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What is the historic and current significance of the #BlackLivesMatter Global Network movement in the United States, as well as globally?

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How does systemic discrimination and oppression, like racial profiling and police brutality, internally influence and affect our black  counterparts?

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The #BlackLivesMatter Global Network Movement describes itself as:
"...a chapter-based, member-led organization whose mission [is] to build local power and to intervene when violence [is] inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.
In the years since, [they've] committed to struggling together and to imagining and creating a world free of anti-Blackness, where every Black person has the social, economic, and political power to thrive."

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Four years ago, what is now known as the Black Lives Matter Global Network began to organize. It started out as a chapter-based, member-led organization whose mission was to build local power and to intervene when violence was inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.

In the years since, we've committed to struggling together and to imagining and creating a world free of anti-Blackness, where every Black person has the social, economic, and political power to thrive.

Black Lives Matter began as a call to action in response to state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism. Our intention from the very beginning was to connect Black people from all over the world who have a shared desire for justice to act together in their communities. The impetus for that commitment was, and still is, the rampant and deliberate violence inflicted on us by the state.

Enraged by the death of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman, and inspired by the 31-day takeover of the Florida State Capitol by POWER U and the Dream Defenders, we took to the streets. A year later, we set out together on the Black Lives Matter Freedom Ride to Ferguson, in search of justice for Mike Brown and all of those who have been torn apart by state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism. Forever changed, we returned home and began building the infrastructure for the Black Lives Matter Global Network, which, even in its infancy, has become a political home for many.

Ferguson helped to catalyze a movement to which we've all helped give life. Organizers who call this network home have ousted anti-Black politicians, won critical legislation to benefit Black lives, and changed the terms of the debate on Blackness around the world. Through movement and relationship building, we have also helped catalyze other movements and shifted culture with an eye toward the dangerous impacts of anti-Blackness.

These are the results of our collective efforts.

The Black Lives Matter Global Network is as powerful as it is because of our membership, our partners, our supporters, our staff, and you. Our continued commitment to liberation for all Black people means we are continuing the work of our ancestors and fighting for our collective freedom because it is our duty.

Every day, we recommit to healing ourselves and each other, and to co-creating alongside comrades, allies, and family a culture where each person feels seen, heard, and supported.

We acknowledge, respect, and celebrate differences and commonalities.

We work vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people.

We intentionally build and nurture a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting.

We are unapologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others.

We see ourselves as part of the global Black family, and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black people who exist in different parts of the world.

We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.

We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.

We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.

We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work "double shifts" so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and "villages" that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

We cultivate an intergenerational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, show up with the capacity to lead and learn.

We embody and practice justice, liberation, and peace in our engagements with one another.

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Four years ago, what is now known as the Black Lives Matter Global Network began to organize. It started out as a chapter-based, member-led organization whose mission was to build local power and to intervene when violence was inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.

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Black Panther Party 10-Point Program, Public Statement

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Black Panther Party 10-Point Program, Public Statement

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In 1996, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seal, founders of the Black Panther Movement, established a 10-Point Program that provided clear guidance for members of the Black Panther Party and informed the United States' general public. The 10-Point Program sorts itself into two categories:
1. What members of the Black Panther Party "wanted now"
2. What members of the Black Panther Party "believed".
The #BlackLivesMatter Global Network movement mirrors and parallels similar objectives the Black Panther Party sought.

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The Hate U Give  — Angie Thomas, YA Novel

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The Hate U Give  — Angie Thomas, YA Novel

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Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter lives in Garden Heights, a predominantly black and low-resourced neighborhood, while traveling nearly an hour away from her home to attend a private school - where most of her peers are white and wealthy. In the midst of juggling her identities that encompass these lifestyles, Starr becomes the key witness in the murder of her best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Starr is confronted with the aftermath of Khalil's death and must begin to embrace her own activism.

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The United States has 18,000 local police departments across the nation and each of these departments craft their own regulations within
their Bylaws - most of these Bylaws do not have comprehensive deescalation tactics mandated and laid out within their officers' protocol.  In early 2015, Mapping Police Violence was launched as an initiative. Through outlining these fundamental challenges, data has been used as an important part of creating solutions and holding stakeholders accountable. 99% of cases in 2015 have not resulted in any officer(s) involved being convicted of a crime. Additionally, if these officers were to receive sentences, they have statistically receive lesser sentences than civilians charged for similar crimes.

