Bella Jimenez

Professor Connelly
English 261
29 November 2016

Black Lives Matter

All around the world we see as well as hear about our government and certain Justice
Departments being injustice. Black lives matter is known as an international activist movement,
originating in the African-American community, which campaigns against violence and
systematic racism toward black people. Even though people say all lives matter in this time and
point people are forgetting about the African American race so we have to continue reminding
others that black lives matter and always will matter. By this I mean, most people in the United
States are tired of these certain Departments of justice mistreating and targeting African
Americans. This police brutality, injustice towards this ethnicity has been going on for centuries.
Adding on these riots, protesting, and even racial killings occur due to injustice towards the
black community.
In addition, the police and other departments of justice see most protestors as a threat
therefore they feel the need to involve vulgar language and unlawful behavior. Moreover, they
use profanity, violence and even cause harm to a couple of the protesters which is taking away
their first amendment known as the freedom of speech. In doing so the police often lose their
credibility even their respect from these people by what the way they act and how they treat
these protesters. Which is why I feel these Justice Departments need to really enforce a higher
education and self-awareness of tough decision making within their departments. A new study:

Cops With College Degrees Are Less Likely to Use Force against Citizens states The study
analyzed data from 2,109 police officers in seven metropolitan police departments. Although
none of the departments required a degree, 45 percent of the officers surveyed, possessed one. If
they were to have a higher college degree they would be less likely to use excessive force on
citizens.
Furthermore, as these protests continue to go on our people are taking a stand and want
equality for everyone. These different ethnicities are uniting as one by using their voices to speak
for the African Americans. Unfortunately some of these protesters voices were silenced as they
were killed by the police in some of the black lives matter protests. Our own people are being
shot, runned over and even killed just for standing up and using their voice to have equality for
everyone. Yet a majority of our government officials/people think that these protesters are getting
out of hand and they are actually making things worse. We the people are not the ones getting out
of hand we are using our amendments the right way we are not hurting anyone. Personally we
are just trying to help out the African-Americans get justice for themselves.
For instance, the growing activism of the Black Lives Matter banner has continued for
the past two years. The protests are being held due to these justice department's causing injustice
within the system, by killing innocent black people and thinking they can get away with it. We
the people need to understand that these innocent human beings are someones family members
their loving father, brother, son, uncle and a nephew. Statistics show that in 2015 police roughly
killed at least 102 unarmed African-Americans almost twice a week which is about 37%
(Mapping Police Violence). The Black Lives Matter stated the police killers of Eric Garner and
Freddie Gray were acquitted, the prosecution of Jason Val Dyke was still in process as of
October 2016.

To add on, we have been treating the African-Americans with such cruelty, hate and some
misjudgment. The blacks were either sold or traded to the White-Americans so they could work
on their farms to tend to the crops. If they were hurt or just simply didn't want to work they were
punished by not receiving food or they would be beaten by their masters. People often see them
as bad people yet many fail to give reasons as to why they are they go off of what happened they
think happened in the past. Whites would kill some of the male African-Americans due to false
sexual accusations from white females, who had sexual relations with them but didnt want to get
caught by their husbands or fathers. However it was looked down upon for the females to have
sexual relations with the black male but the white males believed they did the enslaved black
women a kindness by raping them. The white men often claimed they were doing Black women
a favor by saving them from having sex with Black men who were considered to be animalistic
and brutal. Which is sad to hear all because of fear/dominant power we turn on one another and
think its alright to treat each other like animals instead of human beings.
In conclusion, we all need to remove the scales from our eyes and realize that AfricanAmericans are human beings with feelings, families and lives just like everyone in this world.
Slavery has ended long ago yet we see history repeat itself as the blacks are still being treated the
same. We need to continue to have these protests and speak out by using our freedom of speech
to show that these are our friends and we are willing to do anything to protect them. In order to
stop this injustice we need to have every department of justice get a higher degree in education
and certain classes on how to shoot/what to do under pressure.

Work Cited
http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ReferenceDetailsPage/ReferenceDetailsWindow?
disableHighlighting=true&displayGroupName=Reference&currPage=&scanId=&query=&sourc
e=&prodId=OVIC&search_within_results=&p=OVIC
%3AGIC&mode=view&catId=&u=cclc_sequoias&limiter=&displayquery=&displayGroups=&contentModules=&action=e&sortBy=&documentId=GALE
%7CRMBGVS336742654&windowstate=normal&activityType=&failOverType=&commentary
=true
http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/unarmed/
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/study-cops-college-degrees-force-citizens/
http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/11/05/10-horrifying-facts-about-the-sexual-exploitation-ofenslaved-black-women-you-may-not-know/