The part of this day I vividly remember was when the conversation around the table led to the topic of Black Lives Matter. At the time, protesters in Saint Paul were blocking freeways and staging protests all across the city due to the death of Philando Castile- a black man shot and killed by a police officer. I could tell from the minute the conversation started, I was going to have very different opinions than the people around me. I was then proven right when my friend’s mom stated, “Black Lives Matter is a terrorist group”.
The moment she uttered these words, I was given two choices. I could either be silent, keep to myself, and let her ramble on about “those thugs on TV”, or I could choose to question a belief that I knew was both incorrect and highly offensive. I looked over at my friend Emma who I knew shared my views, but she …show more content…
While this was a negative consequence of protesting, the protests themselves were just a small piece of a larger issue. She was ignoring the goal of these protests which was to draw attention to police brutality and pressure politicians to enact change. She instead only chose to focus on the destructiveness of the protests themselves. I on the other hand understood the need for blocking streets. It not only helped draw attention to the movement, but it showed the hypocrisy of being angry at the death of innocent people in ambulances and not at the death of an innocent black