Blog Post #3: Black Lives Matter

The First Amendment taking place in the BLM Protests

The first 5 words of the First Amendment state "congress shall make no law" meaning as American citizens we have freedom of speech, religion, from religion, assembly, petition, and press. Therefore, it is our duty and right to not only criticize the government but to have the freedom to petition and protest the government. However, there have been several debates over the past few months to decide whether or not these protests are protected by the first amendment, because of the looting and riots that have seemed from the protests. But around 93% of the protests have been peaceful and became violent by both the involvement of the government and outside participants that have begun looting in protest of the BLM protests. The very fact of protesting for Black Lives Matter, then looting and destroying local black businesses, does not add up. This points even further to the fact that the protests and looting are not being done by the same people. Since 93% of all protests related to BLM have been completely peaceful, despite what the Trump Administration has said, these protests and the right to participate in these protests are 100% protected by the first amendment. However, the other 7% of possible violent protests are the ones that have been at the head of the news and not the other 93% of peaceful protests. Additionally, it has been documented that over this past summer, there were 392 incidents of police using force and violence on peaceful BLM protests, which again points to the fact that all of the protesters had good intentions during these protests and the violence was rarely started by the protesters.

Pictured: a group of peaceful protesters during the BLM protests. 

All of the information that was referenced in this blog post can be found here.