HIS 270 -- Black Protest in 20th Century US Culture

I am adding to the blog because I feel as though this video is a crucial part of what is going on in our country and also ties in things that we have studied from the beginning of the course, up until now. Beto O’Rourke discusses the peaceful protest regarding NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. This is a controversial subject and some may feel that it is going against our country and the soldiers fighting for us, but Beto argues that it distinguishes what is a peaceful protest and argues that it is the most American thing that he could think of. He starts off the video by telling his audience that this is a tough issue, but if it is not discussed, nothing will get done about it. That is one of the first things that we discussed in Dr. Kieran’s class, that some of the topics discussed, will be hard and challenging, but we must talk about them if we want to learn more and tackle these controversial subjects. He then goes on to discuss non-violent protests and what that does...

Something I thought to be interesting in both our discussion and from the book, Making All Black Lives Matter by Barbara Ransby is the question of, what it means to be unapologetically black. This term, to be unapologetically black was coined by Fresco Steez and is a term that has been used in BLM activism and something that has inspired many. To be unapologetically black means to be your true self and embrace your blackness and could have multiple meanings depending on the individual. To embrace where you came from, and who you are now. In Making All Black Lives Matter , it discusses this term in its coordinance with success and says, “In fact, success sometimes depends on their proving themselves “different” and apart from the mass of ordinary Black people. That distancing can be both physical and psychological.” (97) Discussed here, the idea that in society,  the success of Black people is sometimes how they prove themselves in society. How they could be like the ordinary, an...

I had never heard of Barbara Ransby or her book, “Making All Black Lives MAtter,” until taking this class. And now having fully read it, I can say that I feel it is a book that everyone should read. I rarely get to read books that dive into intersectional issues while still offering relevant information regarding the topics at large. I found it particularly interesting when Ransby was discussing what it means to be represented versus what it means to be casted out. Ransby draws connections between racial aggression, and over- policing to name a few. In terms of representation, I enjoyed the discussion the class had when discussing what sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. I had sided with the carceral state option originally. It is a known fact that there are disproportionate numbers showing how widely targeted black men are when it comes to being convicted. However, upon further class discussion the question of how much representation and visibility did Barack Obama really give t...

Ransby's "Making All Black Lives Matter" is a book I believe everyone should read. She in a way tells the story of how the era of social media turned a hashtag into a movement. Ransby made it her point to break down the BLM movement for people to understand its history and importance. I love how she discusses the ways in which the movement stands for so much more than police violence towards black people. Though that is an important aspect, the roots lie so much deeper. Yes black men and women are losing their lives, but there are also families unable to gain economic support, adequate health care, and so many other systems at work against the black communities effecting their lives. Another important topic she discussed was about being unapologetically black, but that term can only be defined by how you define blackness. The many different definitions of blackness is what works to separate us. That is how you get people who are deemed not being black enough. This ca...

The Black Lives Matter movement is a movement that is in the best interest of the black community. Yet, the black community is not unified, as stated on page 86, “the class divides within the black community in Baltimore were on full display during the protest”. Race, gender, class, and sexual orientation intersect to make some people’s voices heard during the movement, and others not. Women were strong leaders during the Black Lives Matter movement, yet the movement focuses around the violence of young, black men. Violence against black women or black trans women are left out. Social media becomes a big factor of the movement, especially for people who have lost their voice. Hashtags such as #blackwomenmatter and #sayhername went viral and opened up many people’s eyes at other issues outside of police brutality of black men. There is a critical question on whether this movement is a feminist movement. I think that this movement has feminist ideas that can make this movement a feminist...

In chapter 5 of Making All Black Lives Matter Ransby describes The challenges and dilemmas the Black lives matter movement faced during the time of high police brutality. One of the new themes that came with the modern movement was the use of social media. Social posed as information for political topics and it really helped birth the Black Lives Matter movement. After the death of Trayvon Martin one of the co founders made a Facebook post containing the first ever Black Lives Matter hashtag. When African Americans were wrongly killed by officers there were social media posts to inform the public. Ransby confirms the importance of social media by stating “Most people first learned of Michael Brown’s death through Twitter or Facebook. The fatal police shooting of twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in a park near downtown Cleveland, videotaped on a police dash camera, went viral on the internet and triggered protests. Eric Garner’s violent strangulation death by police after he tried to break up...

