During my time sifting through current news sources, I found one headline that struck out to me titled "A New Report Says 93% of BLM Protest Have Been Peaceful". In the start of the article, it specifically focuses on the facts that aren't necessarily brought to light within the news world. Such facts state, "93% of Black Life Matter Movement have been peaceful, despite a highly polarized political climate and reports on the news emphasizing instances of destruction, looting and overall lawlessness". These reports were mainly taken from the Crisis Monitor which analyzed the events surrounding the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. On May, 25 2020 George Floyd's life was taken under circumstances that were not ok. On March, 13 2020 Breonna Taylor was fatally shot in her home under police circumstances. Both Events Brought an uproar to the BLM community world wide, which created the protest. These events were not the only events and the main cause as to why the protest lashed out, it was because it has been happening for years now without enough recognition to the entire world. Looking into the article a bit more, a tweet is shown in a picture stating, "The Crisis Monitor and the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University identified over 100 instances of non-state actors, including at least 20 distinct far-right militia groups, intervening in BLM demonstrations, sometimes violently, since May 24". Creating a view to many in the public eye that BLM is a disastrous campaign that is promoting violence. In most cases this narrative was not true. Seeing the uproar that the looting, violence and militia groups involved did not help their case drive further. 5% of these protests included these groups which is a VERY low percentage according to research done by collaborators (ACLED). Views on the protest are actually good, Research shows that the protest have had a beneficial view on younger and older individuals. This also shows the injustice that we have in our country. looking at another study... "Another Morning Consult poll found that only 54% of U.S. adults (49% of white Americans and 77% of Black Americans) supported the protests taking place after Floyd’s death. In that same poll, researchers found that 42% of Americans believe that “most of the current protesters are trying to incite violence or destroy property, even though some are peaceful and want to bring about meaningful social reform.” This is extremely interesting as most of the population agrees with one another. Despite the media mainly focusing on the looting and vandalism there is little evidence proving that demonstrators have turned the protest to violent.
Although the protesters were using their first amendment rights it was a tricky situation because of the confusion towards the media outlets quoting for all protesters as violent. The vandalism, looting, racist groups and militia groups were not a part of exercising their right to protest. They were outright spreading the wrong message and blatantly making crimes. The first amendment condones exercising the right to protest and the right of freedom of speech. This is a tricky situation to talk about because there is so much information that is needed to be talked about for the information to make further sense.
Sources:
https://heavy.com/news/2020/09/blm-protests/
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