The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been portrayed in many ways, with people taking sides causing controversy. BLM was founded in 2013, in response to the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin and was recently brought back into the forefront after death of George Floyd in June. The movement wants to bring everyone together and help the black community obtain equal rights. The Black Lives Matter Foundation is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada. Their mission is to educate everyone and to build a local power intervention on violence that is happening in the black communities by either the state and or vigilantes. By combating and countering on acts of violence, citizens can create a safe space for black imagination and innovation. 

The Black Lives Foundation is a collective of liberators who believe in an inclusive and spacious movement, as well as bringing together as many people as possible along the way. It is vital in today’s society to move beyond the narrow nationalism that is all too prevalent in black communities. This foundation supports black, queer, trans people, disabled people, undocumented people, people who have jail records, women, and all black lives along the gender spectrum.    

When we scream “Black lives Matter,” and another person screams “All lives Matter,” you cannot just only care for one race. When it also comes to a black person getting killed by any type of law enforcement their family sometimes does not find justice. Too many times the system claims they need more evidence, even when they have security camera footage, and they have witnesses, and yet, that is not good enough.  

For example, back in March, Breonna Taylor’s house was raided by police officers; they never announced themselves nor knocked on the door.  Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thought their house was being broken into so Walker grabbed his fire weapon and without knowing it was them, shot at the cops. So, they fired back at him and ended up going to Breonna’s room and shot her seven to eight times while she was asleep. The person they were looking for was already arrested hours before they invaded her house.  

Not everyone agrees that the BLM movement has the best intentions, however.  

“I just think if you are going to say Black Lives Matter, they should matter for black–on–black crime,” senior David Purifoy said.  

Even so, the movement has strong impacts on students for many reasons.  

“We are still heavily oppressed to this day and there are many unjust murders by the police that white people wash over to this day, LGBTQ+ members that just so happened to be black are now doubled down with oppression, and honestly, we should have had equality from the start,” senior Auran Vermillion said. “Black people get killed and arrested just by breathing in a cop’s direction and the cops still get a week off.”  

“Black Lives Matter is a protest to police brutality and human rights,” senior Diontae Russel-Johnson said.  

“I feel as if we’re all children of God; why should it matter because the pigment of our skin that determines the number of rights, we have? Everybody is equal, we all bleed the same color. Nobody’s lives matter until black lives do,” junior Isabella Rubio said.  

With All Lives Matter as a counter argument against Black Lives Matter, until we fix what people have done to black people, we can’t fix the rest; we need to come together as one and stand together.  

“I think Black Lives Matter is a change that we need. I don’t believe it’s dividing us; I think that it should bring us together. Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean everyone else’s life doesn’t matter, it just means we are being hurt and we want justice and we’ve let it go on for too long. Systematic racism is real and so is police brutality,” senior Madison Kansier said.