Dear Future President,

The Black Lives Matter movement has been talked about all over social media and many people support it. There are so many hashtags and pictures with the phrase "Black Lives Matter" in them. There are many kids who blindly repeat this phrase thinking that it's an argument. I've seen the letters related to BLM and they get their research from biased websites and organizations. I will try to stay as factual as possible.

 The fact is, yes, there is still racism in the world. But, how does protesting stop racism? This is an unpopular opinion, but it's worth looking at because of the amount of violence that has come out from this movement. Most people who are against this movement aren't racist, but rather, they are concerned about safety issues.

The BLM activists say on the news that their protest is peaceful. Just by looking up “Black Lives Matter Protest” videos online, there are over 1 million videos of torching, stealing, prejudice, violence, and blocking of streets that all started from BLM protests.There is unnecessarily violent protests overshadowing the peaceful protests.

There is an argument made that there are a lot of white people committing violent crimes against blacks, but that is just false. According to a table of statistics by the Department of Justice made for the 2012/2013 period, 10.4% of violent crimes against blacks are committed by white people. 62.2% of violent crimes against blacks are committed by other black people. To that, people say that there is more black on black crime because of the fact that they are denied jobs and that they aren’t given a chance at life because of society. Well, today, there are no colleges or schools that deny black people of education.

In 2013, the FBI has black criminals carrying out 38% of murders, compared to 31.% for whites. From 2011 to 2013, 38.5% of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black. According to The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley, "Black crime rates were lower in the 1940s and 1950s, when black poverty was higher" and "racial discrimination was rampant and legal." How does the crime go up when the racial discrimination decreases?

The movement has started from one case. State of Florida vs. Zimmerman. Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager shot dead by George Zimmerman, a white neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Florida. There was evidence going against both Zimmerman and Martin. On July 13, 2013, the six-person jury rendered a not guilty verdict on all counts. This caused an uproar because media found Martin as being an innocent boy who did nothing wrong. This is when people started going out on the streets protesting against violence and racism against black people. Why would that change anything? It is just like the feminists who go out and protest against rape. How will that make an effect on the world? How would violence towards white people doing their own thing stop racist people from being racist?

Going back to why the crime rates went up when the racial discrimination decreased. This is the shocking part. Murders have spiked by 17 percent among the 50 biggest cities in the U.S. as a result of cops being more reluctant to police neighborhoods out of fear of being labeled as racists. Additionally, there have been over twice as many cops victimized by fatal shootings in the first three months of 2016. The BLM movement has made this happen. This movement is built on lies and not a lot of facts. 

All the black and black violence is caused by a problem with family breakdown and youth violence. economist Thomas Sowell shows that, before the 1960s, "most black children have been raised in two-parent families." In 2013, over 72 percent of blacks were born out of wedlock. In Cook County (which Chicago belongs to) 79 percent of blacks were born to single mothers in 2003, while only 15 percent of whites were born to single mothers.

Basically, the BLM movement doesn’t solve anything and it does more harm than good. As future president, you should focus more on family issues in poor neighborhoods and the violence committed by youth. Put more money into the National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention. They have many goals that haven’t been achieved but are achievable. The White House is working with them but it would be good if they could contribute more.

Sincerely,

Kayden Samanmit