Essay Example on M4BL Policy Platform

The policy platform for the Movement for Black Lives Matter (M4BL) demonstrates a sociological understanding of race, gender, and class. The platform focuses on domestic policies, and it is known for articulating and supporting black people's ambitions and work. The policy platform seeks not only to elevate leadership and experiences for the marginalized black people but also women, working-class and cash poor, gender nonconforming, immigrants, Muslims, the disabled, among others. It is an intentional policy platform that seeks to amplify the particular experience of gendered violence faced by women, black queer, intersex, gender non-conforming and transgender. People's experiences are shaped by race, class and gender. The research has widely documented this fact, and it is commonly understood to some extent. Race, class and gender are interpreted by new studies as categories of interlocking experience that affect every aspect of life; thus, people's experiences in the society are simultaneously structured by these three. At a given moment, race, gender or class may feel more meaningful or salient in the life of a given person, but they overlap and cumulate on their effect on people's experiences.

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The agenda for the M4BL is distinctively and unapologetically black; it is also an agenda for a multiethnic coalitional movement seeking social justice. Basically, M4BL has more than 30 policies which have been consolidated into six policy areas. These six areas are: Ending the war of the blacks; political power; invest-divest; reparations; community control; and economic justice. The approaches of these demands are interconnected to undoing the second-class citizenship legacy that African-Americans suffered since the time when legalized slavery ended, 151 years ago (Hill, 2017). For instance, one factor that contributes to the wealth gap is unequal opportunities for building wealth through ownership of a home. M4BL provides solutions that form a systematic approach for addressing the wealth gap in homeownership. The six policies demand that the wealthy should end exploitative privatization of natural resources because the economy is displaced by privatizing such resources, and this causes poverty in Black communities (Dixson, 2018). Also addressed in the six policy demands are the right to clean air, restored land, housing and water; these underscore the need for involvement of the community in decisions that resulted in environmental racism.

It is evident from the policy demands that the issues of race, gender and class have been addressed. Based on the first tool of analysis, race, gender and class are social systems or rather social constructs. The M4BL provides robust solutions that will address the issues of gender, class and race facing the black community (Dixson, 2018). As much as M4BL has provided some proposals that can better the Black community, the plan is not satisfactory because it does not address everything impacting black lives. M4BL is seemingly majoring on racial discrimination because it is from it that issues of gender and class for Black community underlie. Racism is a widespread vice that cannot be solved through introduction of policies, but it needs other mechanisms such as creating awareness of the impacts of racial discrimination and sensitizing the society on the value and need for creating a single community regardless of the race, religious beliefs, social status and gender (Hill, 2017). Race, gender, and even class make humans unique from other creatures.

Race, class, gender, and sexuality are intersecting systems of oppression. This is much evidence when movements such as Black Lives Matter are formed. Such movements are formed mainly to defend or to protect races that are susceptible to discrimination and harassment. These are intersecting systems of inequality with immense impacts on society. These intersecting systems are associated with issues such as poverty, poor health, and oppression in general (Dixson, 2018). To stop this kind of abuse, the oppressed should stand up and demand their rights. All social aspects of discrimination such as race, gender, class, etc. overlap, i.e. overlap, for instance, in the case of a black woman, race and gender overlap. The policy platform, therefore, seeks to acknowledge that all women have different identities and experiences (Dixson, 2018). People who are most marginalized in society are affected by the interlocking systems of power.

M4BL platform has a great potential to create a structural change as seen from its vision and agenda. Demands for political power, reparations, community control, economic justice, ending the war on black people and investment have been articulated in the comprehensive platform. The movement has versatile leadership, and its goals are clear and tangible. The platform was released during the period when there was explosive racial violence against Black people, and it has continued to grow because of the continued discrimination of the Blacks (Dixson, 2018). The compelling use of protest increases the potentiality of the movement to create structural change. Creation of the fundamental change is even more motivated by something intangible, which is, Black people who died in the hands of the police. In a nutshell, the platform has employed several effective strategies which have a high potential of creating a structural change.

The likelihood that these policy proposals, if implemented, would result in a change to the social structures of race, gender, and class is high because they are addressing a wide range of issues facing the blacks (Dixson, 2018). For instance, the policies address the need to have Black communities to have control over revenue and decisions on budgetary allocations in their local governments as well as state governments; expansion of equitable development by the federal government and also establishment of Community Land Trusts which can effectively combat displacements. The policies also demand that the federal government construct affordable housing and to expunge offences relating to drugs because they affect Black communities disproportionately. Moreover, these policies seek to eliminate living wage employment barrier that pays a living wage so that Black people can be able to invest-divest. Stopping the war and discrimination against the Black people is the crucial goal for these policies. In addition to coming up with best policies that that can unable the Blacks to have a good living, the platform has taken best approaches that would implement them so as to gain much from them (Hill, 2017). This illustrates that the likelihood that these policy proposals, if implemented, would result in a change to the social structures of race, gender, and class is expectedly high.

References

Dixson, A. D. (2018). "What's Going On?": A Critical Race Theory Perspective on Black Lives Matter and Activism in Education. Urban Education, 53(2), 231-247.

Hill, S. (2017). Precarity in the Era of# BlackLivesMatter. Women's Studies Quarterly, 45(3/4), 94-109.