The Black Lives Matter Movement: A Fight Against Racism And Inequality

The Origins of the Black Lives Matter Movement

The presentation talks all about "Black Lives Matter." This concept started in the year 2013. This was used to focus on racism in the region along with the practice of discrimination, and inequality observed and witnessed by the black people of the country. The focus on this has grown in the U.S. after high profile killings by the cops have been observed (Campbell, 2020). There was a case registered in the U.S. where a 17-year named Trayvon Martin who was from a black race was shot and killed by neighbour George Zimmerman. Since then, protests were started using "Black Lives Matter" as a slogan. This campaign spotlighted the inequality, discrimination, and racism faced by black individuals. The main motive of the campaign is to fight racism and anti-black violence. After the death of a 17-year-old teen, the campaign "Black Lives Matter" has begun on social media (Graff, 2015).

This campaign has gained power through rallies and protests as it addresses various social issues such as racism, inequality, discrimination etc. This campaign has started on social media platform per se with the hashtag "Black lives Matter." The key learning's from this campaign is that a person fight's against racism and white supremacy everywhere. People used to unite together in a group and start a campaign with a motive to abolish racism and discrimination around the world. The campaign is all about spreading awareness and educating people about racial inequalities, power discrepancies, bias recognition, etc., around the world. The presentation highlights the traditional social media that used to justify the "Black Life Matter Movement" campaign. Several traditional media such as news, radio, magazines, and articles are being used to justify the campaign with the hashtag "Black Lives Matter" movement. While preparing and delivering this presentation, I have learnt about what the campaign "Black Lives Matter" is all about and how this campaign has become a social topic on social media. I came across the media, which determines the social topic by dragging the incidents that are of public concern or belongs to public interest. The young generation uses social media to share the campaign content and spread awareness against racism, discrimination, inequality to get justice in return from people worldwide (Bobo, 2011). Social media platform plays vital support in spreading awareness against the Black Life Matter Movement. The campaign utilizes social media as an important tool (Francis, 2021). In 2013, the murder of Trayvon Martin went viral across multiple social media platforms and from there, the campaign had started and gone viral on social media (Fakunle, 2016). Black people can share their personal experiences on social media platforms (Tillery, 2019). With the help of social media, a person can share their stories, photos, and viral news, which help provide the facts and data in an expendable way. It is the only way to engage the audience to understand the reason behind the campaign which is going to provide justice to the blacks. It will help resolve the issue and hence, every person around the world can get a fair chance to live their life freely.

Using Social Media to Spread Awareness

 I also learned about social workers protesting for George Floyd, the role of social worker and protesting against racial disparity; while preparing and delivering the presentation. The presentation task was assigned to us in a group, where I enjoyed working in a team as everyone was very cooperative, supportive, and helpful throughout the assignment's completion. The work was divided among the members in a group, and everyone was assigned different portions of the task to complete on time. The group dynamic, i.e. the interactions among the group members while completing the task, was very nice. I felt overwhelmed sometimes but with the help of my teammates, I overcome that feeling. Everyone supported each other and was also helping each other while completing the assignment. All members were assigned with the work, and they have completed their work part within the given period only. I had a good experience while working with my group partners on this power-point presentation assignment. I have also gathered knowledge about public sphere theory while doing this assignment. Public Sphere Theory is a concept that unites and associates many people from a wide background of cultures and varirty of demographics. Social media also has strapped the public sphere into a novel dimension as it now includes history along with various other factors to drive its features. Throughout the presentation, effects of the hashtag "Black Live Matter Campaigns", our group members discussed the purpose of the people poll on social media.

The black lives matter campaign has shown lots of positive feedback, especially with the help of social platform or media. After the hashtag Black lives matter was tweeted 39.2 million times and shared 100 million times in the month at the time when George Floyd was killed, it received support from leaders and accordingly justice was served (Bonilla-Silva, 2012). After several years, the protest for black lives matter was still standing as an evaluation of the current (Adams, 2020).

The physical violence showcased by the U.S. police towards black people in America are regularly noticed in the news. I have learnt many things related to the topic while doing the assignment. There was also a team leader in our group who guided the whole team in the right direction while doing the assignment. The team leader of our good was managing everything so nicely that all of us enjoyed doing the whole assignment. The assignment also analyzed the grammar, punctuation, and spelling portions.

