Black Lives Matter, Now and Forever By Dassy Kemedjio It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains. These words by the revolutionary Assata Shakur, a woman wholly dedicated to our liberation, became our rallying cry this summer. As I marched alongside my people, our chants resounded throughout the streets of the downtown of my city, echoing all the way to the precinct. And what a beautiful sight it was— people of every shade of melanin under the sun. Children of the diaspora, whether our ancestors had been forced into chattel slavery or if we were newcomers ourselves to this strange country called America. Some call it Amerikkka. Some call it the land of the free, but for us that’s never been true.
For us, we would consider it lucky to make it through life without being constantly informed that our Blackness is somehow a curse rather than a blessing. If we lived our lives without having to deal with police brutality, microaggressions, redlining, colorism, and all of the intentionally-designed components that make up institutional racism, we would be the luckiest people on earth. But of course, we live in this strange country called America. A country built on the backs of enslaved peoples, a country whose police forces originated with slave patrols, and a country that to this day refuses to truly hold itself accountable for its history written in blood. Our blood. And the truth is, the past isn’t even the past because we’re still living it, all of it—the trauma, the cycles of violence, the death—and the United States doesn’t seem to give a damn. Enter Black Lives Matter. This global movement was launched in 2013 by three phenomenal Black organizers—Patrisse Cullors, Alicia
Garza, and Opal Tometi—in response to the acquittal of the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The following year, the movement exploded because of the acquittal of a Ferguson, Missouri police officer who murdered 18-year-old Michael Brown. I was in middle school when they were killed, these boys who had their lives stolen before they ever had a chance to live it. I remember the uprisings in Ferguson after the acquittal, and what struck me was how the media portrayed these outpourings of not only anger, but of grief. Black Lives Matter protestors were depicted as a violent, self-righteous mob that needed to be put down by the local police and the National Guard. The movement was controversial, as if Black people asking not to be killed and brutalized by police was inherently a debate. Much to the disappointment of white supremacists, our lives are not up for debate. Flash forward to May 25, 2020, a
