Black Lives Matter Movement
The Black Lives Matter Movement was started as a response specifically to the death of Trayvon Martin, but generally to the long history of black Americans being killed and no one being held accountable. In this particular case, Trayvon Martin was talking on his cell phone with his girlfriend when he was confronted by George Zimmerman who was specifically told by 911 responders to remain in his car. Instead, Zimmerman got out and shot Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was found not guilty and the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter was born. Below is a timeline that details the events that created Black Lives Matter and the thin blue line.
February 26, 2012 Trayvon Martin
George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Florida, calls 911 to report "a suspicious person" in the neighborhood. He is instructed not to get out of his SUV or approach the person. Zimmerman disregards the instructions. Moments later, neighbors report hearing gunfire. Zimmerman acknowledges that he shot Martin, claiming it was in self-defense.
July 2013 Black Lives Matter Movement Begins on Twitter
The movement began with Alicia Garza using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin in February 2012. From The Guardian, Garza logged on to Facebook. She wrote an impassioned online message, “essentially a love note to black people”, and posted it on her page. It ended with: “Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter.” Garza’s close friend, Patrisse Cullors, read the post in a motel room 300 miles away from Oakland that same night. Cullors, also a community organiser working in prison reform, started sharing Garza’s words with her friends online. She used a hashtag each time she reposted: #blacklivesmatter. The following day, Garza and Cullors spoke about how they could organise a campaign around these sentiments. More on the history here from the Smithsonian. Also detailed on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter
Despite the hashtag, there were still numerous high-profile cases of black Americans being killed and no one held accountable. Below are a few of them.
April 30, 2014: Dontre Hamilton (Milwaukee)
Dontre Hamilton, 31, was fatally shot 14 times by a police officer in a Milwaukee park. The officer was responding to a call from employees at a nearby Starbucks alleging that Hamilton, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was disturbing the peace. The officers who arrived first determined that Hamilton wasn't doing anything illegal. Officer Christopher Manney showed up later and, after trying to pat Hamilton down, engaged in a struggle with him that led to the shooting. Manney was not charged.
July 17, 2014: Eric Garner (New York)
Eric Garner, 43, was killed after he was put in an illegal chokehold for 15 seconds by a white police officer — allegedly for selling loose cigarettes. Garner said "I can't breathe" 11 times as he was held down by several officers on a sidewalk. The officer who put Garner in the chokehold, Daniel Pantaleo, was not charged. Garner's death sparked peaceful protests across the nation, with demonstrators adopting the phrase "I Can't Breathe" as a symbol and slogan of protest. Video is at the link below. You can see Mr. Garner with his hands up and you can hear him say "I can't breathe".
Aug. 5, 2014: John Crawford III (Dayton, Ohio)
John Crawford, 22, was shot and killed by a police officer at a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio. There did not appear to be a confrontation with the police, and Crawford was unarmed — he had been holding a toy BB gun. The officers involved in the shooting, Sean Williams and David Darkow, were not charged.
John Crawford, 22, was shot and killed by a police officer at a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio. There did not appear to be a confrontation with the police, and Crawford was unarmed — he had been holding a toy BB gun. The officers involved in the shooting, Sean Williams and David Darkow, were not charged.
Mr. Crawford holding a pellet gun that he picked up off the shelf at a Walmart before he is killed by police within seconds of their arrival.
Aug. 9, 2014: Michael Brown Jr. (Ferguson, Missouri)
Unarmed Michael Brown, 18, was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.
In November, a grand jury declined to charge Wilson in the fatal shooting. Brown's death and the lack of charges against Wilson sparked protests, some of them violent, in Ferguson and across the nation. For more on Ferguson and the protests that ensued, see my post about it here.
Aug. 11, 2014: Ezell Ford (Florence, California)
Ezell Ford, a 25-year-old mentally ill man, was shot three times, including once in the back, by a white police officer. He was unarmed. The investigation is still ongoing, but it has been placed on an "investigative hold". So far, no charges have been filed against Sharlton Wampler and Antonio Villegas, the two officers involved.
Police were on the scene for just seconds when they shoot Mr Powell is shot dead a second after this photo.