   Making All Black Lives Matter by Barbara Ransbys talks about many cases of unauthorized killings of young black people. Within these murders, are the murders of Fred Hampton and his friend Mark Clark. They were killed during a police raid on the morning of December 4, 1969. The killing of Hampton was a little different than the others because he was a known leader in two Civil Rights activist groups. He was a youth leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and he also became the chair of the Illinois Black Panther Party. The FBI's counter intelligence program, "...which sought to subvert and destroy black liberation organizations that the government deemed threatening," was the source of the killing. The quote shows that institutional, structural racism is the main cause and problem of all the cases. The system is structured in a way that colored people are oppressed.    The end of the book dives deeper into the things th...

Throughout our class discussions, we have touched on the place of Black feminism in the larger scope of the Freedom Struggle. Book after book, I feel that the common narrative is centered around the male, until we have reached How We Get Free  and Making All Black Lives Matter . These two books incorporate the females place in the movement, showing the interlocking oppression women face due to their many layers of oppression through class, race, gender, and identity. Taking a look back at the big pushes from BLMM into media, the cases have been predominantly male victims. Ransby comments on this, acknowledging that the BLMM campaigns "have wrestled with an obvious dilemma: the most highly publicized victims of police violence during this time, and in terms of dominant narrative, have been male. That is not because Black women have somehow been sheltered or exempted form such violence"(Ransby 108). Women's struggles being left out of the main picture is not something new,...

Throughout this whole class we've been talking about pretty much how sucky America is to people who don't fit the mold of whiteness, and how that the only way to change the system is to rebuild the system. I was wandering the internet one day and found this pitch video for this grassroots movement called RepresentUs where they laid out what the problem with today's government system corruption. on the represent us webpage it gives statistics that public opinion has a near-zero impact on U.S. law and that the bottom 90% of income earners in America opinions have a statistically non-significant impact government policy. When I look at those statistics and then at the problems we talk about in class its hard to imagine how to improve the quality of life of black Americans if most Americans cant influence law, except for the richest AKA the whitest. This same group gives ideas to fix this, they propose an anti-corruption act to stop political bribery, end secret money, and fix ...

The second half of Making All Black Lives Matter begins with the murder of Freddie Gray. The aftermath was an explosion from the Black community. Brittney Cooper, an African American college professor, had this to say: “No, I don’t support looting. But I question a society that always sees the product of the provocation and never the provocation itself. I question a society that values property over black life. But I know that our particular system of law was conceived on the founding premise that black lives are white property.” What she said about provocation struck a chord with me because, every time there is a disaster concerning an African American, society sees the repercussions but refuses to get to the source of the problem. The latter half of the book discusses the challenges surrounding the BMM movement, a shift away from the individual tragedies. What I thought was interesting was what was discussed regarding state violence against transgender/non-gender conforming African A...

The second half of Making All Black Lives Matter is as hard-hitting and relevant as the first. The case of Freddie Gray and the reaction it evoked from the black community further highlighted that individual acts of white racism are not the defining culprit of black oppression; the largest problem is that of “structural racism, which include[s] profiling and harassment of a certain type of poor or working-class Black youth, an aggressive policing style in poor Black communities.” The fourth chapter notes that half of the officers responsible for Freddie Gray’s death were black, but that the “notorious blue code of silence among cops...often trumps any kind of racial solidarity that Black officers might otherwise feel toward the Black community.” This observation is reminiscent of the one made in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me ; Prince Jones was killed by a black cop whose prioritization of an inherently racist policing structure led him to racially profile an innocent man a...

In Emily Jacko’s blog post she gives a description of the starting point of the Black Lives Matter movement. She describes in depth the murder of Trayvon martin and the trail of George Zimmerman. While I agree that Trayvon Martin’s death was a major factor in I don’t believe it was the only cause for the Black Lives Matter movement. Earlier in the book Ransby describes the impact of hurricane Katrina in the African American community. Ransby states” Those suffering and dying in Katrina’s wake were disproportionately Black and poor. Americans watched as the US government’s blatant disregard for Black pain and death was on full display.”(13) This quote shows that the disregard for black lives had went far back as Hurricane Katrina. While Trayvon’s death was the most recent occurrence there were also other factors that went into creating the movement.

  In Making All Black Lives Matter , by Barbra Ransby, there are plenty of examples where racial acts are demonstrated by racist police officers, the FBI, etc. After reading the second half of the book there is one example that stands out the most. The Fred Hampton case really struck me differently and forced me to take a step backwards to really be able to take this in. On page 130, it mentions that the black community is still "bitter" about the whole situation and I can understand why. "Hampton was a youth leader in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and later joined the Illinois Black Panther Party, rising in the ranks to become its chair" (pg 130). He was a great leader and an even better man. He "built bridges between the party" and brought various groups of people together within the city if Chicago. On December 4th, 1969, there was an early morning police raid where he was shot and killed. Hampton's comrade, Mark Cla...

