Black Lives Matter
I find social activism as a modern and more effective way to create awareness about an issue or initiate a protest against one. This is because social activism promotes mass movements in societies in which it is initiated, and as such, important matters that call for everyone’s attention can be addressed with urgency and the level of importance that can bring about social change. The social activism movement: ‘Black Lives Matter’, initially originated in the U.S. and later on replicated in the U.K., is one that I am particularly interested in. Spearheaded by the African-American community, the movement is meant to create awareness about the social injustices faced by members of the black community in the U.S. and the U.K., and therefore mobilize people against racism and violence, particularly one that pities the minority in a wide community (Alexander, 2016). The social activism movement is one of the most wide-spread in recent times, and maintains its presence and agility through monitoring case proceedings in the Criminal Justice System, policing, and cases that involve racial profiling (Garza et al., 2014).
Black Lives Matter as social activism movement broadens my understanding of issues related to global citizenship and social activism in a number of ways. For instance, the movement aims at protecting the minority groups in foreign countries against social injustices and discrimination. To achieve that aim, the movement has attracted millions of followers all around the globe via the social media, whereby, it brings significant cases of police brutality, discrimination, or racial profiling to the attention of the global society (Garza et al., 2014). In addition, the movement has been able to effectively utilize the social media enabling it to sustain a network of followers. This has broadened my horizons regarding effective ways to initiate social activism movements, their management, and how the social media in particular can be used to campaign for necessary social changes.
The social activism movement, ‘Black Lives Matter’ is mainly about creating awareness against racial profiling and social injustices against minority groups in the society, particularly against members of the black community (Garza et al., 2014). The movement not only aims at safe-guarding the lives of the African-American communities, but also at motivating the entire global society to rise up against extreme cases of social injustices in which particular races or communities are treated as inferior. The main purpose for the movement is to stop indiscriminate police killings of African-Americans and members of the ‘black’ community living in the U.K., and the racial inequality that stems from discrimination in the Criminal Justice System (Alexander, 2016). The movement emerged in an American social context after a member of the ‘white’ community was acquitted after having allegedly shot a member of the ‘black’ community. The event sparked an outrage among the afflicted community and thus the demonstrations with the hash tag #Black Lives Matter, which was later on adopted globally by demonstrators with a common objective.
Black Lives Matter is of importance to me because of the level of success it had and continues to achieve in the U.S. and the U.K. By bringing together people from remote places but having a common agenda, the movement has been able demonstrate the huge potential the social media has in creating global awareness which is necessary to bring about social change (Alexander, 2016). The movement is also significant since it demonstrates the various facets of media globalization. The success of the movement further illustrates the necessity to integrate various media sources as a way to guarantee effective and widespread communication of ideologies cross-culturally. For instance, activists for the Black Lives Matter movement initiated the movement on social media where it gained the attention of millions of people around the globe, before it was duplicated on the mass and print media but with a less significant effect (Garza et al., 2014). The dubbing of the movement in the U.K. was mainly a result of the profound nature and extent of media globalization.
The activists for the Black Lives Matter movement utilized communication technologies like: social networking by creating awareness through the social media; and blogging, in which cases, like minded individuals were compelled or influenced to write about issues or matters regarding the movement’s agendas on private blogs. The identified forms of communication technologies proved to be very important in raising awareness, which is because they were able to command the attention of millions of people globally within a very short period. By communicating information that was of interest to the global society those communication technologies, the movement was able to command the participation of thousands in demonstrations as witnessed in the U.S. and the U.K (Alexander, 2016).
I wish to create more global awareness against social injustices and mare particularly racial profiling. To achieve my objective, I intend to rely on social networking especially using Facebook and twitter as some of the leading social media platforms today. To make my intended case of social activism effective and powerful, I will utilize audio-visual materials that capture the evils of racial profiling at its best. That will enable me to communicate across cultures around the globe to reach people from diverse language backgrounds, those who could potentially be victims of social injustices, or those who could make the necessary efforts required to eliminate the vice. The identified strategies will assist me achieve some level of social change which may later on be effected globally.
References
Alexander, C. (2016). The culture question: a view from the UK. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39(8), 1426-1435.
Garza, A., Tometi, O., & Cullors, P. (2014). A herstory of the# BlackLivesMatter movement.
