There’s a level of adrenaline that surges through you when you’re protesting.
A mixture of this solicitude for the loved ones we’ve lost and the children growing up in a world that does not see their innocence or birthrights and a sense of foreboding tickling the back of your throat if there’s that one chance you lose your life today at the hands of a neo-nazi or an officer who goes oink.
When you put BLM in the bio of your Instagram but have never signed a petition in your life or post a blackout photo for “the cause” do you feel that same adrenaline that same weighing fear?
When you go out to mingle with a world that is in an entanglement with a virus of the respiratory and the racist and you caption your photo “Justice for Breonna Taylor ” did you think you spread awareness?
Breonna Taylor’s face is on the cover of Vanity fair, but those men who killed her are sitting in their dens scoffing at the Milwaukee Bucks canceling another playoff game in response to Jacob Blake.
You’re not spreading awareness, you’re feeding into a society that has dehumanized itself with technology and continues to desensitize everything that affects minorities into a meme or trend.
It’s a bittersweet feeling to see the Black Lives Matter Movement get the attention it deserves though also turn into another mainstream medium for Americans to capitalize on.
One Instagram user faced backlash for creating a hat that said: “Make America Great Again” scratched off and “Arrest the cops who killed Breonna Taylor” written instead.
Making merchandise off of the treacherous killings of black people is tone-deaf. Supporters and activists within the movement have expressed how this does not help our cause and must be stopped.
If you want to be a part of the BLM movement, start by educating yourself on the movement and research what you can do in your community. Petitions are an option, though only goes such a long way.
Please donate and raise funds for protestors who need to be bailed out or families seeking costs due to inconveniences.
There’s a lot that can be done for the movement, but merchandising is not one of them.
