Making All Black Lives Matter

Making All Black Lives Matter opens with much of the same ideology as How We Get Free - particularly the notion that the “liberalization of all Black people means undoing systems of injustice that impact all other oppressed groups as well.” The Combahee River Collective’s establishment of Black Feminism was and continues to be an integral aspect of today’s Black Lives Matter movement, which is noteworthy because of how widely recognized the latter movement now is. That this “phase of the Black Freedom Movement” is not nearly as male-centered as its predecessors and is instead “informed by Black Feminist politics” is particularly groundbreaking when compared to the sexism rampant in the Black Panthers movement among others. Because the founders and leaders of BLM are individuals who experience the kind of intersectional oppression articulated by Black Feminism, they are able to use that experience to be largely inclusive and radical in their ideas, protesting, and work, perhaps more so than any other widely-recognized Black liberation movement has ever had the chance to be. The points made in the first chapter about Obama’s presidency are crucial to the framework of BLM, and the articulated reaction of white liberals recalls earlier, similar criticism from figures such as Malcolm X and James Baldwin, who pointed out the same “postracial” attitude white liberals often prematurely try to adopt. The racial profiling inherent in the murders of young, unarmed black people such as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown Jr. serve as an unfortunate but important catalyst for public protests and progress within BLM. The movement gives black people in particular a simultaneous platform for the expression of their grief and the affirmation of their identity and worth.

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