Black Lives Matter movement shows decline in support

By Nigel Henderson

JRN100 Staff Writer 

Momentum and support for Black Lives Matter has declined since its peak in 2020 due to lacking support, media coverage, and fatigue from the ongoing issue.

A study titled, “Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement Has Dropped Considerably from its Peak in 2020,” explains some of reasons and trends on why this particular situation is happening in the movement. The study was published on June 14, 2023, by pew researchers Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Kiley Hurst and Dana Braga.

“Today, 51% of U.S. adults say they support the Black Lives Matter movement, a decrease from 56% a year ago. The share who say they strongly support the movement dropped from 26% in 2022 to 22% in the new survey,” according to the report.

Later on, the study talks about the lack of support from different ethnicities.

 “The decrease in overall support is mostly due to the declining share of White adults who say they support the movement. The shares of Black and Hispanic adults who express support have stayed about the same since 2022,” according to the report.  

The support from people for the moment from outside of the effect area has dropped 26% since the peak of them movement. M Brown, a worker in corporate America as a Director of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), shares her opinion on what the reason was for the dropped support.

“I think it’s a couple of things. The media has shown a lot of reports saying a large majority of the money that had been raised by the organization had not gone to the charities and the places that it was supposed to go. It appeared that they are not doing what they were set out to do,” said Brown.  

Brown said that a large majority of the fundraising was being mishandled by the organization and that this distrust for the movement started to brew.

In the article, “Scholars in African-American history draw parallels with past movements”, it goes into depth about brutality on blacks and how it has extended since the birth of America. The study was published on November 13, 2015, by a Harvard Staff Writer. This article states that slaves were a main source of free labor. Governmental punishment was put in place to handle the defiant individuals. With a system built to work against the black population, efforts for change sprouted up. Missions for equality has been one of the main goals for the Black Lives Matter organization. In 2020, the tensions reached one of the highest levels due to the captured film of George Floyds death. This moment spread across the US and started an uproar which led to many protests, rallies, and awareness for colored people. Since that year, studies show the decline in the support for the movement.

“There were all kinds of grass roots organization and were using the names that were not apart of the national movement. This created confusion. Some of them had similar goals and others did not. I think people started to get suspicious when you combine all of these smaller groups sprouting up. This in combination with the media reporting the larger group allegedly not using the money as appropriate,” said Brown.  

Brown says that distrust created a problem which started to spread through the media. In her opinion, these factors are what made a considerable drop of support for Black Lives Matter.

Kala Richardson, a professor at Brown University, shares his opinion for the drop of support for the movement.  He looks to more a political aspect on what the reason could be.

“A lot of focus is on Trump and not some of the things that need to be thought about. … He has overshadowed it and people have allowed it to happen,” said Richardson.

Richardson said Trump has overpowered the news and media attention. More people are drawn to the breaking news that Trump is apart of rather than the Black Lives Matter movement. He said that this attention loss is forcing the movement to lose its momentum and support.

“Its like smoking and a gun to your head,” said Richardson.

He explains his analogy in saying that both of these items can kill and individual. He presents Trump as the “gun”, for he inflicts immediate danger.

“Black Lives Matter is not bringing noise like attacking the capital. It’s just people marching with signs,” said Richardson.

Another idea that was expressed in these interviews was the burnout of people across the United States. It's been 4 years since the death of George Floyd. Over time the numbness to these events have been taking over people's minds.

Brown said, that since Biden has been in office, people feel more “calm” about discrimination in America.
“I think that’s wrong. These things are still happening its just that media is not showing the public as much. When Trump was in office there was more media coverages on the crazy things that were happening under his leadership.”

She believes that there was a shift in mindset when Biden stepped in office. From what she has seen, the media provided more information and evidence of the police brutality in the US. However, once Biden was sworn into office, it seemed that there was less worry that discrimination and brutality was affecting black and brown individuals.

The effect of body cam footage from police officers is also an area that has affected the movement. The study showed wether the body cam footage helped or discouraged the Black Lives Matter movement.

The study states, “Views of the impact of these videos differ widely along demographic and partisan lines, with roughly two-thirds of Black adults and Democrats saying the sharing of these videos is a good thing.”

Body cams are required to be warn by police at all times. Videos shown from these brutalities affected the American population as well as the movement.

“Ive never watched any of those videos. If I hear what happened, that’s good enough. I don’t want to be in a place where black trauma is apart of life and something we see everyday,” said Richardson.