Black Lives Matter and MLK

Watching the video, I felt that I was seeing how real people responded to the Ferguson case and other cases of oppression and injustice—and it was different than just reading these people’s tweets on Twitter or looking at their profiles on social media. It was like seeing the real person behind the digital veneer and I realized that these protestors and the people in the Black Lives Matter are real people, with real feelings. I could hear the emotion in their voices and that made a lot of difference to me. When these members of Black Lives Matter are reading their tweets that they put out in response to the harassment and killings of blacks by white officers, I could see and feel the pain and anger that these people were going through—it was actually quite powerful to see them reading their tweets in the video. It gave a really a human face to the movement that I think it sometimes lacks when one is only exposed to it over social media.
Technology and social media obviously helped to enable the Black Lives Matter movement by facilitating the instant spread of news and information and giving a platform to people and empowering them by allowing them to make their voices known and heard. People could connect with others all over the country via social media, and they could find support and work to organize in their frustration and anger towards a system of oppression. Without video and social media, there would likely be no Black Lives Matter movement at all: there would be no news, no connectivity, no sense of a common struggle. I myself use social media to communicate my feelings and perspectives by posting my thoughts in ways that I think will allow others to read them and say, “Yes, that’s how I feel,” or, “Totally get what you’re saying right now!” I post not just to express myself but also to connect and make a connection with like-minded people.
When Zellie Imani says, “We don’t rely on the mass media. We rely on ourselves,” he means that the people have to become the media and they become the message in this way. The mass media is not there to promote the viewpoint of the black community. The mass media works for the establishment and promotes the view that the establishment wants promoted. The mass media will twist and turn a narrative until it fits their purpose. They have a plan for how they want a story to be told, and they might use the Black Lives Matter movement—but it will be for their own purposes and not for the black community. That is why, as Imani states, the black community and the members of Black Lives Matter have to be their own voice and have to use social media to connect to one another. They can’t expect the establishment to be their voice.
I think MLK would have viewed the Black Lives Matter movement in the same way he viewed the Civil Rights Movement. He would have seen it as an opportunity to effect real change, to get people active and to get the motivated community to make a stand and stand up for itself. That is why the movement began—it has nothing to do with getting revenge or enacting violence on the establishment. It is about making voices heard and putting the pressure on the establishment. Some see that as a form of violence in and of itself, but what is the alternative? To continue to let blacks be killed and oppressed because the establishment sees them as a threat? MLK would not have said to back down: he would have been at the forefront, leading and marching with the BLM movement and giving speeches to rally the people. He would have seen the movement as a way to get to peace and freedom and equality. His whole life would have been a BLM movement if he had been allowed to live it.
Resources
https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000003841604/blacktwitter-after-ferguson.html