Global Health Blogs with Professor Swahn

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement was created as both a reaction and a response to the inherent racism that Black people have been facing in the United States which we see nowadays as escalated shootings and killings of Black civilians by police and “vigilantes”. The BLM movement was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation Incorporated is now a global organization in both the US, UK, and Canada. The BLM mission is to completely eradicate white supremacy in all nations and build community power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state resources and vigilantes. For many years, and for some generations, the message of ‘Black Lives Matter’ has not been heard and has even been snuffed out. That is why the response of this organization is LOUD and PROUD. So yes hear me when I say ‘Black Lives Matter’.

• When We say ‘Black Lives Matter’… We say these words as a means of reminding the entire world and especially the police that is paid to protect and serve us, that our lives DO, in fact, matter the same as those of any other race across the world.

• When We say ‘Black Lives Matter’… We say these words as a means of fighting and challenging against the minimalization and blatant disregard for the lives of Black civilians on behalf of the racist and rookie police departments who have been TAKING them.

• When We say ‘Black Lives Matter’… We say these words because we are sick and fed up with the racial profiling, harassment, and police brutality that has lead to nothing but senseless, needless, and unjustifiable killings of so many Black civilians throughout the United States of America under the ‘shield’ of enforcing the law.

• When We say ‘Black Lives Matter’… We say these words to remind our fellow Black countrymen that Black lives have to matter to us within and amongst ourselves as the PEOPLE! We say the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ to add emphasis to the moral and legal fact that every single Black life matters no matter what race takes one. A Black life matters when a White cop takes a Black life… and a Black Matters equally as much when another Black civilian takes one as well.

My point in making these points is because we, as Black community,  just as many lives are lost to Black-On-Black crime, often times due to silly and unnecessary conflicts, gang affiliation, crimes, drugs, instigation, and retaliation.

Here’s the problem: We need to mutually respect, value, love, and reflect our unity as a nation to one another, and remember FOR one another. As a community, we need to evolve, in that, we need to promote more open dialogue, better negotiation skills, conflict-resolution within our nation and declare an all-out battle on ignorance, racism, and racist systematic policies. In conjunction, we as the black community must have the COURAGE to do away with the universal “no snitchin” code so homicides can be investigated properly, and arrests can be made as the perpetrators can properly be removed from the community. We cannot have a sustainable standard of unity that we supposedly have for our people if we allow some among us to also kill our own people, we can no longer turn a blind eye solely because we are in the same skin. What we cannot continue to do is say “Black Lives Matter” and not mean ‘Black Lives Matter’,100%. If we restrict our struggle to just stopping wrong police killings while pardoning, protecting, and refusing to address the problem of Black people who claim Black lives as if they don’t matter! I don’t know about other Black civilians, but I cannot, in good consciousness, think one way about the situation without fairly and objectively thinking the other situation. So when public health experts say it, if Black lives truly matter then they have to truly matter to any and everyone regardless of their race or creed or culture. To believe in anything different is simply an injustice to everyone in this country and across the globe.