Article by Julia Moore in Inside UNC Charlotte
“George Floyd’s death has caused many people to demand new laws that reform American policing tactics. However, laws must be backed by genuine conversations between police and the communities they serve. Floyd’s death exposes the unhealed wounds of America’s racial past and until entire communities—non-Whites and Whites—discuss this past, reform measures will not be enough to keep Black people alive. The salient chant of Black Lives Matter protestors’ call for strategies for justice, healing, and societal reform that de-structure pejorative myths and disrupt rituals of anti-Black violence is crucial to understand, hear, and heed if true racial peace is to be achieved in America. Yes, all lives do matter, but so many people have ignored the critical fact the Black people’s lives matter just as much as White people’s. A human being is a human being no matter the color of their skin, their gender, or their economic class. At a time when COVID-19 has disproportionally affected African Americans, the chant of Black Lives Matter is all the more vital.”