activismonline

[activismonline]

BLM; a very brief history and discussion

On February 26th 2012, 17 year old African-American Trayvon Martin was walking home from a convenience store and was fatally shot in the chest by George Zimmerman, a member of the community watch. Zimmerman claimed it was in self defence and was not charged until national media focused on the incident two months later. In 2013 he was tried for second degree muder and found innocent by a jury of six. Five out of the six members of the jury were white. The Black Lives Matter movement was created in response to this in 2013, by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi.

Now at this point I was eight years old and probably didn’t even know how to spell movement. No, my introduction to the BLM movement, and my interest in politics as a whole didn’t start until May 25th, 2020 - the muder of George Floyd. (I’m not going to go into the murder in detail because if you’re reading this you probably already know, if not you can read about it here.) The effects of this murder were monumental, like nothing I had ever seen before in my lifetime; protests against racism and police brutality, starting in Minneapolis and spreading within a few days to over sixty countries, internationally supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. While the vast majority of protests were peaceful, some descended into rioting and looting, and there was significant police brutality against peaceful protestors and reporters. More than 200 US cities imposed curfews, and over 62,000 national guard personell were distrubited. The protests lasted for about three weeks after the murder.

- In my next post I’m going to talk about the part online activism played in this, and political change that this movement has caused.

#blm #blm movement #black lives matter #political activism #race and politics #politics

[activismonline]

Intro to Activism Online

Hi! I'm Ciara, an 18 year old politics student in Ireland. This post is the first of many for a project for my politics class that’s worth 30% of my final grade where I’m going to look at online activism movements (specifically BLM, LGBTQ+ rights and environmental activism) and how they contribue change to political change in today’s world. I’m going to do loads of research and post it here, along with a few thoughts and opinions of my own. Any support at all would be greatly appretiated! Thanks for reading :)

#politics #leavingcert #blm #lgbtq #environment #environmental activism #political activism