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The Women of #BlackLivesMatter, Online News Article

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The Women of #BlackLivesMatter, Online News Article

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Specifically, Noah Berlatsky, a journalist with The Atlantic, interviews Johnetta Elzie, otherwise known as "Nettie" and deeply involved in the #BlackLivesMatter Global Network movement. This interview focuses specifically on the influence women have had in the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Nettie emphasizes that conversations around police brutality issues have centered mostly on incidents with black men or boys. She states that:
"...when [they] were under militarized police occupation, [Nettie] can say for sure it was way more women than men in those streets. So many black women put their bodies on the line for this cause, because [they] birthed the people that the police are killing."

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So I think this time around, as far as being proud of who you are, and being proud of being black, we are able to include everything and everybody who wants to play a role. Why would it be just straight black men talking about the plight of black people, when there are mothers who lose their children to police brutality, there are aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandparents. Police brutality doesn't care about your gender. It doesn't care if you're light-skinned or dark-skinned. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that we include all the different types of people who fall in the category of black.

Berlatsky: Do you see #BlackLivesMatter as a feminist issue?

Elzie: Oooh. That one I just don't know. Because not everyone working in the work is a feminist. Somedays I feel like I am, somedays I feel like I'm not. When I went out on August 9, it wasn't because I was concerned about feminism. It was because I was concerned about black people. So, no, I don't know how to answer that question.

Berlatsky: Do you consider yourself a feminist? You sound somewhat conflicted.

Elzie: I am conflicted. (laughs) I tweet about this all the time. In the beginning of the movement, people would say, "Oh, this young black feminist," and I would say, who? I didn't call myself that. So some days I feel if it's strictly about equality and things of that nature, then yes. And some days I read opinions and tweets that people say and I'm like, that's not what I agree with.

I was talking to Erika Totten and Jamilah Lemieux from Ebony in great detail about feminism. Because they're both feminists, and they both get it and have eloquent ways of describing feminism and black feminism, because there is a difference between black feminism and feminism. And they explained to me in several different ways that it's really what you make it, and it's about addressing issues that face black women, black trans women, and I get it when they say it. But when it's me by myself, I don't know what I think about feminism.

But I'm definitely open to the conversation which is why I keep talking to them about it. Or they keep talking to me! They're both like, "You're a feminist. Stop it."

Berlatsky: Has social media made it easier for women to be involved in the movement?

Elzie: I think so. In the beginning-DeRay Mckeeson has pointed this out to me-there was a chart which showed how the Ferguson movement was involved in social media growth. And of the four people who had the biggest growth early on, there was Antonio French, there were two other men, and there was me. Just a 25-year-old black girl from St. Louis, just because I was in the streets every day.

And I think that definitely played a role in me believing I was making an impact. So twitter definitely helped me elevate my voice, and elevate the message of what was happening to us on West Florissant. And it helped me tell the story of what was happening.

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So I think this time around, as far as being proud of who you are, and being proud of being black, we are able to include everything and everybody who wants to play a role.

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Children of Blood and Bone  —  Tomi Adey, YA Novel 

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Children of Blood and Bone  —  Tomi Adey, YA Novel 

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In Orïsha, the fictional, West Africa-inspired country where this story takes place, Zélie is a divîner - meaning she has the ability to perform magic. Although, the monarchy of King Saran forcibly takes over her country through systematically murdering all divîners over the age of thirteen, including Zélie's mother. Thus, Zélie continuously faces oppression from her current rulers and continually endures retaliation from her own community. As Zélie stays hidden, she hopes to develop enough powers to strike back at this monarchy.

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K.J. Harper, Assistant Prosecutor of Jersey City, finds herself investigating the death of fifteen-year-old Brenton Butler. As Brenton rides his bike home from school, white police officer, Peter Jablonski, accidentally hits and critically injures Brenton with his car. Peter, alongside his fellow officers, work to cover up this homicide as K.J. works to prosecute the hit-and-run as a hate crime, in addition to a negligent homicide.

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Seven Seconds | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix

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Colin Kaepernick Takes a Knee for the National Anthem, News Story Video Clip

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Colin Kaepernick Takes a Knee for the National Anthem, News Story Video Clip

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49ers Quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, knelt instead of standing during a football game alongside teammate Eric Reid and a Seattle Seahawks player. As he received heavy "boos" with each time he stepped foot on the field, Kaepernick continues to emphasize the prevalent occurrence of police brutality and racism tolerated and perpetuated among law enforcement officials.

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Colin Kaepernick Takes a Knee for National Anthem

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All American Boys — Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely, YA Novel

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All American Boys — Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely, YA Novel

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Rashad Butler, a high school junior, is beaten brutally by a police officer as he is accused of robbing a store and attacking a bystander in the process. Although, a classmate of Rashad, Quinn Collins, a white, senior, varsity basketball player, witnesses the unnecessary brutality that has actually occurred. Both boys' perspectives are integrated throughout the novel, as Rashad becomes the center of a political movement while Quinn experiences firsthand how racism permeates throughout not only his community, but throughout everyday, American life.

