The Chattanooga Times Free Press this week interviewed Robert Durán, an assistant professor of sociology, for a story about a new billboard in the city that is stirring debate. The billboard proclaims “Blue Lives Matter” and features the badges of the Chattanooga Police Department and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office.
Some say the message is an affront to the Black Lives Matter movement that has spread nationwide in the wake of high-profile, unprosecuted police shootings of black men. Others say it is positive — a way to say thanks to local law enforcement.
The billboard “is diverting attention away from the problem of policing of the black community,” Durán told the paper. “It’s minimizing to trade one experience with the other when they are totally different.” Read the full story online.