Black Lives Matter

In class this week, we have been discussing the topic of Black Lives Matter. In our recent response paper I decided to talk about it and go more into depth about some victims. Black Lives Matter is a topic that has been very publicized over the past couple of years. It has been shown on many social media sites such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and more. Many people want to see change in all of this because of how the lives of the African Americans matter as much as all of the other races.

I talked about the “The Rodney King Incident” that happened on March 3, 1991. A 25-year-old African American local taxi driver was getting pulled over from cops for going too fast, he refused and made a pursuit out of it. After not complying with the police he was brutally beaten, tazered, and repeatedly kicked. He was admitted into the hospital that night and found he had “11 skull fractures, permanent brain damage, broken (bones and teeth), kidney damage, emotional and physical trauma”. They later found out “The LAPD already had a reputation for racism and heavy handedness in the African American community, and they were sick of it.” All of this was filmed by a neighbor then was published which made many Americans more aware of this problem. After this incident many people’s eyes were open and wanted to see a change, but there were also some people who were on the police side.

After all of this research on Black Lives Matter I’ve found out a lot of information that I have personally never knew before. I have gain so much respect for the BLM community and have a new perspective on things now. I was never informed of this movement and community, so I never knew what people were talking about when this topic came up. I believe this movement is bigger than anyone will ever know. I think all of the stories and victims of this will forever be remembered. I would like to see this problem be solved in the future and would also like to see it be more publicized. 

Picture Credit: from http://hope-albion-historyproject.com/violence-and-policing/criminal-justice-system/