Positive Feedback and Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement

The campaign has a clear chain of development and evolution from social media. The response that the moment got was enlistment towards the legal action that outlines the power of social media. Social media also has become a place for social changes as it is now a platform where people share the petition and organize a protest against the Black Lives Matter Campaign. Social media is the platform where protesting against racism, discrimination, inequality, etc., is relevantly easier than doing it with the help of traditional media. The Black Lives Matter Movement was escalated because of the deaths witnessed, which was a deliberate humanization towards the entire community of the blacks. The major aim was to make it a political and ideological intervention in a society where black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for death. The death of the 17 years old teen in the U.S. emerges the idea of the social movement stating that black lives matter. The ultimate goal of the campaign #Black lives matter is to fight and protest against racism, inequality etc. and to change the systems and structures in the American Society per se (Illingworth, 2020). The Black Lives Matters movement is a social movement that sees race and admits that it matters in American Society (Wu, J., 2016). The movement should focus on educating the people in this regard. When Michael Brown died in the U.S., the movement got escalated and had got even more attention from society and it went from action to change stage. The movement Black Lives Matter was an online campaign that was created to bring awareness towards racism, police brutality and social injustice that black people in America used to face daily.

While doing this project, I could connect my experience with that of Belbin’s groupwork. A per this theory, all the members are engaged with 9 roles altogether. However, some members can be assigned with more than one role. These roles were like more of a resource investigator who would work on the research area. The team worker would lead the team together and ensures efficiency; also the co-ordinator and the monitor evaluator equally had their own parts to play. The other roles were like the specialist who will ensure the last minute touch ups along with the help of shaper, and then there were the implementer and the complete finisher. I was assigned the role of the complete finisher in this project. The entire drafting, editing, proofreading, last minute changes was my department and I thoroughly enjoyed doing that. However, what I felt could be improved is that randomly the roles were assigned; the roles should be assigned to the ones who are comfortable doing that and not by insisting. This could be improved going forward. Through my experience, I could observe four reflective practices like the active experimentation where we had collected data and had analysed the same. Next was the abstract conceptualization where the ideas were taken from many sources and then picked. Also, reflective observation and the concrete experience was equally the part of the overall experience of the project.

Hence, it can be concluded that the campaign's main motive is to educate the American people pertaining to racism. I will also initiate online campaigns against this violence and colour-blind racism faced by black people. Black lives matter is a movement with the mission of building local power in the American state and fighting against the black lives communities. There should be no discrimination among black and white lives as everyone is free to live and be treated equally in American society without discrimination based on colour or any other means.

References

Tillery, A. B. (2019). What kind of movement is Black Lives Matter; The view from Twitter. Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, 4(2), 297-323.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-race-ethnicity-and-politics/article/what-kind-of-movement-is-black-lives-matter-the-view-from-twitter/375801268123BCA397284EFBE36C9F4E

Evans, A. B., Agergaard, S., Campbell, P. I., Hylton, K., & Lenneis, V. (2020). 'Black Lives Matter:’sport, race and ethnicity in challenging times. European Journal for Sport and Society, 17(4), 289-300.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/16138171.2020.1833499

Adams, C. (2020). A movement, a slogan, a rallying cry: How Black Lives Matter changed America's view on race. NBC News.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/movement-slogan-rallying-cry-how-black-lives-matter-changed-america-n1252434

Gawthrop, A., & Illingworth, C. (2020). The Role of Social Media in Black Lives Matter; Redbrick LifeStyle.

https://www.redbrick.me/the-role-of-social-media-in-black-lives-matter

Gander, F. Gaitzsch, I. Ruch, W. (2020). The Relationships of Team Role- and Character Strengths-Balance With Individual and Team-Level Satisfaction and Performance. Frontiers in Psychology. 11. doi. 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566222    

Wu, J. (2016). Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Prosecution A Meta-Analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 43(4), 437–458.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093854815628026

Smiley, C., & Fakunle, D. (2016). From "brute" to "thug:" The demonization and criminalization of unarmed Black male victims in America. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 26(3), 350–366.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10911359.2015.1129256

Graff, G. (2015). Redesigning Racial Caste in America via Mass Incarceration. The Journal of Psychohistory., 43(2), 120–133.

https://search.proquest.com/openview/fac749a5ab5237b56dede85447794fc3/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=35407

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2012). The invisible weight of whiteness: the racial grammar of everyday life in contemporary America. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 35(2), 173–194.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01419870.2011.613997

Bobo, L. D. (2011). Somewhere between Jim Crow & Post-Racialism: Reflections on the Racial Divide in America Today. Daedalus, 140(2), 11–36.

https://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-abstract/140/2/11/26896

Francis, M. M., & Wright-Rigueur, L. (2021). Black Lives Matter in Historical Perspective. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 17, 441-458.

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-122120-100052