Aug 19, 2014 Kjieme Powell, St. Louis
Just 10 days after Michael Brown was shot to death, this happened in nearby St Louis. The police were called because this man stole two soft drinks from a convenience store. The police showed up and within 20 seconds the police had shot him 12 times. Then they proceeded to handcuff the lifeless body with hands behind his back. The video is available at the link below.
Sept. 4, 2014 Dashcam Video Shows State Trooper Shooting Black Man Reaching for His Driver’s License
State trooper rolls up on Mr. Jones and says can I see your license please? Jones reaches for his license and the policeman shoots him in a split second. Afterwards, the man says why did you shoot me? Video is available at the link below.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2014/09/south-carolina-dashcam-shooting-sean-groubert-levar-jones-incident-on-video.html
https://youtu.be/XhAklMWqLnI
October 2014 Laquan McDonald (Chicago)
Nov. 13, 2014: Tanisha Anderson (Cleveland)
Tanisha Anderson, 37, died after officers in Cleveland allegedly slammed her head on the pavement while taking her into custody. Anderson's family said she had bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Nov. 20, 2014: Akai Gurley (Brooklyn, New York)
Akai Gurley, 28, was shot and killed by a police officer while walking in a dimly lit New York City public housing stairwell with his girlfriend. Gurley, who was unarmed, was pronounced dead at a hospital. New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton called the shooting an "accidental discharge."
Nov. 22, 2014: Tamir Rice (Cleveland)
Tamir Rice, 12, was shot and killed by Cleveland police after officers mistook his toy gun for a real weapon. The two police officers involved, Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback, have not been charged. The video is available at the link below.
Tamir Rice (12 yrs old) is shot within seconds of police arriving on scene. He was holding a toy gun.
Dec. 2, 2014: Rumain Brisbon (Phoenix)
Rumain Brisbon, 34, was shot and killed by a Phoenix police officer who mistook a pill bottle for a weapon. The officer, Mark Rine, was not charged following a probe by the Maricopa County attorney's office, according to the New York Daily News. Jerame Reid, 36, was shot and killed by police officers in Bridgeton, New Jersey. He was a passenger in a car driven by his friend, who was pulled over by police.
Until this time, the phrases Black Lives Matter and All Lives Matter were being used interchangeably. However, a number of events that occurred between Dec 2014 and Jan 2015 polarized the movement to be only Black Lives Matter.
Dec 10, 2014 First documented incident of "black lives matter" being changed to "all lives matter" to co-opt the message from Americans who are black
Two students put up the poster Friday, but Chandler Clothier, the student who designed the poster, said she was called to the principal's office on Monday. Principal Linda MacKenzie told her that she failed to get prior approval for the poster and needed to change the title, "#blacklivesmatter" to "all lives matter," or take the poster down.
Dec 17, 2014 College administrator shouted down for saying "all" lives not "black" lives.
The apologies continued at Smith College, after President Kathleen McCartney publicly joined demonstrators and declared "all lives matter." But she was immediately denounced for not saying "black lives matter." McCartney asked forgiveness and promised not to stray from the expected language.
And then in December of 2014, two NYC police officers were killed in a targeted homicide by a troubled individual with a criminal history. It was a heinous assassination of police officers. This became a spark that ignited a movement to counter the black lives matter movement.
Dec. 30, 2014: Jerame Reid (Bridgeton, New Jersey)
In dashcam video footage of the stop, an officer is heard claiming that there is a gun in the glove compartment. Police shouted at Reid not to exit the car, but he did, with his hands apparently in front of his chest. That's when officers Braheme Days and Roger Worley opened fire, striking Reid.
Jan 2015 American Dialectic Society declares “#blacklivesmatter” as the “word of the year” for 2014.
April 2, 2015: Eric Harris (Tulsa, Oklahoma)
Eric Harris, 44, was shot and killed by a 73-year-old reserve deputy officer who allegedly mistook his own gun for a Taser. The entire incident was captured on a dashcam video. The officer, Robert Bates, was charged with manslaughter.
Eric Harris a second before being shot from behind by police.
