Democracy, which stands for “the rule of the people,” is not necessarily limited to electoral procedures. If one thinks that people are the only bearers of sovereignty in the state, one should also admit that their exercise of this sovereignty can manifest in ways other than voting. One of these ways is social movements, and one of the American social movements with the greatest momentum at the moment is Black Lives Matter. It started as a reaction to a police shooting of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 (Taylor, 2016). It then continued as a series of protests against racial prejudice and police brutality – ones that the police attempted to subdue with force (Taylor, 2016). What began as a momentary attempt to win justice for Mike Brown turned into a nationwide movement against police brutality.
Throughout its brief yet saturated history, Black Lives Matter has undergone a political evolution. To begin with, it distanced itself from the Old Guard of the Civil Rights era. The main reason why it happened was that the younger activists lived in the world they saw as shaped by the Civil Rights movements – and racism, prejudice, and police brutality were still an everyday reality in this world (Taylor, 2016). The central demand in the movement’s agenda is changing the government system that promotes anti-black state violence, be that police shootings, mass incarceration, or other manifestations (Taylor, 2016). While the movement has not yet achieved these goals, it has already established its agenda as a nationwide cause that even the President has to keep in mind. Bringing institutional racism to the forefront of national politics is the main change that Black Lives Matter brought to as of now.
Reference
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. (2016). From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Haymarket Books.