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This Is America — Childish Gambino, Music Video 

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This Is America — Childish Gambino, Music Video 

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Childish Gambino's music video for his song "This Is America" criticizes the United States for its lack of value for black lives through incorporating nuances in dance and symbolism throughout.

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Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video)

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Police Killings of Unarmed Black Americans Affect Mental Health of Black Community, Online News Article 

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Police Killings of Unarmed Black Americans Affect Mental Health of Black Community, Online News Article 

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New research was conducted as its results were published in "The Lancet" through the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine and Boston University Public Health. The study concluded that black Americans, compared to their white counterparts, are three times more likely to be killed by a police officer, unarmed. Additionally, through conducting interviews with 40,000 black Americans, these individuals who may have witnessed or knew someone directly involved with a murder at the hands of a police officer experienced heightened mental health concerns.

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PHILADELPHIA - Black Americans are nearly three times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts, with even larger disparities among those who are unarmed. The trend is also harming the mental health of the black community, according to new research published in from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Boston University School of Public Health.

"These deaths don't just have immediate consequences for the families and friends. There's a true mental health spillover effect for those not directly involved," said Atheendar S. Venkataramani, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy in Penn's Perelman School of Medicine, and co-lead author of the study.

In a national survey of nearly 40,000 black Americans who were interviewed within three months following at least one death of a black American at the hands of police in their state, the team found that police killings of unarmed black Americans were associated with worse mental health among other black Americans in the United States general population.

"Addressing this problem will require interventions to reduce the prevalence of police killings as well as programs that mitigate the adverse mental health effects in communities when these events occur," said co-lead author Jacob Bor, ScD, SM, an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. "More broadly, the findings indicate that events widely perceived to reflect structural racism cause significant harm to the mental health of black Americans. Efforts to reduce health disparities should explicitly target structural racism."

Structural racism is described as policies, laws, practices, and other norms entrenched in institutions that can harm a certain racial group and perpetuate racial inequities.

The researchers combined newly released data on police killings between 2013 and 2016 from the Mapping Police Violence Project database with data from the U.S. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) of over 103,000 black Americans. BRFSS is a nationally-representative, telephone-based, random-digit dial survey of adults ages 18 years and older.

The primary exposure was the number of police killings of unarmed black Americans occurring in the three months prior to the person being surveyed. Exposure included word of mouth and news stories in print, radio, television, and/or social media. To measure mental health outcomes, the researchers asked respondents: "Now thinking about your mental health, which includes stress, depression, and problems with emotions, for how many days during the past 30 days was your mental health not good?"

Researchers then compared the number of poor mental health days experienced by black Americans surveyed after a police killing of an unarmed person to that of black Americans residing in the same state surveyed before that event.

Overall, the study suggests the police killings could contribute 1.7 additional poor mental health days per person ever year, or 55 million more poor mental health days every year among black Americans in the United States. To contextualize those numbers, the authors point to diabetes, which is responsible for an estimated 75 million poor mental health days among black Americans.

"Our estimates therefore suggest that the population mental health burden from police killings among black Americans is nearly as large as the mental health burden associated with diabetes," they wrote.

The study shows, for the first time, that police killings of unarmed black Americans have a "meaningful, population-level impact" on the mental health of other black Americans. "The effects are likely even larger than what we estimated," said Venkataramani, pointing to the fact that more high-profile cases of police killings that grabbed national media attention could have exerted mental health effects among black Americans living in other states, as well.

Importantly, the researchers saw no spillover mental health effects among white respondents, nor among respondents of either race in response to police killings of unarmed whites or of armed black Americans.

This striking specificity points to the importance of structural racism as a key mechanism underlying the study findings, and a driver of population health, more generally, the authors said: "[P]olice killings of unarmed black Americans are perceived by many as manifestations of structural racism and as implicit signals of the lower value placed on black lives by law enforcement and legal institutions - as well as by society at large."

Co-authors of the study include David R. Williams, PhD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Alexander C. Tsai, of Massachusetts General Hospital.
Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $7.8 billion enterprise.
The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top medical schools in the United States for more than 20 years, according to U.S. News & World Report 's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $405 million awarded in the 2017 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center - which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report - Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Medicine Princeton Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital - the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, a leading provider of highly skilled and compassionate behavioral healthcare.
Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2017, Penn Medicine provided $500 million to benefit our community.

