Do Poor Lives Matter?

Over the past several years, the Black Lives Matter movement has sought to bring attention the media’s, courts’ and public’s apathy toward the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers. Last November, after the terrorist attacks in Paris yielded a much larger outcry than the attacks in Beirut and Baghdad (which happened during the same 36 hours), the Black Lives Matter discourse was borrowed to proclaim that “Middle Easter Lives Matter”. In a response to the claim that black lives matter, the #BlueLivesMatter hashtag surfaced, which asserts that the lives of police officers have value, too. Increasingly, the claims of value attributed to groups of people are proving politically divisive, claiming value according to identity, even while they raise awareness of the struggles of certain demographics of people. Yet as we become more literate on issues of identity, the issue of class continues to fade from the discourse.

Rather than approaching the value of lives on the basis of a fragmenting identity politics, why not step back and advocate on a more unifying basis: that of economic disempowerment and poverty? ‘Do Poor Lives Matter?’ will seek to investigate our society’s systemic undervaluing of the poor, and ask how we can lend more attention and care toward the largest group of systematically oppressed people on earth: the global poor.

This week, come and join Embassy citizen Eric Rogers host a much needed and timely discussion around this topic.

Event page is here

Links

http://theweek.com/articles/570974/why-poor-whites-should-rally-behind-black-lives-matter https://www.facebook.com/events/1309642102380988/