1. Daniel Robertson
FYS
Annotated Bibliography
BLACK LIVES MATTER
Lu, Rachel. "Why Black Lives Matter Isn't Going To Fix Our Problems." The
Federalist. N.p., 19 Aug. 2015. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.
In this article written by Rachel Lu, she discusses “Black Lives Matters”. She
talks about how it is a “blunt instrument” when society actually needs a “precision tool”
(5). Lu does not think that this movement will fix any of our problems that we had. Lu is
quoted saying, “It specializes in making an impact by flinging selected incidents into the
public eye”, by saying that she thinks that the movement only focuses on the bad
situations that will help their cause and make our society seem more racist. While there
are other crimes going on, black on black crimes, or black on white crimes, but those
crimes would not help their purpose so they do not draw the most attention to it. All in
all, Rachel Lu does not believe that this movement will help anything we are trying to fix
but possibly hurt it more than anything.
This website and its author are very credible. The website does have credibility,
especially with the authors it has working and writing for them, such like the one for this
article. The author, Rachel Lu, is a senior contributor at The Federalists. She graduated
from Cornell University with a PhD in philosophy and also teaches at the University of
St. Thomas. Lu is also, currently, researching criminal justice reform, which gives an
even better reason on why this author is very credible.
2. French, David. “The Numbers Are In: Black Lives Matter Is Wrong about
Police.” National Review Online. N.p., 29 Dec. 2015. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.
In this article, published by David French, he discusses some statistics that was
done by The Post in December of 2015. He gave multiple statistics such as how many
people the police had shot in that year (965) and how many of them were armed with a
gun (564) and also how many were not armed (90). They went as far as to find the stats
of how many people were shot by a police officer, who were armed with something
rather than a gun (281). From The Post’s research it showed that white police officers
killing unarmed black men totaled to less than four percent of fatal police shootings.
What French is trying to get across is that Black Lives Matters is not really needed,
honestly, and are trying to act like there are police officers murdering innocent unarmed
African Americans for no reason when they have statistics to show that happens on very
rare occasions.
David French is a very credible author. French practices in constitutional law of
armed conflict so it shows that he does know what he is discussing in this article. He is a
graduate of Harvard Law School, which pretty much speaks for itself. When a website
has someone of that magnitude working for them and is able to publish their works, then
the website has to have just as much credible, or even more, as the author does. The
article states where they got the information from and when the information was
gathered. The article is only about a month old so it is very recent and not much has
changed on this topic so the information is still useable.
3. Pavlich, Katie. “Katie Pavlich – Exposing The Black Lives Matter Movement For
What It Is: Promotion of Cop Killing.” Townhall.com. N.p., 02 Sept. 2015. Web. 12 Feb.
2016.
In this article Katie Pavlich talks about how Black Lives Matter is dangerous and
leads to acts of violence. She quoted Lee Stranahan, who writes for breitbart.com, that
“the activist group demands a ‘racial justice agenda’ that includes constant criticism and
activism against police…” (3). She also brings up the Democratic Party and how they
“desperately” try to embrace this movement. Pavlich also talks about the new chant that
the protesters have started, “pigs in a blanket, fry em’ like bacon”. Which stands for dead
police officers in body bags. This goes to show that this protest and movement is very
dangerous if they are calling for dead police officers. The author also quotes Barbara
Reynolds, an author that writes for the Washington Post, “But at protests today, it is
difficult to distinguish legitimate activists from the mob actors who burn and loot.” (8).
This source is credible, just as well as the author. The author, Katie Pavlich, is an
editor for the website, and is a New York Times Best Selling author. She graduated from
the University of Arizona, with a bachelor’s of arts degree in broadcast journalism. She
has appeared on Fox News to discuss the topic she talks about in this article. With being
able to go on public television and being very educated it shows that she is very educated
and that helps the credibility of the website.
4. Green, Derryck. “The ‘Black Lives Matter’ Slogan Ignores Self-Destructive
Behavior.” The ‘Black Lives Matter’ Slogan Ignores Self-Destructive Behavior. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.
Derryck Green discusses how the movement is looking at it the wrong way, and
how they should look at the big picture of all this. Green gives statistics on the black-
white comparison. “Blacks were 47.4 percent of all homicides and 52.5 percent of
offenders” (9). Green continues to talk about more stats and how these affect the
movement. Some interesting statistics he gives on the topic is that African Americans
were 44.1 percent of felony murder victims and almost 59.9 percent of offenders. Green
states “Combining the black victims of abortion and black-on-black homicides, we are
facing an assault on black lives that has nothing to do with racist, white cops.” (15). With
that being said, it shows that there should be more concerned focused on other aspects of
‘Black Lives Matter’ than just the part of racist black cops.
Derryck Green is a very credible writer. He has a M.A. in Theological Studies
from Fuller Theological Seminary and is also working on his doctorate in ministry at
Azusa Pacific University. Derryck Green is also involved in a project that is based on
racism, Project 21. With that being said, with this website having Greens article on their
website that gives them credibility as well.
5. Opinion After
When starting this I said that I thought it was a valid movement, but I was on the
fence more than anything. After doing research on the negativities and the cons of this
topic my opinion did not really change. I do agree that they could do more things better,
such as better protesting and pointing their views at other things than racist, white cops. It
was interesting though to look at it from a different angle and having an open mind. It
shows me that I do need to look at both sides of the argument instead of only looking at it
from the side I am for, not thinking that the other side has valid points.