In Barbara Ransby’s Making All Black Lives Matter, the emerging Black Lives Matter movement is discussed in depth and analyzed from the roots of the movement. The murder of Trayvon Martin is what started this movement when three black activists started the hashtag on social media “#BlackLivesMatter” following the shooting. Trayvon’s murder is discussed in chapter two of the book, “An overly zealous community patrol volunteer, Zimmerman saw a young Black man wearing a hoodie sweatshirt and assumed the worst.” (29) Zimmerman shooting Martin, and claiming self defense during the trial was able to get off with no charges pressed against him. When the chapter states that Zimmerman assumed the worst, this points out the fact that race is the only thing that was focused on when the two came into contact. Following the shooting, multiple protests broke out including the “Million Hoodies Movement” where people came together to focus on the obvious flaws of our world. These activists wanted ju...

4/30/19 Preliminary Notes Discussion Questions What are the roots of the BLM movement? To what other movements/readings/issues should we connect it? What does “Black Lives Matter” mean? How raciducal is this phrase? Why? How is the historical moment – Obamacare, 2008 recession, trayvon, ferguson–impt? Ideas to think about Feminism Obama Reality vs aspirations of the Presidency Page 24 “A coming to terms with the limits of what a Black leader at the helm of this country could, or would, really achieve for the masses of Black people set the stage for the expulsion of protests and organizing the began in 2012,  reemerged with even greater strength in 2014, and was sustained throughout 2016.” Page 23 “It was with the understanding that there was an optimist and a sentiment of progressivism that his platform at least sought to achieve. And shortly after, there was a wakeup call, again, about the power of politicians in actually transform...

The murder of Trayvon Martin kick-started the Black Lives Matter movement. I think this particular event, although it wasn’t unusual, ignited such a response because he was an innocent young black boy who was killed only because the white man who took his life assumed that he was doing something illegal purely because of the color of his skin. This movement was perceived as radical at the time, but it simply came as a response to the hardship that the black community was facing at the time. The state of the economy and the African-American person's position in the United States at, and leading up to, the point of Trayvon’s murder were contributing factors. At the time America was in an economic crisis, and this especially affected people of color. I think the Black Lives Matter movement and the Black Power movement are similar in this way because both came from African-Americans being fed up with their treatment in a system that has never been created to see them thrive. The Black ...

I enjoyed reading the beginning chapters of Barbara Ransby's Making All Black Lives Matter because of the understanding and exposure that I have had to the information talked about. Honestly, it has to be nearly impossible for anyone to not have encountered the Black Lives Matter movement in some sort of way. With all of the social media platforms that are out there and the other news coverage outlets everyone has seen or at least heard of the movement. It is also almost impossible to not see the evidence of police abusing their power and brutalizing people, most evidently young black males. This brutality though, is not always seen as it is. Some people today just see these acts of brutality as the police simply doing their jobs. I believe that nonlethal force is needed in some cases to make arrests and sometimes even lethal force, but in the cases that we see like Trayvon Martin, the fact that that can be seen as anything other than murder is beyond me. Martin was an unarmed , 1...

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 s...

  Within the United States, we see on nearly a daily basis, the amount of hatred towards blacks throughout the media. These incidents for the most part involve police officers and black teenage men. When I was younger I didn't watch the news very often, but I can still remember when the case involving Trayvon Martin was all over the news. Even at a young age I still remember sitting at the kitchen countertop watching the news and it was covering the Trayvon Martin situation. I can vividly remember sitting there thinking this is absolutely insane. An innocent kid went to the convenience store to grab a snack and a soda and he never made it back home. After he left the convenience store he was immediately targeted by an extremely racist cop resulting in the death of Trayvon Martin. I was sitting there thinking how could this possibly happen and who in the right mind would be able to do this to an innocent young man. I was hoping that more and more people would take notice of the situ...

After reading the beginning of  Making All Black Lives Matter, by Barbara Ransby, I have been further educated on the types of movements and groups for the injustices of African Americans in the society today. I was already aware of the Black Lives Matter movement, but not to the extent that was spoken about in this book. I am also involved in most of the social media platforms that are used today, and I see the things that are posted about racism and police brutality way more than what there should be, and it is most definitely a shame. As we talked more and more about the injustices of black people in America throughout the semester, it is mind blowing to me that these incidents continue to occur as much as they do. I wrote one of my entries for the final project on the shooting of Trayvon Martin, and after reading this book I did not find some of the details that Ransby wrote about in my research. I was not aware that prosecutors were not initially planning to charge George...