Black Lives Matter, Now and Forever

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 day that is all too familiar and all too painful for Black America. 46-year-old George Floyd, known as Big Floyd in his community, was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin who knelt and his neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, despite Floyd’s repeated cries that he couldn’t breathe. The reason for the initial arrest? Floyd was accused of paying with a counterfeit $20 bill.

Twenty dollars. To Chauvin and the three other officers who watched and allowed this lynching to happen right in front of them, that’s what Floyd’s life was worth. For eight minutes and forty-six seconds, they all made the choice to not only disregard his humanity, but to publicly flaunt their decision in front of his community. So naturally, the people of Minneapolis let their feelings be known in the same way: very publicly.

After the protests began the next day in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, in the coming days and weeks people across the nation and eventually around the world organized demonstrations. According to the New York Times, an estimated 15 million to 26 million people in the United States have reported going to a protest since the death of George Floyd. This energy translated even more on social media since according to the Pew Research Center, #BlackLivesMatter was used about 47.8 million times on Twitter between May 26 and June 7, 2020. Now, we’re all aware of the power of Black Twitter, but this surge of support indicated that this summer, BLM officially went mainstream.

But wait, there’s more.

Not only was Black Lives Matter trending, but for the first time in my lifetime, leftist policies were gaining more and more attention. Organizers were advocating for divestment from the police, and political messages like ACAB (All Cops Are Bastard) were not uncommon to hear at protests. Discourses were being opened up around reimaging public safety and community mutual aid, and the work that activists had been doing for decades was being put in front of city councils and state legislatures. The summer of 2020 truly radicalized my thinking about the way many structures in our society are rooted in systemic racism. You can know your whole life that being Black puts you at an automatic disadvantage, but taking the next step to reclaim your power and actually confront these barriers is something else entirely.

There’s so much to learn from this summer, and from this year in general. First off, respectability politics will not save our people. MLK said “a riot is the language of the unheard,” and I’m inclined to agree. Property is not and will never be worth more than human life, and we must acknowledge that we have come a long way from the Sunday-best protest style of the Civil Rights Movement. We have to admit that we live in a country where violence is forced on Black people everyday, both physically and structurally, so there’s no room at all for the judgement of people who are not protesting the way their ancestors did.

Also, please read the room with how you engage in BLM. Ask yourself: is your activism performative? Because if so, that’s not what we need. We don’t need the black square posted one day then your feed to go back to normal the next. We don’t need you to act like you’re for the culture then it’s quiet when your racist uncle starts ranting about when this country was supposedly “great.” And we definitely don’t need you to treat this movement like a summer fling, then move on to the next trend just because we have a new president. Because guess what? We’re still here, we’re still Black, and we’re still fighting for our lives. So to whom this applies (read: white people who just discovered racism), Google is free and our CashApps are always open.

It isn’t so far-fetched to imagine how the Klan terrorized Black people across America with mob lynchings when white supremacists have been thriving for decades, especially since they’ve been legitimized by Number 45. The time for being shocked is long gone, and the time to act is now. We know too many of our people who have been killed by a system that claims to be there for our protection, when the reality is the opposite.

We can’t go for a run without being killed. We can’t play with toys without being killed. We can’t sleep in our homes without being killed. We can’t be Black without being killed.

That’s why we must uplift each other, each and every one of us. Black Lives Matter means Black queer lives matter, Black trans lives matter, Black immigrant lives matter, Black disabled lives matter, and Black children’s lives matter. If you’re not for all of us, then you’re not for any of us. All Black Lives Matter.