April 4, 2015: Walter Scott (North Charleston, South Carolina)
Walter Scott, 50, was shot by a police officer while running away from a traffic stop for a broken taillight. Officer Michael Slager claimed Scott had taken his stun gun. Slager was subsequently fired and charged with murder after a video surfaced showing Scott running away, his back to the officer, as Slager fired his gun. Video is available at the link below.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/apr/09/north-charleston-shooting-police-scanner-video
Mr. Scott in green is running from a police officer when he is shot in the back.
April 19, 2015: Freddie Gray (Baltimore)
Freddie Gray, 25, died of a spinal cord injury a week after he was arrested by Baltimore police. It's still unclear how Gray sustained the injury. Officials say he was stopped after fleeing "unprovoked upon noticing police presence" and arrested for allegedly possessing a switchblade. He was put in a police van, which is where police say he suffered a medical emergency. The officers involved in his arrest were placed on leave, and on Friday, the state's attorney announced that they had been criminally charged in connection with Gray's homicide. For more about the protests that followed Freddie Gray's death see my post about it here, which also contradicts the racist trope that Americans who are black never protest black on black crime, only white on black crime, which simply is not true.
July 2015, Sandra Bland (Texas)
Sandra Bland, a black woman from Chicago is driving to Texas for a new job. She is pulled over for a specious traffic violation, failing to signal a lane change. The officer that pulls her over asks her if she is annoyed and she responds affirmatively to him. This leads to an argument that results in the officer drawing his gun and pointing it at her, forcibly removing her from her car, calling for back up and arresting her. She is found dead in her jail cell less than 72 hours later. Guardian story and dash cam video here. The Nation details the incident and her history here.
July 2015, Sandra Bland (Texas)
Sandra Bland, a black woman from Chicago is driving to Texas for a new job. She is pulled over for a specious traffic violation, failing to signal a lane change. The officer that pulls her over asks her if she is annoyed and she responds affirmatively to him. This leads to an argument that results in the officer drawing his gun and pointing it at her, forcibly removing her from her car, calling for back up and arresting her. She is found dead in her jail cell less than 72 hours later. Guardian story and dash cam video here. The Nation details the incident and her history here.
Oct 2015 Black Lives Matter PAC is formed in St Louis, but unaffiliated with the original movement.
Up to this point, Alicia Garza, who started the hashtag more than two years earlier, encouraged the use of the slogan BLM as a decentralized social movement, especially on social media, that promoted the idea that black lives matter. It was not until Oct 2015 that a distinct political organization developed.As detailed in Colorlines, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza told ThinkProgress that the PAC is not officially connected to the movement. “[What] our folks have said to us is we don’t want to endorse candidates, but to push [the] system of democracy to another level. … That’s where we’re headed,” she said. “I have a lot of respect for people who want to do different things. But I have questions: Who are they connected to, what are they gonna do with that?” Garza also said that she sees the value in their proposed work: “Everybody has something to contribute. The idea is not that we should all be doing the same thing. In [the] history of social movements, they were many different planks and impact from all of them.”
The above divergence is IMPORTANT to note. Many people oppose particular political positions espoused by particular groups that have emerged under the verbage of black lives matter. But dismissing the the phrase black lives matter and every sign/symbol/group that uses it because of opposition to specific political positions taken by particular political groups is reductionist. It lacks an understanding or acknowledgment of the origins of the phrase black lives matter and a blanket dismissal of blm is at best ignoring racism but perhaps allowing it to continue. It is naive to ignore the ongoing racism that is so well documented. And, I would argue that reducing blm to a particular group that you disagree with politically is akin to reducing the definition of conservative to white supremacy because of groups like the Council of Conservative Citizens or to indict Christianity because of this Christian mass murderer.
Nov 23, 2015 Black Lives Matter Protester beaten up at Trump rally and thrown out while crowd chants "All Lives Matter"
The important part starts around the one-minute mark of the original video, when the protester is pulled up off the floor and led away by members of the event security staff and some of the more aggressive volunteers from the crowd. The man is wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Black Lives Matter”. At least one Trump supporter standing near the video camera starts chanting a refutation: “All lives matter.” It’s valuable to see images of a black man being shoved and pushed and jeered and taunted to the soundtrack of these words. In 2015, in America, those three words, “all lives matter”, are a racist slogan. Any other interpretation is wrong. Watch the video at the link below.
