Written by Wilna Charlemange
This article is part of a showcase of articles published by current North Springs students who were part of the Sandy Springs Middle School Journalism program in 2021-2022. For more info about Sandy Springs Journalism, see the link at the bottom of this page.
Black Excellence, the actions or words of a black person that make the black community proud. Black excellence and the media have never mixed. News channels, social media platforms, you name it. Black people, and more specifically, black excellence have been characterized as “evil” and “destructive” towards the American Society, however, the real problem starts with the media and entertainment companies themselves.
Everyone has watched the news at least once. You’ve heards stories of almost everything. Breaking news! Young girl found safe outside of school! Breaking news! Man finally arrested after multiple attempts to kidnap daughter! Breaking news! Black man shot for showing support to his own community! Everything that happens has, at some point, reached a news channel, but news channels always have to expound on stories to make black people look bad. May 25, 2020. The tragic murder of George Floyd took place. The Black Lives Matter movement had already been in place for many years prior to this tragedy, however, after this specific incident, many citizens would not stand for this behavior any longer. People took the streets. Many protests were held, most following COVID prodicalls, in the name of George Floyd and other innocent black people were mercilessly murdered. Almost all of these protests were peaceful.They had enough sense to not riot too much, as those who stood against them would somehow stir up a story about BLM supporters attempting to kill or assault them in the name of social justice while knowing very well, that is not true. They took their time, keeping most of these peaceful, but alas, you can’t control the action of others. Some did take advantage of the movement, and took to looting stores and restaurants. Some BLM protests ended in the police shooting protesters with rubber bullets in an attempt to keep them from doing what they came to do. The police arrested plenty of innocent protesters from doing exactly what they are legally allowed to do and of course, news channels went crazy coming up with new tales of 2020 BLM protests to try and convince more and more people into believing that all black people are aggressive, black, monkeys who will fight tooth and nail for what we want because we have zero class or civilization.
For the most part, the news network that targeted black people and black excellence the most is Fox News. Everyday it’s something new to them. After plenty of these protests had occurred, Fox News took to the T.V. screens. Convincing as many republicans as possible to dislike the BLM movement with every fiber of their being. They came out with reports such as “Rob Smith: Black Lives Matter doesn’t really care about black lives lost unless group can blame police.” As if that isn’t bad enough, the article goes on to name certain examples such as, “BLM’s cult-like tactics are more like those of a violent gang than a traditional civil rights group”
“They’re criminals. BLM is their cult. It is their religion. It is what gives them purpose. And the should make Americans of any color deeply uncomfortable.”
“The truth is that the tragic loss of these Black Lives can’t be used to further the radical opinion BLM agenda, so the organizations ignore them.”
Notice how every time they bring up BLM directly, they refer to it as “radical” or “cultish”. Fox News should be the last people to try and point fingers at a “cult” when they worship Donald Trump every waking moment of their day, but to address what they said directly and break down their behavior furthermore, I’d like to focus on one quote at a time.
“BLM’s cult-like tactics are more like those of a violent gang than a traditional civil rights group.”
Out of the many BLM protests that took place, 95% of them were peaceful and did not end in violence. From the article Demonstrations & Political Violence in America: New Data For Summer 2020, “Over 10,100 of these – or nearly 95% – involve peaceful protesters. Fewer than 570 – or approximately 5%- involve demonstrators engaging in violence. Well over 80% of all demonstrations are connected to the Black Lives Matter movement.” Yes, some BLM protests turned violent. A good majority of those violent protests were started by police responding with aggression to innocent protesters. With that being said, most of those protests were peaceful and did not result in violent acts. Some of these violent acts were even started by police. Moving on to address the title of the Fox News article “Black Lives matter doesn’t really care about Black lives lost unless group can blame police.” Well, maybe if BLM was purposely created to fight for justice for black lives lost at the police, then their point would’ve been made. However, BLM mainly focuses on racially motivated violence, and police brutality against black people, according to Wikipedia. Even Black Lives Matter themselves state that they are trying to “eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.” Of course they care about Black lives lost to murders and racist Americans, but they are mainly focused on deconstructing the one system that has kept black voices silenced for so long, America’s police unit.
“They’re criminals. BLM is their cult. It is their religion. It is what gives them purpose. And that should make Americans of any color deeply uncomfortable.”
Whenever black people fight for what they need, they’re labeled as “criminals”. A good example of this was Rosa Parks. She did nothing wrong. All she did was assert her point that black people deserve the same treatment as white people. Unfortunately, she was thrown into jail over unwarranted charges. Black Lives Matter proves multiple times that they are not violent when it’s not necessary. Most of the looting was caused by people going too far. Not the organization itself.Then again with that “cult’ theory. Just because plenty of people believe in something, doesn’t make it a cult? With that logic, I can call any sports fan a cult member too. I’m also struggling to understand how people feeling passionate about black lives should make Americans “deeply uncomfortable”. How dare these people feel for black trauma! They’re cult members! They should think for themselves! Black people can fend for themselves! Why do they need special attention! As if we haven’t been constantly pushed to the back of every priority list, silenced for generations, and beaten and killed over having our own opinions and uplifting our community. But yeah, how dare black people be pro-black.
“The truth is that the tragic loss of these black lives can’t be used to further the radical opinion BLM agenda, so the organizations ignore them.”
The whole point of the movement is to bring awareness to black lives. That’s why many BLM posters/artwork write the names of black people who were hate crimed. That’s the whole point of the “Say their names” chant. BLM isn’t using these names to bring attention to themselves for monetary benefit, they’re using these families names to help bring attention to the bigger problem: White supremacy, racism, and systematic oppression. The organization does not “ignore” black lives either. BLM is trying to pinpoint the problem completely so that other black lives aren’t tragically lost to systematic oppression and individual racism.
BLM might not be the face of Black Excellence, but it’s a good example of it. BLM is also an amazing representation of how any chance black people take to try and uplift themselves and pinpoint the problem that’s been aching them for years, gets us arrested, killed, and written in the media as “criminals” and “rioters”. Alas, no matter what we do, we will always be seen in the media as just another black.
Sources
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/black-lives-matter-protests-rob-smith -Fox News Septemer 9th , 2020
https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/ -Black Lives Matter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter -Wikipedia May 2021
https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/ -ACLED September 3rd, 2020
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