Under no pretext do ‘blue lives’ matter.
The Blue Lives Matter movement is a countermovement emerging in response to Black Lives Matter activists protesting against systemic racism and police brutality within the justice systems worldwide. While the recent reaction was sparked by the murder of George Floyd, the movement is about 400 years of systematic and institutional racism.
While the Blue Lives Matter movement was founded in 2014 by NYPD officers whose colleagues were shot and killed, the main focus of the movement is to contradict the Black Lives Matter movement - not the protection of so-called ‘blue lives’.
A 2018 study noted that while only 13% of the American population is black, their communities across America represent 28% of those killed by the police. Police brutality is a key issue addressed by the Black Lives Matter movement because it disproportionately affects black lives. Of course, the police aren’t supposed to kill people at all, but it would seem that black people are continually mistreated, whether that’s being arrested for a crime they didn’t commit, longer prison sentences, or death. This is why the concept of a ‘blue life’ is so obscene.
There is a stark difference between black lives and ‘blue’ lives: one exists, and one doesn’t. Being a police officer is a job; a uniform that can be taken off at the end of a shift, allowing the individual to appear as any other member of society. But when a black person gets home, they’re still black and are still discriminated against for who they are.
Written by Ty Sparkes
Artwork by Izzy Johns
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