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Police Killings of Unarmed Black Americans Affect Mental Health of Black Community - PR News

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Black Americans are nearly three times more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts, with even larger disparities among those who are unarmed. The trend is also harming the mental health of the black community, according to new research published in The Lancet from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Boston University School of Public Health.

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Ghost Boys — Jewell Parker Rhodes, YA Novel 

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Ghost Boys — Jewell Parker Rhodes, YA Novel 

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Jerome, a twelve-year-old boy, becomes a ghost as he is murdered by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun as a real threat. Through his perspective as a ghost, Jerome watches as his family continually demonstrates resiliency through devastation and activism. Along the way, Jerome is able to share his experiences with another ghost he encounters, Emmett Till - a fourteen-year-old boy who was beaten under the false allegation that he had flirted with a white woman.

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Audre Lorde's "Power" addresses when ten-year-old Clifford Glover was shot and killed in the back as he was running away from a police officer. Videotapes of this atrocious, violent act immersed publicly as the cop stood over Clifford, in his blood, and viciously sneered: "Die you little motherfucker". Audre uses the title of her work to emphasize the "power" she has as an author and even goes on as far as to emphasize that she must differentiate poetry and rhetoric.

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The difference between poetry and rhetoric

instead of your children.

I am trapped on a desert of raw gunshot wounds

and a dead child dragging his shattered black

face off the edge of my sleep

blood from his punctured cheeks and shoulders

is the only liquid for miles

churns at the imagined taste while

my mouth splits into dry lips

without loyalty or reason

thirsting for the wetness of his blood

as it sinks into the whiteness

of the desert where I am lost

trying to make power out of hatred and destruction

trying to heal my dying son with kisses

only the sun will bleach his bones quicker.

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens

stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood

and a voice said "Die you little motherfucker" and

there are tapes to prove it. At his trial

this policeman said in his own defense

"I didn't notice the size nor nothing else

there are tapes to prove that, too.

Today that 37 year old white man

with 13 years of police forcing

by eleven white men who said they were satisfied

and one Black Woman who said

"They convinced me" meaning

they had dragged her 4'10'' black Woman's frame

of four centuries of white male approval

the first real power she ever had

and lined her own womb with cement

to make a graveyard for our children.

I have not been able to touch the destruction

But unless I learn to use

the difference between poetry and rhetoric

my power too will run corrupt as poisonous mold

or lie limp and useless as an unconnected wire

and one day I will take my teenaged plug

and connect it to the nearest socket

raping an 85 year old white woman

and as I beat her senseless and set a torch to her bed

a greek chorus will be singing in 3/4 time

"Poor thing. She never hurt a soul. What beasts they are."

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Power by Audre Lorde | Poetry Foundation

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The difference between poetry and rhetoric

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Letter To Your Flag: 2018 Youth Speaks Poetry Slam, Spoken Word Poetry 

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Letter To Your Flag: 2018 Youth Speaks Poetry Slam, Spoken Word Poetry 

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After months of preliminary rounds with over 500 youth poets participants from the Bay, Royalty, a Spoken Word poet, finds himself amongst the top 12 finalists. His Spoken Word poem focuses on the systematic oppression found within the United States that continually stunts the development of prosperous lives for his black counterparts and black youth. Royalty questions the legitimacy of equality that is currently tokenized in the Pledge of Allegiance, as he asks audience members " one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for who? For some? For you?"

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Royalty "Letter To Your Flag" | 2018 Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam

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Matt Kielty, a broadcaster for New York Public Radio, works with Ben Montgomery, reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, to flesh out stories retrieved from documents created between 2009 to 2014. These documents focused on when officers discharged their weapons in the line of duty in Florida. The result? A stack of reports, pictures, and press clippings cataloging the death or injury of 828 people by Florida police officers. Specific cases are discussed and interviews conducted with individuals who find themselves at the center of encounters with police officers gone horribly wrong.

Part 2 of this Podcast series is located here:
https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/shots-fired-part-2

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Shots Fired: Part 1 | Radiolab | WNYC Studios

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We join Ben Montgomery, a reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, as he looks at every person killed or injured by Florida police over six years.

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Queerness on the Front Lines of #BlackLivesMatter, Informative Video Clip

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Queerness on the Front Lines of #BlackLivesMatter, Informative Video Clip

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Leaders of the #BlackLivesMatter Global Network emphasize the necessity for intersectionality to exist within their movement - representing queer, black individuals is one of those components. MSNBC interviews Patrisse Cullors, one of the three founders of #BlackLivesMatter as she addresses that black, queer individuals form the front lines and backbone of this movement.

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Queerness On The Front Lines Of #BlackLivesMatter | Originals | msnbc