Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter has become a major movement throughout the country and has been a major influence on the issue of police brutality. As a country, we understand what the movement has become but we may not all know how it began. It started when Trayvon Martin was killed by police officer George Zimmerman. This happened as a result of racial bias on George Zimmerman’s part. This unjust killing made a huge impact on our country as a whole. There was panic, anger and frustration that was in the streets for a significant amount of time. That’s when the Black Lives Matter movement was formed in this case. This did not divide the country as much as it did unite it in the sense of fighting for equality. Race relations have been a tough topic and unfortunately they are no different now. My friends from high school has faced discrimination from police officers and has been cussed out for protesting. The moment that made me greatly distraught was when it happened to my own friends and teammates that I care deeply about. As a country, race relations must become better and I think the best way to solve it is by having a conversation. The main claim I am trying to find is why are Black people subject to police brutality more than other races. Law enforcement is important for a safe community and law is needed to keep people safe. However, when there is a system that has routinely discriminated against Black people it is institutional racism. The police force has implicit bias when it comes to Black people.

Living in the Age of AI

 The age of AI is both fascinating and exciting at the same time. I think the idea of being able to prevent online identity theft and catching criminal activity is a positive. This has allowed us to stop terrorists and stop terror attacks from happening. I think this has to be seen as a huge plus for the world we live in currently. It also is helpful to unlock your bank account with your face and your fingerprint. This can help prevent someone from hacking into your bank account. It can also prevent someone from hacking into your phone and social media accounts as well. This can be incredibly beneficial for security purposes all around. The terrifying part is how companies and China can abuse this information collected on you. China has taken the face technology and has used it to track and stalk their citizens essentially. Which is an invasion of privacy and they claim they do it to track criminals. They collect data on your online search history as well. My problem with all of this is that Google literally does the same thing as China in that regard. That’s why this is an issue in my opinion and it’s an invasion of privacy. At what point does protecting national security and personal privacy conflict? This is something that I have pondered for quite a while now. This is something that I want the tech companies to change and they have to be held accountable for their actions in this instance. AI has both its pros and cons but there needs to be less information collected on other people. 

The Progressive Era

 I think the reason many of these sites are silenced is because war makes money. War is seen as good in our country, it’s something the United States wants to be involved in. The politicians in our country preach about being peaceful but are they? They know war is good for our economy and if the US wins a war there is praise. George Bush left the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq for longer than they needed to be in my opinion. It caused problems as a result of this for our troops and our relations with that country. The first amendment should still protect anti war rhetoric even if most people don’t agree with it. Whatever happened to all speech should be protected? Is this just a suggestion or something we take to heart? It should not be speech that most people agree with that should be protected. It is amazing that people were thrown in jail for expressing their opinions about the war in the World War I era. While there has been progression from there, but there has been anti war doctrine that has been basically silenced. There is censorship across the web for opinions they don’t agree with which is wrong. The United States still has many war operations across the globe and therefore it’s affected free speech for anti war rhetoric. This is a major problem and needs to be stopped in my opinion. Opinions are opinions at the end of the day and they should not be censored in any way.