President Barack Obama offered a forceful defense of the Black Lives Matter movement on Thursday, while also explaining in detail the frustration with the use of the phrase 'all lives matter,' which has been used by some opponents.
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It is difficult not to think, just from hearing it alone, that the #blackriflesmatter hashtag is anything but racist. Just last month, Buzzfeed reported that a t-shirt created and sold by Elephant Hunter Clothing was touting the slogan at a recent law enforcement convention.
The creator of the shirt, Chuck Garcia, insisted that the slogan had nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter movement and that any resemblance to it was absolutely unintentional. Surely, someone would have pointed out the slogan’s bad taste in lieu of the numerous killings by law enforcement which prompted three black activists to initiate the Black Lives Matter movement in the first place.
The creator of the shirt, Chuck Garcia, insisted that the slogan had nothing to do with the Black Lives Matter movement and that any resemblance to it was absolutely unintentional. Surely, someone would have pointed out the slogan’s bad taste in lieu of the numerous killings by law enforcement which prompted three black activists to initiate the Black Lives Matter movement in the first place.
Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
It is nothing new, but recent news has been spotlighting the culture of law enforcement militarization paired with the tendency for racial profiling by police forces across the nation. Walter Scott, Jerame Reid, Philip White, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell, Freddie Gray, Aiyana Jones, Sandra Bland, Kimani Gray, John Crawford, Michael Brown, Miriam Carey, Sharonda Singleton, Emmett Till, Tommy Yancy, Jordan Baker, and Amadou Diallo are just some of the names on a long list of black people who have been gunned down or killed by police.
The Black Lives Matter website states that the movement “is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.” The movement is a collective act in restorative justice, an approach that focuses on the needs of those who have been targeted, hurt, or destroyed by unjust and illegal actions of law enforcement who – as in the case of Trayvon Martin’s killer George Zimmerman – are not held accountable for their actions.
So it doesn’t look good at all when a police officer wears a t-shirt with the words “Black Rifles Matter” emblazoned across the front. It’s a slogan that not only misses the point in failing to acknowledge that black people are faced with a very real possibility of discrimination or of victimization in a world that deems black lives disposable. It also steals from the movement and attaches it to a gun, bringing back the image of a police officer’s finger on a trigger.
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