Why Black Lives Matter isn’t Working

Every time a black man gets shot by a police officer, whether it was warranted or not, civil unrest breaks out in whatever town the shooting occurred. It all began with Trayvon Martin in Ferguson, and continued with the unlawful deaths of Freddie Gray, Jamal Clark, and Michael Brown by police brutality and has most recently sparked nationwide protests for George Floyd, whose neck was broken by a police officer while not resisting arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota a little over a week ago.

These protests have only become nationwide recently due to people being out of work and having absolutely nothing else to do with themselves. If you look at the photos of most of the protests, those protesting are mostly white and mostly female, a hundred- and eighty-degree shift from previous protests. These white people have always supported the movement, they just haven’t had the motivation to actually tell the world how they feel because they had to worry about their employment. Once everyone goes back to work, Black Lives Matter will die down and police brutality against minorities will still exist in the same strength as it did before.

This is because Black Lives matter has no one distinguishable leader.

The founders of Black Lives Matter are Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. I’ve been following this movement since Trayvon Martin and I still have no idea what those three people look like. According to their website, their key people are Shaun King, DeRay Mckesson, Johnetta Elzie, Tef Poe, and Erica Garner. Why haven’t any of us seen photos or videos of these people consistently in the News.

Back in the 1960s Martin Luther King and Malcom X led their civil rights movements. They were globally recognized symbols of their respective movements. The civil rights movement had one voice: Martin Luther King Jr., an upstanding citizen who quite literally had to be perfect in the public eye. Just Because it’s been over half a century doesn’t mean anything has changed. As evidenced by Obama’s presidency, even if you are a calm, articulate, peaceful and extremely intelligent, if you aren’t straight, white, and male, a large and boisterous minority of the media will destroy you for it and simultaneously praise white men for being crass, violent, and unintelligible.

That’s what Black Lives Matter is missing: a leader that embodies the perfect black man. It’s not fair. In fact, it’s downright offensive and racist that almost sixty years after black men got the vote that this has to happen. It’s also incredibly sexist that the leader must be a man. That’s just the way our society is wired: Patriarchally.

If Black Lives Matter wants to win more civil rights and get our government officials to enact laws against police brutality, it’s going to take more than hashtags and celebrity support from Hollywood actors that the right doesn’t care about.

The movement must play the game of politics and encourage African Americans to vote and white people and the ever growing Hispanic population to vote with them. This can only be achieved by playing into the racism that has prevented justice for so many years.

Show them a perfect, incorruptible male symbol to lead Black Lives Matter and show the world that the issue is real. Play into their racism and the double standards of our society and show the enemy that Black Lives Matter is an organization lead by an upstanding citizen and shatter any and every incorrect depiction of the movement with professionalism.