Analysis Of The Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement

Since its beginnings, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, as a decentralized, international activist movement, has been largely misunderstood in the public’s eye mainly due to the media’s distorted portrayal of the BLM movement as well as due to the movement’s inability to control its narrative and perception in the world. Since February of 2012, the nation’s African-American community has been in a state of upheaval over the tireless and numerous killings of unarmed African-Americans at the hands of the police. While racialized policing is not a new concept to the black communities, these particular events – such as the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and Sandra Bland, to name a few – received massive media coverage …show more content…
However, the overall message followed the same tired script. As to why the mass media’s coverage seems so tailored, one could assume that the headlines and news is for click-baits. In the wake of the birth of the BLM movement, headlines covering stories surrounding this movement have been very popular by demand, if for no other reason than because the numerous amount of objectors of the BLM movement are looking for material to criticize and antagonize the progress of the movement. The national media coverage neglected to cover the thousands upon thousands of peaceful protestors rightfully outraged at the killings, murders, and verdicts; yet, instead geared their attention towards the miniscule body of people who decided to raise hell on their own. This account is one that has consistently been overused throughout the history of America in order to criticize black communities when they have the willingness and courage to stand up and demand recognition of their basic civil and human rights. This response is nothing new and is rooted deeply in the institutional structures in place that weave throughout every aspect of our daily lives. These altered storylines told by the mainstream media include several gaps that have helped to maintain consistent negative criticisms and invalidation of the BLM movement which help to highlight the major ways in which the media has …show more content…
We know that the systems that be, including the media, were not set up for people of color’s advancement; they were built to keep people of color at a disadvantaged within this society. Thus, since we know that we are not equal in the eyes of the nearly all white-owned media, individually and as a whole, we must begin to devise ways in which we can gain power amongst those ranked above us. In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best when he stated that we must “establish such creative tension that a community that is consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue” (King). With a devised plan on how to disrupt the mass media and society as whole, then and only then can will we have the leverage needed to gain power amongst the top. This power as Alicia Garza states is only effective and important when it is done “strategically – disrupting institutions and corporations that prey upon our people” (Craven). This disruption, or “disruptive black power”, is the only way I see to which recovery from where we ae now can happen. This “disruptive black power” will challenge the ‘white ideal norm’ and white ideologies that exist in our social society to the core so that the Black Lives Matter activists and those tied to the movement can regain the power