Black lives matter protester is beaten at Trump rally while crowd chants "All lives matter."
February 28, 2016 Candidate Trump throws out Black Lives Matter Protesters and incites crowd with All Lives Matter Chant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpijYTMpz3k
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/02/28/blacklivesmatter_protests_trump_in_alabama_trump_responds_all_lives_matter.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpijYTMpz3k
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/02/28/blacklivesmatter_protests_trump_in_alabama_trump_responds_all_lives_matter.html
Trump throws out Black lives Matter Protesters and he incites the crowd by yelling "All lives matter." Here are some metaphors to help explain why the Black Lives Matter movement is important and it shouldn't be trumped by "all lives matter". And if there is any doubt that Trump has been associated with the flag, see this package deal for sale:
July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling shot dead at close range by two white Baton Rouge Police Department officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The officers were attempting to control Sterling's arms, and Sterling was shot by them after reportedly reaching for the loaded 38 caliber handgun in his pocket.[4] Police were responding to a report that a man in a red shirt was selling CDs and that he had used a gun to threaten a man outside a convenience store.[5] The owner of the store where the shooting occurred said that Sterling had started carrying a gun a few days prior to the event as other CD vendors had been robbed recently. He also said that Sterling was "not the one causing trouble" during the situation that led to the police being called.[6][7][8] The shooting was recorded by multiple bystanders.
July 6, 2016 Philando Castile,[a] killed during traffic stop with three year old in back seat.
A 32-year-old African-American, was pulled over while driving in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, and killed by Jeronimo Yanez, a St. Anthony, Minnesota Latino police officer. Castile had been driving a car at 9:00 pm with his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her four-year-old daughter when he was pulled over by Yanez and another officer in a suburb of Saint Paul, MN.[3][4] After being asked for his license and registration, Castile had told Officer Yanez that he had a firearm, to which Yanez replied, "Don't reach for it then", and Castile said "I'm, I, I was reaching for..." Yanez said "Don't pull it out", Castile replied "I'm not pulling it out", and Reynolds said "He's not..." Yanez repeated "Don't pull it out"[5] and then shot Castile seven times.[6]
July 18, 2016, Charles Kinsey, a mental health therapist, was shot by police in North Miami, Florida.
Kinsey, had been retrieving his autistic 23-year-old patient, Arnaldo Rios Soto, who had wandered from his group home. Police encountered the pair while searching for an armed suicidal man. Kinsey was lying on the ground with his hands in the air and trying to negotiate between officers and his patient when he was shot. While Kinsey lay on the ground with his hands raised, one officer, identified by the city as North Miami Police Department Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team member Jonathan Aledda, fired three rounds from a rifle, with one bullet striking Kinsey in the leg.[1][6] The shooting occurred a block from the group home where Kinsey worked at 1365 NE 128th St.[7]
November 2, 2016, Des Moines Police Department officer Anthony Beminio and Urbandale Police Department officer Justin Martin were killed in separate "ambush-style" shootings in and near Des Moines, Iowa. The perpetrator in both shootings, identified as 46-year-old Scott Michael Greene of Urbandale, Iowa, was apprehended by police hours later. Greene was taken into custody unharmed! President Obama publicly praised the police officers and decried the violence against them as heinous.
November 2016 Joshua Beal is shot 8 times by an officer with a history of racial incidents
Beal was shot eight times during a fight with plainclothes officers that erupted after a vehicle in a motorcade leaving a funeral he was part of was stopped by an off-duty firefighter for blocking a fire lane in Mount Greenwood, a majority-white Southwest Side neighborhood home to many members of law enforcement. Beal and the group he was with were black and the shooting sparked days of contentious protests. One of the officers, Sgt. Thomas Derouin, has a history of being involved in racially charged cases of excessive force, as detailed in The Chicago Reporter’s Settling for Misconduct database of all Chicago police lawsuit settlements from 2011 to 2017. He was named in the $55,000 settlement for a 2012 case in which officers tased, threw to the ground, and pressed a gun to the head of a man who they also used racial epithets against. The man was later cleared of charges. Racial epithets were also used in a 2008 incident, which was later settled for $10,000, in which Derouin and another officer are alleged to have violently stopped a man in South Shore whose ribs were broken in the encounter. The charge against the man was later dismissed. Derouin also has more than 25 complaints filed against him, which is more than 94% of other officers, according to the Citizens Police Data Project, including allegations of use of force, illegal search, and false arrest.
