunity as a precedent would have already been set with the issues that Black Lives Matter is trying to address.

You think this is impossible? You think these issues will forever only impact Black people? Well learn from the stories mentioned earlier where scores are been settled with guns and knives today as opposed to fist and sticks previously. Learn from the civilisation that created an instrument that can destroy the world thinking the consequences won’t impact them.

It goes without saying that Black Lives Matter cannot do this alone. They need everyone to be on board, from the citizens to politicians and even law enforcement officers themselves. There is a very good reason why the Chinese government is ruthless when they find corrupt officials within their ranks and we need to learn from them. Like they say “one bad apple can spoil the barrel”.

To round up, it is a shame that we live in an upside down world where inventors of instruments that can destroy the world or lawyers that get a scared coward off the hook are labeled as geniuses. I think the real geniuses are people that help create a better world. Like Dr Martin Luther King did when he said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.“ I believe that sums up what I’ve tried to explain about how if the cause of Black Lives Matter movement is not addressed immediately everyone ends up feeling the impact, eventually.

For us to get to where we ought to be, the law enforcement officers have to break down the blue wall of silence, just like gang members that subscribe to “snitches get stitches” even have the code of thug life to abide by. The good cops have to be brave and stand up for what’s right whenever they come across a volatile colleague that’s scared, cowardly and or deviates from the high ethical code that’s expected of them. Don’t be scared to speak up.

Like my mentor once publicly said, “a coward dies a thousand deaths, a soldier dies but once”

R.I.P, Dr Martin Luther King & Malcolm X. We salute!!!!!

If you like this article, you may also like the article What is love?, the Art Exhibition, IT’S A RAP. ALBUM & Revelation, Rise, Reign. They include pieces such as Python and Judas_Descendants_and_Thirty_Pieces_of_Silver

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