America experienced the largest revival of the Black Lives Matter movement ever in late May after countless murders of Black Americans went unpunished. People from all around the world protested the issue, making it undeniable to anyone with common sense that America’s justice system is massively flawed. With the movement being so mainstream and having the entirety of the world watching to see America’s next move, you’d think police officers and other justice system officials would be more cautious of their actions and put an end to the centuries long mistreatment of Black people– but that isn’t the case.

The rates in which Black men and women are unjustly murdered by police in comparison to their white counterparts are undeniably disproportionate. To be exact, they are 3 times more likely to die by the hands of officers than a white person, whether they had committed a crime or not. But with all the eyes on officers lately you’d assume they would be less likely to murder someone, if only to avoid the judgement of the public. If you did assume that, you’d be wrong. Ever since the murder of George Floyd, Black people are now 3.3 times more likely to be murdered by police than their white counterparts.

What does it say about police officers if, after an entire world-wide movement about their mistreatment and brutality towards a certain group of people, they are now more likely to kill those people?

It’s discouraging and heartbreaking to be a person of color in America and wake up to see someone who looks like you murdered by an officer nearly everyday, then to have people shouting that they must’ve done something to deserve it. It is even more discouraging to learn that even after the entire world recognizes there needs to be a change, the problem has only gotten worse.

While the BLM movement has made amazing strides in bringing the public’s awareness to certain cases that we wouldn’t know about otherwise, there is only so much the citizens can do to fix a problem like police brutality. However this is not to say that BLM has not been useful to the Black community. Police brutality has been an issue the Black community has been aware of for generations, and now, because of this movement, nearly everyone else is aware of it too. Without these massive demonstrations worldwide, Black people would have continued to suffer silently whilst officers got off without so much as a slap on the wrist.

But still, the change has to come from the government, the best we can do is continue to put pressure on our government officials to make the change we need to see.