Another Perspective on Black Lives Matter Protest
“Justice for George Floyd.” When we search up the ever so popular social media, we can easily see people holding the placard. More than one month has passed since his cruel and unjust death, but the protest still continues. The protesters want this to be the last time the black people will unjustly die due to racism.
Listening to this news, however, I started to pose some other questions that many media seem to forget. It looked like not many were questioning the cause and other ramifications of Mr. Floyd’s death but only focusing on the size and seriousness of the protest. So, here are some questions I had.
First question: why is this Black Lives Matter (BLM), not All Lives Matter (ALM)? If we march towards to end racism, why don’t we take this opportunity to end all racism, not just the ones between the white and the black? To this question, I soon understood that Mr. Floyd’s unfair death directly represented a case between a white police officer and an African American citizen. The white officer had his knee knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck for terrifying 8 minutes and 46 seconds, which is illogical for an officer to press an unarmed individual with such physical force. This case perfectly resembled and summarized the white police officers’ racism, how some mistreat black citizens, and how some do not provide the so-called inalienable human rights to the colored race. Therefore, the black people, who understandably are the most imminent to this incident, named the Black Lives Matter movement protest. While the motive behind the name is perfectly understandable, the movement could have been more understandable to all people if we were to be named All Lives Matter and try to end racism between all races, not only for the black people. Asians and Mexican Americans are also the occasional victims of racism, and even though they do not compare to the size of white-black relations, it is hard to argue that Asians and Mexicans do not receive any racism from other races, including African Americans.
Second question: can African Americans justifiably state that they are being mistreated? When such eminent protest emerges, many often forget to see the previous data and events. Here is a 2016 data from the FBI.
When we look at this table, we can see that more white individuals face crime than the black individual. However, when accounting that the white population is sixfold of the black population, the numbers frankly represent that black individuals are more likely to face crime than the white individual. However, this is hard to relate to racism since most African Americans faced crime due to other African Americans. When we move on to see the race of the offender, we can see that there were 533 African American related cases out of 3499 cases where the white is the victim. The percentage here is 15.23%. On the other hand, there were 243 white race-related cases out of 2870 cases where the black is the victim. The percentage is 8.46%. This data tells that there are more black people breaking the law against white people in a single year than white on black. What I want to get across here is the fact that black people tend to go over the line more often. Due to this fact, people start to understand that African Americans tend to violate more laws and present more aggressive actions. I believe that this tendency has also passed along to police officers, whose job is to deal with crimes.
Nonetheless, the fact that more black people offend does not mean that police officers should believe that all black individuals are criminals. There is no doubt that everyone should be treated equally, no matter what your skin color is (or what your race tend to do). However, at the same time, black individuals cannot go out to the street and protest solely believing that they are misidentified when data states that black citizens tend to violate the laws more often. I understand the frustration many innocent black individuals had when dealing with the police’s unjust actions, and I believe that that should never happen again. If there were racism and unfair actions, then that should be fixed. But black individuals should also realize that some of those unjust actions derive from many of their past actions and that they should work to fix those behaviors. Here, let me give you an example. When this protest began, mostly black protesters started to put stores on fire and raid many restaurants and markets. If such actions repeatedly happen, it is very hard for other races to sympathize, support the protest, and think that there is clear racism against African Americans. Again, I understand that the people who stole do not fully represent the race, but we cannot ignore that they still are black individuals.
Last question: are previous work of anti-racism being ignored? Since the last century, there have been so-called heroes like Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and Rosa Parks. These heroes have made a great impact on the lives of many races other than the black race. They have transformed American society to a more free and fair world. However, currently, African Americans march the street as if all the white people are racists and as if all the police officers mistreat the black individuals. This is simply not true. There still are thousands of black officers in the states, and many African Americans and white people get along with each other. Most of the NBA players, who earn millions and millions of dollars, are black: Lebron James, Kevin Durant, Paul George, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and the list continues for more. What is important is realizing the fact that there has been great improvement regarding racism. Many black people earn much more and live much better than before, and some African Americans earn more than the white individuals. It is illogical for African Americans and other races to think that there is the same racism from the 19th century or any time before in history. We are here to fight and fix the unjust actions by the white officers and any other remains of black-white racism, but not to state that there are huge controversies between the two races. What this misunderstanding do is alienate the two race and generate further tension.
Concluding, I want to state that Mr. Floyd’s case is terrifying and that we should create laws and policies so that there will not be any cases similar to it. If there are other racism-related cases, we should fight against it. However, people in the BLM should be cautious of what they say and what they listen to. Very often, fake information prelude, leading people to misjudge and become delusional. Therefore, we should learn to take a step back and understand why and how we should appropriately fight against racism.
Reference:
“Expanded Homicide Data Table 3.” FBI, 2016, ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls. Accessed 29 June 2020.
