Global context: Describe racism and how racial discrimination over time has led to Black Lives Matter movement.

The official definition of racism is : prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.

In simpler terms, racism is to discriminate against someone purely based on their race or ethnicity and can result in people creating harmful prejudiced views before, during, or after meeting someone. Racial attacks can be very harmful and sometimes fatal till common in today’s society due to institutionalized racism which has not been eradicated since it most impactfully began with the atlantic slave trade in the 16th century , but had still been around for many years previous.

Many versions of the Black Lives Matter movement has happened throughout time, most recently as a result of the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man on May 25, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. During an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit bill, Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on his neck for nearly eight minutes. After his death, protests against police violence toward black people quickly spread across the United States and internationally.