Claim

The supplemental reading that I chose was the TIME Person of the Year Runner Up: Black Lives Matter article. This article details the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, explaining its ideals and its growth over the past few years and creating a written timeline of its history. The piece begins by explaining that the Black Lives Matter originally started as an incidental hashtag on a facebook post made by Alicia Garza following the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin; the same hashtag was used shortly thereafter on signs at protests demanding justice for Trayvon Martin. The author illustrates that while the movement has more or less solidified by this point in time, it is still widespread in its goals and actions of activism; from protests that have shut down busy streets to causing the removal of those abusing their positions of power to campaigns against school closures, Black Lives Matter continues to make their voices heard. The author's piece shows the growth of BLM movement from a single use of a hashtag to the group that was able to not only meet with but also influence Hillary Clinton in her presidential campaign. Continued protests and activism have kept the many issues that BLM fights against out of the dark, and will continues to do so until policy, government, and ultimately, the world, change.

Altman, A. (2015). TIME Person of the Year 2015 Runner-Up: Black Lives Matter. Retrieved February 05, 2017, from http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-runner-up-black-lives-matter/

The term "melting pot" implies that as cultures come to the United States, the give way and become one in a homogeneous culture, which is absolutely not true. The US may have some cultural indicators that are specific to this country, but the individual cultures of each citizen still exist and are prevalent in today's society. Larger cultures continue to form as people find common connections, such as the belief that black lives truly do matter.

Today, black and African American history are what drive movements like Black Lives Matter to refuse to give in and to continue to push for change. The knowledge that the types of injustices that they face have existed since before the days of the Revolutionary War makes it all the more obvious that they cannot be allowed to continue

In another annotation, I explain what a shotgun house is. Because of their simple structure, shotgun houses are generally cheaper than others in modern architecture. Because of this, many homes is predominantly poor, black communities are in the shotgun style.

Although this quote is in direct reference to the oral history of the town, it can also be related to the reporting on police violence in America today. Most news sources are based in partisan politics, therefore skewing their views on many incidents where black people are killed. Because of this, conflicting stories crowd the news, making it difficult for the general public to discern what is ans isn't true.

Although deaths are useful in researching history because of their finality, it's still ironic that a committee on black history would start there. Today, as history is being made, many protests and other organized events, some stemming from BLM, are sparked by the unjust death of a black person at the hands of the police.

Although not specifically mentioned in the article, the BLM movement also champions fair and equal housing and government assistance for black families, especially in impoverished communities. Today, in Flint, Michigan, there is an ongoing water crisis due to extremely high lead levels in the water system. The city of Flint has a mainly black population, and many have suggested that the reason this crisis has gone without fix for so long is because the government does not care about a poor black town. The BLM movement has worked to bring attention to this and to work towards temporary and permanent solutions.

Saying "the black community of America" would be vastly inaccurate, because every individual person is different, and there are millions of black men, women, and others living in the United States today. However, many members of the black community experience oppression on similar scales on a day to day basis. This is the basis of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the reason why they protest and use other activism efforts to work towards change.

Although most would like to believe that society as a whole has changed over time, the treatment of African American or black citizens has remained relatively stagnant. Although released from slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, black Americans have experienced different forms of systematic oppression even up to the present day. On can draw a frighteningly large number of parallels between slavery, the Jim Crow era laws, and the modern police brutality and school-to-prison pipeline.

Today, society is experiencing a time of political change unparalleled at any point in the past. Many groups and individuals have stated that today people now are living the creation of history. However, as much of the action and change is brought about by groups, individual names will most likely not be remembered so much as the actions of their movements.

This sentence brings up a pertinent fact, reminding the reader that the men of Parting Ways were in no way the norm for black men during this time period, as slavery was in it's height then. It also begs the question, what kind of racism and discrimination did these men and their families face in the their time at Parting Ways? It was stated earlier that the town allowed them to live on the land, which is probably more than would normally happen. However, living that close to a settlement that was mostly white Anglo-American would have only highlighted the differences not only in actions, but in work styles, architectural styles, and interpersonal relations in terms of space.

Through previous knowledge, I know that a shotgun house typically means one with two entrances/exits that line up directly with each other, with nothing in between. Such a house is based around a central hallway that is a straight line from front to back. This type of building is called a "shotgun house" because one could ostensibly shoot a shotgun through the front door and not hit anything as the bullet traveled to the back door. This type of structure probably would have been popular in many African style American homes because of the simple architectural style, and because this set up of a building would allow fresh air to travel through very easily, a useful feature in the warmer climates where many slaves were used as farm labor.

Was this more expensive pottery owned by someone whose financial records were not pulled for the purposes of this piece of writing? If so, were they of better financial standing than those whose were? If not, what wealthy person was willing to give higher quality pottery to a lower class person/family?

Slavery was the organized, systematic belief that black people were less than human and therefore could be bought and sold as property, with which the owner could do whatever they pleased. Although slavery was eventually abolished during the Civil War by Abraham Lincoln, the belief those who were not were "less than" continues until this day. Today, the school to prison pipeline and uncomfortably high police brutality levels towards the black community show that we as a society still perpetuate those values originally held during times of slavery.