BLM

Just as a note: Sorry for the gap between blogs. I don't really know why I stopped for a week or two, but here we are.

 

Onto the blog itself:

 

As you can probably tell by reading the title, today's blog will be about the movement that has gained a lot of support, including my own, Black Lives Matter. 

The recent and unfortunate murder of George Floyd done by a group of cops has sprung up outrage throughout the country. It has also put a highlight on police brutality. I've realized that reports of police brutality appear more and more often. 

Each time I see an article about something the police have done, ranging from driving into a crowd of protesters to shooting a teenager in the head, I lose more and more hope in the police system. 

I want to get out of the way that I don't support ACAB. I might not entirely get it. I used to believe that there were a few bad apples, which were the racist cops, but the rest of the police and justice system was good. I've slowly come to realize that that's not the case. I keep hoping that maybe cops can prove that they are good people. I have seen posts about cops protesting alongside other BLM supporters, but they are trumped by other things that cops have done. Cops tried to install a curfew to limit protests, which violates 1st amendment rights. Cops have even fired bullets, albeit rubber bullets, into peaceful protesters. I'm not talking about the looters, but the peaceful protesters. I have also realized that cop systems are messed up, even in places I thought they wouldn't be. On many occasions in court, white people will go off with a lighter punishment than a black person who has committed a less important crime. 

I remember that once a white person who raped a girl was only fined while a black person who was caught dealing weed was sentenced to jail. I know that that example is extreme, but it happens. Even in Bellevue, which I originally thought was not racist at all, has some hints of racism. A year ago, a white girl who was a friend of someone I know got arrested because she spray painted a message onto a private company's property. She was eventually let go and nothing was put on her permanent record. I know this might not be that good of an example, but I try to imagine what would've happened if the teenager wasn't white but was black or Asian. They would most likely at least have something put into their permanent record. 

I feel bad for the cops who are truly trying to do something right, and truly believe in supporting this cause, but some things their colleagues do are just outrageous. Police have disguised themselves as protesters just so that it would be easier to control them. 

 

I now want to talk about some of the things that people I follow on Instagram have been doing. As you probably know, there was a trend that happened last Tuesday where people posted a black square for black-out-Tuesday. It began as something that only artists did, but it became something nationwide. To put it in small words: it made me mad. Almost everyone I knew put a black square into their feed. The bad part is that they put the hashtags blacklivesmatter. BLM is a movement that I'm behind, but these black squares do nothing. Putting the hashtag blacklivesmatter just blocks up people who are actually trying to find information about the movement. Only a few people I knew actually put links on their black square posts, while most others did nothing. There was also another trend going on that I didn't like even more. People posted on their stories the hashtag blacklivesmatter. They then would challenge 5 more people to post the same thing and challenge more people. I just thought to myself, "What's the point of this?" I felt like some people were just doing it for the clout. And I know that is true. Of course if I asked them if they truly believed in BLM, they would say they do. Some people are so obsessed with keeping up with the social norms that they will make themselves believe that they are truly passionate about BLM. They will jump on the bandwagon and do what everyone else is doing. If they get tagged in some bullshit story, instead of stopping for a second and asking themselves whether the story actually does anything, they continue the challenge. They clog up other people's feed with meaningless nonsense that adds nothing to the cause. What does posting a black square with the hashtag blacklivesmatter do? Nothing. It does nothing. You might say that it spreads awareness about the movement but let us be for real. Who in America is not aware about the movement? They could just listen from inside their house and maybe hear protests happening. It is on every single news source. Everyone is aware about the movement, and what happened with George Floyd. There is not a single point in an Instagram story chain. A few people tagged me, and I just replied "No", because there was no point. It makes me annoyed when a bunch of people are passionate to a movement that they aren't even knowledgeable on. 

 

Speaking of things that people are knowledgeable on, I saw an Instagram post that had quite an argument in the comments. There were people who said that not all cops are bastards, refuting the idea ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards). I then saw someone who had an infuriating response. They said that the police system was created to catch slaves and to keep slaves in order. They then said that the roots of the police system have carried their way until present day, where police still try to hunt blacks. The police system was made to catch criminals. It was created in New York, a colony that didn't have slaves. They just seemed so ignorant, and of course they were easily refuted. Instead of actually reading how they were refuted, they just said "You can have your opinion and I can have mine". They then stopped talking. ACAB is an idea that you can defend with logic. Both sides of ACAB have logical arguments, but the way that these people were describing what ACAB was made no sense. Instead of saying that the cops might not be bad, but they are working for a flawed system, they said that all cops are bad racists. That is easily refuted, but of course these kinds of people won't listen. 

 

Today I had quite an interesting discussion with my family. They asked me if I would like to participate in one of the BLM protests. I said that although I support the movement, I'm not passionate about it to the point of going to a protest. When my mother then asked me if I would go a protest, I responded by saying that I would go to a protest about a cause that is dear and personal to me, like Asian Lives Matter. My reasoning for it was partially because I myself am an Asian, but also because I feel like ALM is not as well-known as BLM. Although black people are treated worse than Asians, Asians also face racism. It's harder for Asians to get into colleges because of the general idea that all Asians study well. Asians also have less rights in the justice system than whites. My mother then asked me a question to test my thinking. She asked me that wouldn't more people support ALM if they saw that Asians openly supported other causes? I said that that would make sense. If there was the motion that Asians were with BLM, then maybe other people would be open to ALM as well. I then said that you should protest anything that you believe is right. That contradicted my earlier idea. My mother then said that instead of supporting BLm or ALM, we should support All Lives Matter, which has the same acronym as Asian Lives Matter. Instead of only standing up against something that happened to a black person unjustly, we should stand up against anything that happened to anyone unjustly, with race out of the picture. I agreed with this, but a majority of a country believing in All Lives Matter would only seemingly happen in a Utopian society. I then thought that maybe All Lives Matter could be mainstream if people were taught it as kids, and they grew up with the idea that All Lives Matter and that everyone should be treated equally.

 

I remember as an elementary school student, I never learned anything about racism. We just learned about superficial things that some of the times weren’t even true. What's the point of teaching kids about a Thanksgiving that never happened that way? What's the point in teaching kids that President Lincoln started the civil war because he despised slavery? Students will soon find out that what they were taught as a kid was a lie. Why tell kids that the USA is a perfect country and fill them with this goodhearted and false information when none of it is true? 

 

If kids were taught from when they were young that the world they live in has many problems and that they can fix it, they might do just that. If they learn that racism is a huge problem, they might try to fix that. People might say that kids shouldn't learn be exposed to negative things when young. To that I respond with this: Things that kids learn when they are young are things  they will carry on for the rest of their life. They might later change their minds, but it would be harder for them to grasp and accept it. If you were always told that the world was a Utopian society, it would be hard to accept the flaws of the government and justice system. This of course is a huge ‘if’ and most likely will never happen. People wanting to shield the next generation from the flaws of the world will maintain said flaws. 

 

I think for today I have said enough. If you have read until this point, thank you for reading. If not, oh well you won't see this anyway. I hope you keep reading my blog. Thanks!