Tools used to analyze conflicts.

This week you learned of different tools used to analyze conflicts. For this assignment, I want you to focus on one specific tool: The Conflict Tree. To learn more about the conflict tree, you can refer back to Chapter 2 in Fisher et al. or click on this link to view a brief video on the tool:  Conflict Transformation: Conflict Tools.

The conflict I want you to analyze using the conflict tree  involves the Black Lives Matters movement. This is not an actual conflict between two completing parties. Rather, Black Lives Matters is attempting to raise awareness at what it perceives as a nation that abuses and marginalizes African-Americans…particularly by the police.  Moreover, there are several disparities between blacks and whites ranging from health care, crime and incarceration, employment, wealth, and education, among other things. Many of those disparities have been attributed to a legacy of institutional racism that has locked blacks into a state of perpetual inequality.

As you analyze the Black Lives Matters positions, identify factors that you think may be the cause of racial inequalities across the various social, economic, and political domains in society. Next, identify the presenting problem, which would form the trunk of the tree. In this case, you may want to learn about the events that gave birth to the Black Lives Matters movement. Finally, identify effects that flows from the presenting problem and roots. Those would be the branches on the tree and the most visible manifestation of the presenting problem.