Black Lives Matter Awakens Americans to Respect All Lives

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Black Lives Matter Awakens Americans to Respect All Lives
Losing a loved one can be the most devastating thing; the feeling is worse when you lose them due to a reasonably preventable situation. Fatalities from police brutality are such situations, and it is commendable that societies are raising the alarm on the need for change, with the Black Lives Matter campaign among the most conspicuous responses (Campbell, 2021). The Black Lives Matter campaign is a political and social movement rooted in America that emphasizes the need for respect for the civil rights of the black people and an end to police brutality that has often been seen as targeting black people. Racism is rife across America and African Americans have been discriminated against at the workplace, on voting rights, in the streets and in many other aspects for centuries, making it necessary for them to take initiatives that can have their voices heard and action taken. BLM started in 2013 after George Zimmerman, a volunteer guard in Florida, fatally shot weaponless 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and a court acquitted him (Munro, 2022).Black Lives Matter Protests in New York City. Photo: CBS News
Other cases of police brutality have followed where an officer who claimed to have been acting in self-defense in 2017 killed Michael Brown. In what might have attracted the attention of the highest number of Americans, a police officer knelt on another unarmed black man in the summer of 2020 for 9 minutes while the man helplessly repeated, "I can't breathe." The whole incident that led to the death of George Floyd was recorded by a teenager who later posted it on Twitter under the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter and massive protests followed (Silverstein, 2021). The policeman was later sentenced to 22 years and his two accomplices are awaiting sentencing. Although the Black Lives Matter campaign has played a great role in respect to the lives of black Americans, the campaigns and protests are an awakening call for Americans to respect all lives.
As decentralized as the movement may be, it must be lauded for the enormous sensitivity it has raised on the need for black people to be treated equally around the world. BLM has indeed been used in Europe and elsewhere. Discrimination against black people has become a culture in many places, and the trends must be tamed. The migration of most African Americans in the Americas was discrimination since they were shipped in the 18th century without consent across the Atlantic to work as enslaved people in plantations. Most of those living there are their descendants and, therefore, the vestiges of one of the worst forms of human rights abuses in history. They must not live under conditions similar to those of their forefathers in such a civilized era. Social and structural changes must be brokered now, and since the formal systems have failed to address that for years, such initiatives...