Whether or not you call it Black Lives Matter, whether or not you put a hashtag in front of it, whether or not you call it the Movement for Black Lives, all of that is irrelevant. Because there was resistance before Black Lives Matter, and there will be resistance after Black Lives Matter.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that the fight for racial justice predates and will continue after the Black Lives Matter movement, highlighting the ongoing nature of resistance against oppression.
Alicia Garza's quote speaks to the enduring struggle for racial justice and the fact that activism has existed long before the Black Lives Matter movement and will persist long after. The emphasis on the continuity of resistance challenges the notion that social movements are temporary or defined solely by their names or hashtags. Instead, it suggests that the fight for justice is a long-term endeavor that transcends individual movements.
In practice
During a discussion on social movements, one could express: 'As Alicia Garza said, resistance existed before and will continue after Black Lives Matter.'
What we've seen is an attempt by mainstream politics and politicians to co-opt movements that galvanize people in order for them to move closer to their own goals and objectives. We don't think that playing a corrupt game is going to bring change and make black lives matter.
I think that there are real concerns that we have around whose life is important and why. So if the official story is, for example, somebody was running from the police, does their life matter?
There has to be a readjustment of resources that is being diverted to police and policing as opposed to community health services, and there certainly has to be control over the police by the communities that they are supposed to protect and serve.
We need to make sure that we have an honest, honest conversation and that we engage honest practices around how racism operates in this country. It's not just about people being mean to each other.
Coming out of the 2016 election, there was a few things that became really clear. One, that black people deserve to have vehicles that represent the breadth of our interests. Two, that we really need to do a better job of being able to communicate what conditions and experiences our communities are facing.
As you keep pulling back the layers of how deeply rooted anti-blackness and white supremacy are in this country, it is exhausting, and it is traumatizing.
It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge intime, toprotest againstchange, particularlychangefor the better.
Unless you change how you are, you will always have what you've got.
If you change and adapt your persona, you are seen as inauthentic; if you stay the angry young man, you fade from attention or seem tiresome.
A non-violent revolution is not a program of seizure of power. It is a program of transformation of relationships, ending in a peaceful transfer of power.
The most positive action we can take about the past is to change our perception of it.
We're not short of movements proclaiming that a different world is possible, but unless we can coordinate them into an international movement, capitalism just laughs at all these little organisations.
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