Are theactivities being undertaken in Portland a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest? I've heard it referred to as such on both sides of the warring media, but does that make it so?

Black Lives Matter can refer to the organization or the movement.

Black Lives Matter, the organization, seems to be a coordinated effort to highlight and protest the phenomenon of a black person being three times more likely to be killed by the police than a white person.

“The call for Black lives to matter is a rallying cry for ALL Black lives striving for liberation,” BLM states on its website, “Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.”

How is BLM Different?

Different than the organization, the Black Lives Matter movement, however, appears to be a call that has echoed across the world to signify that the lives of the African-American, the black person, the Negro, the Nigger, and the Nigga - the sons and daughters of former slaves, matter. That they are not the three-fifths of a person they were designated at the country's inception. It is also the understanding that there must be a special recognition of the fact that these lives matter because whenever it's time to champion our values and say, “we believe” in something special, like democracy, or equality of opportunity to pursue happiness, the “Negro,” as W.E.B Dubois would say, gets forgotten.

So, are the protests in Portland championing for the recognition, empowerment, self-empowerment, love of black people, and the elimination of the barriers, such as the School to Prison Pipeline, and Mass Incarceration, that are putting out the light of one black life after another?

Are these protests trying to overcome the destruction of the nuclear family, which like COVID-19 affects white and black alike, but for some reason,hurts black folks worse?

Are they trying to figure out a way to broker peace between the gangs; broker peace between the gangs and the police? Are they chanting for the final death blow to a philosophy “which holds one race superior and another inferior” and which for so long has been at the essence of the race problem in America? Are they addressing any of the myriads of topics that affect, degrade, and diminish the full capacity of so many black lives in America?

Finally, are the protests in line with the way black people have protested oppression? The Nation of Islam has a reputation for militancy. Is it the modus operandi of NOI to fight oppression the way that the fight is being waged in Portland? What about the organized activities of the Black Panthers, SNCC, or the NAACP? When have black lives and the organizations that spoke for black lives protested in this manner?

As the Portland protesters shout and march, and the rioters continue to loot and burn down buildings, the TSR3 Justice Center asks, why? Aside from spreading awareness, what are the desired results?

During the 1960s Civil Rights movement, the protests and boycotts gave us policies likeThe Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well asThe Voting Rights Act of 1965. America's slavery revolution brought aboutthe 13th Amendment.

While law changes and policy introductions aren't the only way to determine a successful protest, it is an effective way to determine its goal. If the protests in Portland are not an effort towards elevating black lives, whether it be the organization or the movement, why would the media then associate these protests with this young, beautiful movement for the recognition of black life and its equality of worth with ALL human lives?