How do we decide whose life actually matters?

For the past year the hashtag “BlackLivesMatter” has become the slogan for fighting police brutality against Black men and women. The hashtag itself is all encompassing, but what about in actuality? Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, and Eric Garner are all Black men killed by white police officers, but there have been many other police deaths since their own. Rumain Brisbon,  VonDerrit Myers, and Deshawnda Bradely are unarmed Black men and women who have been killed in the past few month, but theirs stories have not gained the attention that previous ones have. Gurley was killed by police on December 2^nd when the pill bottle in his hand was mistaken to be a gun. Myers was actually in Ferguson, MO at a protest leaving a sandwich shop when officers believed the sandwich he was carrying was a firearm. Bradely was a transgender who had ambitions to attend cosmetology school when someone came to her house and shot her when she opened the door.

These stories are all similar narratives to Brown, Rice, and Garner, yet they do not gain as much media attention. They are acknowledged in the protests and are included in #BlackivesMatter, but the investigation into their murders is not widely discussed in the media. This makes me questions what factors go into a person’s story becoming the over arching narrative. Previously I have talked about the respectability politics that went into the support differences between Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin, but in these cases, there has not been enough attention or information to determine if these are factors.

Is there just not enough room in the media to talk about everyone’s stories, or are there really elements that go into which victims are given a larger narrative? Bradely was a transgender woman whose identity is not widely accepted in Black communities nor in America in general, which could be a reason for larger media outlets not presenting the story to avoid any uncomfortable subjects. Brisbon and Myers; however, were both cingender men who were also fathers, Brisbon having four children and Myers being a young father. Myers death was more discussed in Ferguson because that is where his killing took place.

Does the amount of attention given to each case depend on the community surrounding the victim? Or is it about geographical location and the history of each area? All of these lives and cases do matter, but how is it that some cases become more relevant in the media than others?