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Can Black Lives Matter move up in the age of Trump?

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

As various movements have sprung up like flash mobs to march and protest President Donald Trump's election, a question gradually occurred to me: Where's Black Lives Matter?

Ever since the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was born after a jury acquitted a neighborhood watch volunteer in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, the loosely formed movement has turned up repeatedly to protest fatal shootings of unarmed black men and other racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

But since President Trump's election, we have seen new eruptions of racially suspicious police incidents, but not of major protests.

Last week, for example, we saw a suburban Dallas police officer charged with murder for allegedly firing his rifle into a car full of black teens, killing a 15-year-old boy.

Last month we saw the stunning video of police officers in Grand Rapids, Mich., holding a group of black children at gunpoint -- ranging in age from 12 to 14.

Yet as much as these disturbing stories made national news, they did not spark the major protests we have seen elsewhere. Why?

 

A Washington Post reporting team came up with one answer after interviewing what they described as "more than half a dozen leaders" in the Black Lives Matter movement.

The movement has entered a new phase, they were told. It is focused more on policy than on protest, all in response to the election of President Trump.

"There are less demonstrations," Alicia Garza, one of three women credited with coining the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, told the Post. "People are channeling their energy into organizing locally, recognizing that in Trump's America, our communities are under direct attack."

Indeed, that makes a lot of sense at a time when Trump's election seems to have changed everything about how we Americans view the world.

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(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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