Frosty's Flava Magazine 4th of July Edition _ June | July 2019 | Page 39

clearly depicted these horrific scenes. Images
of blacks brutally beaten by police officers and
viciously attacked with water hoses, and images
of innocent children surrounded by an angry
mob when attempting to go to school, vividly
illustrated the struggle Civil Rights leaders
attempted to articulate. When those images
flooded white America’s television screens the
Civil Rights Movement became a human rights
issue, and real change began to take shape.
In 2019, thanks to smartphones, the nation
is finally woke to what blacks have known
all along, living while black is dangerous for
your health. The reports of unarmed blacks
either accosted or murdered senselessly
alleged victim, who feared for his life, was
afforded much deference, especially when
the alleged aggressor was black. In the case
of police brutality or police involved shootings,
no one dared question law enforcement’s
judgement. Police were whole heartedly
entrusted to protect and serve.
Before the dawn of smart phones, for whatever
reason, whether it be unfounded stereotypes or
implicit bias, the tales of violence inflicted upon
blacks were carried away in one news cycle and
dismissed as justifiable by the mainstream.
Unfortunately, to many members of the African
now flood our timelines. Footage of these
incidents instantly spread like wildfire. Oscar
Grant, Michale Brown, Sandra Blan, Travon
Martin, Corey Jones, and countless others,
garnered national outcry and fueled the Black
Lives Matter Movement. Despite the protest
and attempts to raise awareness about the
disparate treatment of African Americans, it
seems new reports of these types of appalling
incidents spout up daily. From Lolade
Siyonbola, the Yale University graduate student,
who was accosted by campus police as she
slept in the lounge of her dorm, based on a
report of a white dormmate; to the Miami
women who was tackled and arrested by
American community, this wave of violence
targeting blacks is not a novel concept. The
invasion of this epidemic into popular culture
and discourse signifies a dawn of an era where
the atrocities endured by African Americans
are finally being brought to light in real time.
This new technological advancement’s social
impact is similar to the affect television had
on the Civil Rights Movement. A shift in
the Movement occurred when images of
the violence endured by African Americans
invaded the living rooms of white America.
White American could no longer turn a blinds
eye to the violence endured by blacks in the
Jim Crow deep south when news footage