Opinion piece: The True Impact of Black Lives Matter in America By: Aliyyah Tahir Since 2013 when Black Lives Matter was founded, the movement has held nonstop protests calling out systemic racism in institutions, unconscious biases and, most significantly in recent years, police brutality. The 2020 protests, after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, spread like wildfire across the world as people took to the streets to demand justice for Black victims of police violence and an end to the status quo of racism and white supremacy. While there has been some public concern as to the consequences of the Black Lives Matter movement, I feel that some of this is misguided: the real purpose of the movement is not to incite violence but rather to raise a dialogue and offer a united voice on an issue that has persisted for too long.
Over the past several years the Black Lives Matter movement has worked to raise and improve public awareness of the issue regarding American law enforcement’s seemingly discriminatory relationship with African Americans. Through their large number of public marches and protests, the group has become a household name within modern day society, becoming largely synonymous with the present day black struggle for equality. Consequently causing them to come to offer a strong, unified voice to individuals whose voices can not be heard and whose opinions are lost under the voice of their oppressors. This unity of the people serves to legitimise and strengthen the movement as a whole, producing similarities with those of the 1960’s African American civil rights movement. This is evident in the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott as it demonstrated the viability of organizing a mass movement to challenge segregation. The parallel of the united force of the civil rights activists during this time and the nature of members of Black Lives Matter to propel conversation around the ‘state-sanctioned violence’ towards African Americans throughout the country.
12
