Week 9 - Emily Luc

Emily Luc
Section A03
Week 9

Santos F. Ramos' article “Building a Culture of Solidarity: Racial Discourse, Black Lives Matter, and Indigenous Social Justice” discusses the recent national controversy over people of non-black communities claiming their own “#______LivesMatter” hashtag or even an “#AllLivesMatter” hashtag. Ramos makes the claim that these groups who are creating their own hashtag to probably only intend to generate support and awareness of oppression in their own community,  but what they fail to realize is that it takes away from the original intent of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. By redirecting the popularity and attention from the #BlackLivesMatter movement onto their own communities, they are generalizing the oppression and racial inequalities that the black communities face in their everyday lives. Many people argue that these other hashtags are intended to show a sense of solidarity with the black communities, but nonetheless, they still disregard the severity of the systematic racism against black people.

Ramos also points out a much better and more considerate way that other communities can show their support for the black communities, and that is by creating a hashtag such as #APIs4BlackLives. This hashtag shows support, but does not take away from the original intent of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag. I found this article to be very interesting because it sheds light on how different marginalized communities can respectfully come together to fight for similar causes. It is not only important, but necessary for individuals from marginalized communities to build strong relationships with one another. This allows people to truly understand the relative effects of everything that is occurring around them, as well as build a strong support system to help fight for what they believe in. Black Lives Matter is certainly an important movement, and it is even more important that other marginalized communities are willing to come out and support them.

Question: What are other ways to respectfully show support to other marginalized communities without taking away from their cause?



References:

Ramos, S. F. (2016, April 20). Building a Culture of Solidarity: Racial Discourse, Black Lives Matter, and Indigenous Social Justice. Retrieved November 19, 2017.

#BlackLivesMatter [Image]. (2016, July 15). Retrieved November 19, 2017, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-damiani/every-time-you-say-all-li_1_b_11004780.html.