Media Persuasive Speech On Black Lives Matter

Words: 826
Pages: 4

For many Americans, keeping up with the news is a daily habit to understand what is happening in the world around them. News comes in many forms of media, and it is the viewer’s choice on how they gather their information. Numerous news outlets report very biasedly, regardless of what they claim, towards their viewer and how they want them to perceive the world they live in. When 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by a volunteer neighborhood watch member because he looked ‘suspicious’, “Thug” and “criminal” were the main describing words that shattered the media to label this boy. His death birthed the social media movement to acknowledge the problem of unjust treatment of black people, Black Lives Matter (#blacklivesmatter). Michael Brown and Eric Gardners’s death increased awareness to the movement, and people all over the world banded together to stand up for it. The question for this debate is should the media advocate Black Lives Matter? My vote is yes, absolutely. Black Lives Matter gives a powerful message to those who are willing to hear it, and it is as simple as it sounds: Black lives matter, too. The …show more content…
After the slaves were set free, the media portrayed them as “rapacious, menacing Negro male evil that had to be banished” (DuVernay, 2016) instead of the gentle workers they once were. The Civil Rights Movement was incorporated into the lives of the people wishing to change the way black people were depicted but they “began to be portrayed in the media and among politicians as criminals” (DuVernay, 2016). But when the civil rights movement was finally getting traction, crime in the U.S was on the rise. It was easy for the media to blame the movement for the crime, even if they had nothing to do with it. We have been conditioned to fear black people since slavery was abolished. The media has always found a way to tear them down before they had a chance to