Black Lives Matter originated as a love declaration against a six-century-old racist premise

Evidence

Hearing the acquittal of George Zimmerman in 2013 punched Alicia Garza in the gut. Seeking relief, she pulled out her phone at an Oakland bar. She only got more upset as she read racist messages on her Facebook newsfeed “blaming black people for our own conditions.” Garza, a domestic workers’ advocate, composed a love note for Black people, pleading with them to ensure “that black lives matter.” Her friend in Los Angeles, anti-police-brutality activist Patrisse Cullors, read Garza’s impassioned love note on Facebook and tacked a hashtag in the front. Their tech-savvy friend, immigrant rights activist Opal Tometi, came in and built the online platform, and #Black Lives Matter was born. From the minds and hearts of these three Black women—two of whom are queer—this declaration of love intuitively signified that in order to truly be antiracists, we must also oppose all of the sexism, homophobia, colorism, ethnocentrism, nativism, cultural prejudice, and class bias teeming and teaming with racism to harm so many Black lives. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 1239

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that antiracism must oppose all intersecting oppressions echoes the Black women intellectuals thread (Sojourner Truth, Maria Stewart, Ida B. Wells) Kendi builds through earlier chapters.
• SEED: Possible angle: the counterintuitive origin of a protest movement in a love note rather than rage or strategy.