#BlackLivesMatter has moved from being a Twitter hash tag to becoming a nationally organized protest movement against police violence directed at minorities. They are using some of the same tactics that were employed by the Occupy movement. In Los Angeles they organized a local campaign demanding investigations of the deaths of two minority men, one black and the other Latino. One of their objectives was to get the police to release autopsy reports. They established a camp in front of police headquarters that was reminiscent of Occupy events. The reaction of the police was also reminiscent.
Police shut down Black Lives Matter protest outside LAPD headquarters
Los Angeles police broke up a protest outside its department headquarters on Monday night, disbanding a seven-day sit-in and briefly arresting two leaders of the city’s Black Lives Matter movement, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The protesters set up a camp of makeshift tents and a kitchen about a week ago, prompted by the release of the autopsy report on Ezell Ford, a mentally ill 25-year-old shot dead during a confrontation with police in August. The hazy circumstances of Ford’s death and simmering, nationwide resentment toward the police force have provoked outrage in Los Angeles for weeks.
The “Occupy LAPD” demonstrators called for the department to fire both officers involved Ford’s death, and for indictments against them.
Two protest leaders, Melina Abdullah and Sha Dixon, were arrested after trying to deliver letters with their demands to the police chief, Charles Beck. The women, a professor of pan-African studies at Cal State and a television producer respectively, attempted to bypass the police line and enter the building, at which point they were detained. Both Abdullah and Dixon were released hours later.
Beyond a comparison of protest tactics it is interesting to speculate about other connections between Occupy and #BlackLivesMatter. Occupy was the first broad spectrum protest movement that the US had seen in a long time. It created considerable national attention and then sputtered into obscurity. It is fairly difficult to point to any specific accomplishments. #BlackLivesMatter is more focused in terms of the issues that it is addressing. The basic goal is greater police accountability for the use of force against racial minorities.
Like the Occupy movement, BLM is mostly composed of young activist. They have clashed with an older generation of civil rights activist such as Al Sharpton and the National Action Network which is also organizing protests. This offers historical flash backs to the 60s when a younger generation in organizations like SNCC butted heads with an older generation in organization like NAACP and the Urban League. BLM has had something of a run in with the mighty Oprah.
Protesters slam Oprah over comments that they lack ‘leadership’
Key organizers of the wave of recent protests over police treatment of African Americans lashed out at Oprah Winfrey Friday over comments she made to People magazine criticizing their movement as “leaderless.”
“I think it’s wonderful to march and to protest and it’s wonderful to see all across the country, people doing it,” she said in a video interview posted Thursday on the magazine’s Web site. “But what I’m looking for is some kind of leadership to come out of this to say, ‘This is what we want. This is what we want. This is what has to change, and these are the steps that we need to take to make these changes, and this is what we’re willing to do to get it.’ ”
In the situation in Los Angeles the protesters seem to have had some pretty specific goals and they were willing to get arrested to accomplish them.
One of the realities about trying to gain increased police accountability is the fragmented nature of the US legal system. Most of the authority over police conduct is under the control of local and state governments. The federal government does have the power to directly impose national regulations and standards. Protests are going to have to be localized and focused on specific cases of abuse, to a considerable extent.