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Hi everybody, it's Natalia. Today, and in my videos this week, I am going to be talking about a very important topic

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and something that's very timely, and that is what's going on in the United States right now.

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You may have seen videos or news coverage of the protests that have been happening all around the United States and the world,

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and I think it's really important to talk about what that's all about. So, let's get started.

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To start off with, I think it's important to get a bit of historical context on the Black Lives

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Matter movement itself in the United States. It was originally started back in 2013, and it was

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a response to police brutality and shootings in the United States. So in terms of what Black Lives

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Matter protesters stand for, they are fighting for many different things. So they are advocating for

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an end to police brutality, an end to excessive policing in Black communities. They want to

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hold law enforcement more accountable for their actions, and they also want to fight against

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institutional racism. So institutional racism isn't racism that would just happen between two people.

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It is racism that's based on a structure, on a system in society. So it's talking about

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a set of policies, a set of practices that contribute to a systematic disadvantage of

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members of racial groups with less societal power. So a systematic disadvantage against people of

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color, and in this case against Black people specifically. They're also fighting against

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mass incarceration of Black people in the United States, which refers to the way that many, many

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Black people have been put into prisons and jails in the United States. Now that you have some

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background about the situation in the United States and the Black Lives Matter movement,

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let's talk a bit about what's going on currently. So on May 25th, 2020, this year, George Floyd,

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who was an innocent Black man, was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, a city in the

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United States. The officer who killed him was not originally charged for any crimes and this event

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along with many many years in fact centuries of violence and systematic oppression of Black people

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in the United States led to protests. So protests that started in Minneapolis, Minnesota where the

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murder of George Floyd occurred, but these protests also spread to other cities in the

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United States and around the country. And in fact, as of last week, there were protests that occurred

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in every single state in the United States. Many of these protests have led to the destruction

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of property, both by police officers and by civilians. And in many cities, in fact, police

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have shown up with weapons. So those weapons can be tear gas, batons, guns, whether with rubber or

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real bullets, for example. And the police showing up with these weapons have also turned a lot of

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these protests that were originally peaceful into violent protests by escalating the situation.

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um throughout these protests police have arrested many protesters and journalists

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as of this first week in june over 10 000 people have been arrested by the police and again that

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is protesters and journalists i want to say that this is only a brief overview of what's going on

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in the united states and there are a lot of resources out there that you can find online

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that talk about what's going on right now.

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I am also here to discuss anything by email

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if you have any questions or concerns.

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But I do think that it's important

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that we talk about what's really going on right now

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in the world.