What’s the next slogan in the Black Lives Matter movement?

 

 

  

 

“That is one of the most important questions I have been asked in a very long time,” said Michelle Morse, an organizer for the Global Campaign Against Racism and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School.

 

The African American woman was commenting on what slogan will capture the essence of the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement. Was the word “matter” in “Black Lives Matter” insufficient in encapsulating all the demands of the movement – eliminating cash bail, equal rights, community control, equal justice, economic equality, affirmative action, and police reform?

 

 “In a way, Black Lives Matter is stating something so simple, obvious, and human, yet look at the rise in white supremacy in reaction to it? unbelievable outrage and that response to it gives us all the information that we need,” said Morse.  

 

There is bipartisan agreement over the slogan but the bar, it can be argued, has been set low with the words “Black Lives Matter.” Are we as people asking for too little? Shouldn’t Black people be asking for more than for their lives to just matter? Historian and one of the most authoritative Black voices in America, Jelani Cobb explains how this is an “interesting” point but explains that the objective was to “make a baseline statement” at that time since it was born out of the moment where George Zimmerman was acquitted for murdering Trayvon Martin. Today, “it has become a springboard for all sorts of things under that rubric. The word ‘matter’ is an entry-level proposition, the demands to eliminate cash bail and defund the police is not” said Cobb. But what slogan will encapsulate all those demands? A slogan that is progressive and immediately carries a recall value for those demands?

 

The New York Times has argued that the Black Lives Matter movement may be the largest movement in U.S. history but will it be successful? Could it end up as one of the many movements that have failed in U.S. history or fizzle out as it did in 2014 after the Ferguson unrest? How many George Floyds will need to be killed before the needle on equality moves to the center? It could be argued the movement has already emerged as partially successful with reform bills introduced and Minneapolis deciding it will disband its Police Force. But Realpolitik demands a new slogan that pushes policies further left.

 

The next question is if not “Black Lives Matter” then what? Thought experiment slogans such as “Affirmation for Black Lives,” Reparations for Black Lives,” or “Justice for Black Lives” need to be considered but they don’t quite garner a reaction that says “that has a nice ring to it.”

 

 

 

 

Currently, “none are ideal, but ‘Justice for Black Lives’ would be my pick among those choices,” says political commentator Gary Abernathy whose newspaper endorsed Donald Trump before the 2016 election. For Abernathy, “since the slogan is the official name of an organization that began several years ago and includes some controversial positions and funding sources, for millions of Americans it will never be viewed in the broader, more general sense that many now want the phrase to envelop. It would benefit from a new slogan.”

Karissa Lewis, the National Field Director with the Movement for Black Lives, says the slogan has taken on its own characteristics and helps people fighting different injustices to connect. But she isn’t sure whether a new slogan is “necessary or valuable.” Lewis believes “what is necessary is for us to provide consistent clarity on what we understand to be our demands as a movement.”

 

The question is whether the coalition of leaders from the consciously leader-less Black Lives Matter Movement will come together to discuss and create gentrification that will demand more than freedom from police brutality. Lewis though addresses the microaggressions that still exist amongst even those who come out and support the movement by saying that “we can’t actually be inside of a discussion about strategy or solidarity if Black Lives doesn’t matter.”

 

For now, they simply don’t and that’s why all protests took place in all 50 states. But in the coming months, to move the needle on the demands, to further strengthen communication around a slogan that resonated across the world and shook America to its core, would a discussion by the relevant stakeholders be too much to ask for? Would you rather come up with a fresh slogan that pokes the jaded mind, is catchy, provocative, and all-encompassing or simply hope that Donald Trump loses the election?