The argument (continued)
Another issue that the Black Lives Matter Movement needs to address: their organization. The Black Lives Matter movement is not the most organized movement, they do not have a leader that leads them or a specific goal they want to address. There are some people who believe that the movement is not paying enough attention to certain problems within the black community, including black on black violence. Only big protests occur when cops, usually white ones, kill African Americans. There are no protests nearly as large held when black man kills another black man.
This is one of the other points that Russell talks about in her article. She quotes former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliano, who says “Black Lives Matter hasn’t saved nearly as many black lives, if they’ve saved any at all, as I have. Where are they? Where are ‘Black Lives Matter’ when six kids get shot in Chicago by other black kids? The reality is we’re going to end this issue when we get control of the significant amount of violence in urban America within the black community. And it’s the police who are doing that. Black Lives Matter divides us”. Here, Giuliano argues that there is a huge issue which the Black Lives Matter movement is not dedicating as much attention towards, black on black violence. If this issue is not also addressed, than the violence in America will not stop, especially if only violence by cops is addressed, as there is so much other violence occurring which does not garner as many protests.
Russell is not the only one with this opinion. Glenn B. Lowry, professor of the Social Sciences and professor of economics at Brown University, has similar thoughts on the issue. Loury writes in his article that the Black Lives Matter Movement has “gotten off on the wrong foot” and is “barking up the wrong tree”. He further elaborates on this, explaining that they are on the wrong foot because the manner in which some riots occurred ended up alienating some of the allies the movement needs to really make a difference. He also adds that they are barking up the wrong tree by focusing solely on “anti-black police violence”. He thinks that there is a far deeper issue regarding black on black violence, not only racist police. He states that the lives of black people in general still tend to be worse off than others. He goes on to say that “there can be no “racial justice” that will last without establishing universal social justice.” What he is saying here is that the Black Lives Matter movement should not simply focus on racial issues to solve the situation, but rather universal social justice for everyone, which would in turn also help the racial issues in the country. He finishes off his article by writing that in order to solve this social justice problem America is suffering, we should not focus on a movement which focuses in on black lives, but rather one that successfully affirms the value of all lives.
The organization and the violence surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement are two issues that must be fixed in order for the movement to make progress. But the movement can make progress, which is something not everybody seems to realize. Even though they still have aspects of their movement they can work on, they have already achieved a lot of progress. One must not completley shut out the movement and label them a hate group, like Spollen did. There has to be away to find common ground, which I attempted to do in a Rogerian letter to Spollen.