On Aug 23, 2020 Jacob Blake is shot in the back seven times and paralyzed from the waist down while his children watched from the back seat of their car.
and:
Trump throws out Black lives Matter Protesters and he incites the crowd by yelling "All lives matter." Here's some metaphors to help explain why the Black Lives Matter movement is important and it shouldn't be trumped by "all lives matter".
After Ferguson, black men still face the highest risk of being killed by police https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/after-ferguson-black-men-and-boys-still-face-the-highest-risk-of-being-killed-by-police
A Flag for Trump’s America; The power of strength
By Jeff Sharlet
Divergent discourse between protests and counter-protests: #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter.
Since the shooting of Black teenager Michael Brown by White police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, the protest hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has amplified critiques of extrajudicial killings of Black Americans. In response to #BlackLivesMatter, other Twitter users have adopted #AllLivesMatter, a counter-protest hashtag whose content argues that equal attention should be given to all lives regardless of race. Through a multi-level analysis of over 860,000 tweets, we study how these protests and counter-protests diverge by quantifying aspects of their discourse. We find that #AllLivesMatter facilitates opposition between #BlackLivesMatter and hashtags such as #PoliceLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter in such a way that historically echoes the tension between Black protesters and law enforcement. In addition, we show that a significant portion of #AllLivesMatter use stems from hijacking by #BlackLivesMatter advocates. Beyond simply injecting #AllLivesMatter with #BlackLivesMatter content, these hijackers use the hashtag to directly confront the counter-protest notion of "All lives matter." Our findings suggest that Black Lives Matter movement was able to grow, exhibit diverse conversations, and avoid derailment on social media by making discussion of counter-protest opinions a central topic of #AllLivesMatter, rather than the movement itself.
Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter? Color-blindness and Epistemic Injustice*
Those who take ‘All lives matter’ to oppose ‘Black lives matter’ take the latter to mean something like ‘Only black lives matter.’ Those who regard this exclusionary construal as mistaken hold the error to be due to an ideology of color-blindness. It has further been argued that the ideologically-motivated suppression of racial discourse has resulted in an epistemic injustice, blinding objectors to the fact that ‘Black lives matter’ really means ‘Black lives matter, too’. I will argue that attempts to make sense of this interpretive response in terms of color-blindness are mistaken. As I will discuss, the interpretive debates surrounding the words ‘Black lives matter’ are reminiscent of those surrounding ‘Black Power,’ which unfolded long before color-blindness could be said to have been a prevailing ethos. Critical affirmations such as ‘Black Power’ and ‘Black lives matter’ have proved difficult for many interpreters to understand because of the way that they manifest resistance to white supremacy, eschewing both racial exclusion and racial inclusion (the latter fact being masked by inclusive reconstructions such as ‘Black lives matter, too’). As I argue, however, the critical function of these statements calls into question the applicability of standard accounts of epistemic injustice.
Current CNN ongoing list of controversial police encounters
Black Lives Matter Metaphors:
Bob
Bob is sitting at the dinner table. Everyone else there gets a plate of food
except Bob. Bob says, “Bob deserves
food.” Everyone at the table responds with, “Everyone deserves food!” and they
continue eating. Although everyone
deserves food is a true statement, it does nothing to actually rectify the fact that Bob has NO food!
The Doctor
A man goes to the doctor for a broken arm, and the doctor
starts examining the rest of the man’s body.
The injured man says, “Doc, it’s my arm that’s broken; everything else
is fine,” and the doctor responds, “All bones matter.” Of course they all do, but they aren’t the
ones broken now!
Jesus
When Jesus said “Blessed are the poor, “ no one stood up and yelled “Blessed is
everyone!”
Randall Barnes puts February 2016 into perspective with a detailed analysis of Blackish:
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