Views of the Dominant - Blue Lives Matter
The dominant culture must constantly strive to expand its hegemony while fending off challenges and interventions from the very classes and groups it seeks to subjugate (Joao Vargas in Black Lives Don't Matter)
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What does the literature have to say?
Following the killings of NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu on December 20, 2014, Blue Live Matter arose to aid law enforcement officers, protect their families and put an to end police brutality. Since then, it has grown to become heavily involved with social media, and uses media texts such as memes, videos, graphic images, etc. in an attempt to challenge groups such as Black Lives Matter, deconstructing the victimized notions they portray and illustrating the hate they construct. As a result, Blue Lives Matter now seeks to re-establish the hegemonic power of the police force and suppress the power of Black Lives Matter, allowing viewers to uncover lesser known viewpoints from the police officer’s stance, ultimately attempting to convey the hate and violence conveyed towards law enforcement officers. In fact, it appears to be working, significantly.
A study by Brandl and Stroshine (551-572) found that of the 1082 officers they observed, 769 officers (70.9%) were not involved in any force incidents in 2010, 186 officers (17.3%) were involved in one incident, 69 officers (6.4%) were involved in two incidents, and 58 officers (5.4%) were involved in three or more incidents. Furthermore, these 58 “high-rate” officers accounted for approximately 40% of all use of force incidents within the department, and approximately 32% use of force when another officer was present. As a result, the data reveals that the majority of officers are not involved in any use of force incidents, and that only a small portion of officers (less than 6%) account for a large amount of use of force incidents.
IN THE MEDIA
Societies [are] a locus of social contestation between competing groups who seek dominance and manipulate reigning institutions and culture to promote their ends (Durham and Kellner 6).
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In rebuttal to the Black Lives Matter movement and the recent shootings of police officers (ex: the Dallas shootings), Aaron Bandler retrieved statistics from various sources such as The Federal Bureau of Investigation and Heather MacDonald’s book The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe, in order to exemplify the rates of black-on-black crime occurring in the United States. It was ultimately found that approximately 93% of black homicide victims are killed by other black individuals, and that black individuals “commit violent crimes at 7 to 10 times the rate that whites do.” Furthermore, he points to evidence derived from Heather Macdonald stating that black individuals committed 76 percent of all homicides in Chicago in 2011, despite composing only 35 percent of the city's population. These data ultimately counter many of the proclamations of the Black Lives matter group, and suggest that police officers pose less of a risk towards the lives of black individuals than black people themselves.
