Portland State University PDXScholar University Honors Theses University Honors College 2016 #BlackLivesMatter: This Generation's Civil Rights Movement Tanika Siscoe Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/honorstheses Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Siscoe, Tanika, "#BlackLivesMatter: This Generation's Civil Rights Movement" (2016). University Honors Theses. Paper 237. https://doi.org/10.15760/honors.279 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in University Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. #BlackLivesMatter: This Generation’s Civil Rights Movement By Tanika Siscoe An undergraduate honors thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Science in University Honors and Criminology & Criminal Justice Thesis Adviser Dr. Mark Leymon Portland State University 2016 Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... 2 Research Questions ....................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 4 Methodology .................................................................................................................................. 7 Literature Review ......................................................................................................................... 8 Race Theories ............................................................................................................................. 8 History of Racial Formation in the U.S. ................................................................................. 10 Racist Ideology Pre-Civil Rights Movement............................................................................ 10 Racist Ideology Post-Civil Rights Movement .......................................................................... 11 Colorblind Racism and the Criminal Justice System ............................................................. 13 All Lives Matter Response ......................................................................................................... 16 Black Lives Matter ...................................................................................................................... 18 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 22 References .................................................................................................................................... 24 1 Abstract Do Black Lives Matter or do All Lives Matter? That question has been the cause of many debates and conversations across America recently. The All Lives Matter response was created to criticize the Black Lives Matter Movement and operates under the assumption that the movement isn’t needed in America because it is a post racial society. This thesis reviews race theories, racial formation in the United States and racist ideology in the pre- and post-Civil Rights era in order to show why the Black Lives Matter Movement is needed. It looks at the influence colorblindness has on the United States Criminal Justice System and the All Lives Matter response. Finally, this thesis explains why the Black Lives Matter Movement is important and suggest next steps that can be taken by the Black Lives Matter Movement to reach its goal of social justice for black lives. 2 Research Questions How did American society reach the point where it needs a Black Lives Matter Movement? What is the relationship between the All Lives Matter response and the concept of colorblindness*? *Colorblindness in this context is referring to the practice of not taking into account a person’s skin color when making some sort of decision. 3 Introduction Police brutality (especially against African Americans) is not a new topic in America, but the recent shootings of young black men by cops in cities around the United States has turned it into a hot topic of late. There have been numerous protests and riots due to police officers not being indicted for killing unarmed young black men, and with these protests a new social movement was formed that started out as a twitter hashtag that is entitled #BlackLivesMatter. Though a civil rights movement is nothing new to America, this particular movement comes at a time when America sees itself as a “colorblind” or “post-racial” society. This means that the general population of people living in America believe that they are not racist and that they don’t take into consideration the color of a person’s skin. The colorblind ideology that is prevalent in the post-Civil Rights era, that America is currently in, considers everyone to be nonracial or not belonging to any race (Van Cleve & Mayes 2015). Colorblind ideology may sound like the perfect solution to inequality, but in reality it is not. This colorblind ideology has contributed to the systematic issues throughout the criminal justice system that then caused disparate racial impacts to manifest (Van Cleve & Mayes 2015). Colorblind is a new form of racism that has developed in the post-Civil Rights era and is connected to the negative response that the Black Lives Matter Movement has received. As with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s there has been backlash. For the Black Lives Matter campaign, it has come in the form of the statement that #AllLivesMatter. This leads to the question: How did America reach a point where it needs a Black Lives Matter Movement? And What is the relationship between the All Lives Matter response and the concept of colorblindness?. 4 The Black Lives Matter Movement came about after the death of Trayvon Martin and continued to grow with the death of Michael Brown. Both of these young men were black, unarmed, and were shot and killed. Martin was a seventeen year old black man that was visiting his dad in Florida when he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman in February of 2012 (Graff 2015). Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch captain of a gated community that was tried and found not guilty for the murder of Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown was a black teenager that was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson in August of 2014 (Graff 2015). The Black Lives Matter Movement was started in response to these deaths and was intended to be a celebration and humanization of black lives. It aims to be a political and ideological intervention in a society where black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. Its goal is to rebuild the Black liberation movement. The Black Lives Matter Movement is trying to move the mentality of those in America away from “us versus them” and in doing so truly free black lives from inequality. If America has truly reached a post-racial society why is such a movement needed to assert what Americans already know? Many people have been shifting the focus of this movement by saying that it’s not just Black lives that matter, all lives mater and all lives are important. People in America are using the All Lives Matter statement to twist the Black Lives Matter Movement into being anti-white instead of pro-black. By doing this and focusing on the “Black” part of the Black Lives Matter Movement, they are not truly hearing the concerns that are being voiced. Yes, all lives matter, but there is a reason why people are reasserting that black lives matter. If the statement that black lives matter is not true, then America is sending the message that black lives are not truly lives and therefore they can be disposed of, killed or lost. 5 Furthermore, history reflects that black lives were seen as being a fraction of a human life during slavery. In Southern states where slavery was legal, slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person when counting population. A true post-racial society has not been reached, so why are some people in the United States disregarding this new civil rights campaign and asserting that all lives matter? It is being said that the statement (that Black Lives Matter) is an obvious one, but this obvious statement hasn’t been reflected in history or current American society. 6 Methodology This thesis addresses the question of how American Society reached a point where it needs a Black Lives Matter Movement by first looking at race theory and the history of racial formation in the United States. It proceeds to look at the differences in pre- and post-Civil Rights Movement racism and colorblind racism in the criminal justice system. This thesis will address the relationship between the All Lives Matter response to the Black Lives Matter Movement and the concept of colorblindness. Finally, this thesis will address where the Black Lives Matter Movement is now and why it is needed. 7 Literature Review To understand why the Black Lives Matter Movement was started and to answer the question on how American society reached a point where it needs such a movement, an understanding of how race developed in the United States is needed. In this literature review, I start out by looking at different race theories and then I move onto