The Honorable Anthony Blinken<br/>Secretary of State<br/>U.S. Department of State<br/>2201 “C” Street NW<br/>Washington, D.C.<br/><br/>Dear Secretary Blinken,<br/>I am writing you to bring to your attention a potential policy solution in regards to the struggled implementation of the Colombian Peace Accords with the FARC Insurgency. This policy brief has been written with extensive research and input from experts in Colombian foreign policy and general foreign and domestic policy alike. <br/>The research has found that due of the current status of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia on the Foreign Terrorists Organization (FTO) Classification list, aid and protections that have been promised to the former members has not been provided, causing a rise in members re-arming themselves against the national Colombian government. This policy brief recommends that the State Department authorize the removal of the FARC from the FTO Classification list in order for U.S. AID and other forms of finance can reach former FARC members and deter them from becoming actively violent once again.<br/>Thank you for taking the time to consider this policy proposal, I look forward to hearing back from your office. <br/><br/>Sincerely,<br/>Kyle Slaughter<br/>Honors Student<br/>Arizona State University

Since the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, Black people have struggled for individual freedoms and equality in the United States. The notion that this long-lasting fight for equal rights ended after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s is a fallacy. The battle for equality is by no means finished but an ongoing struggle for a large percentage of our American population. In its broadest sense, Black Lives Matter is a grassroots social movement of activists called to action in the face of repeated instances of Black men and women being murdered in notoriously controversial and unjust circumstances. With the conception of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, a significant contingent of society has pushed to bring forward the voices of underrepresented and unequally treated members of our communities (Lee, 2020). <br/>When formulating a research study, I wanted to combat some common misconceptions about online activism. Living in an online media-dominated age, with the backdrop of a global pandemic and an increasingly polarized political climate, my overarching goal was to observe how social media has contributed to this modern-day civil rights movement. Indeed, this research was conducted during a period of political and cultural divisiveness not experienced in the United States since perhaps the Civil War. Following the 2020 U.S. election where Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were elected over Donald Trump and Mike Pence, political polarization has reached a boiling point. As the foremost social movement in the United States during the era of social media, it is of utmost importance we gain a better understanding of how ordinary people, connected by a common cause, built Black Lives Matter.

Our thesis is a cross collaboration between international relations and industrial engineering. We used a combination of database logic, programming, and Microsoft Visual Studio to organize and analyze Middle Eastern politics. Not only does the final product show raw data entry, but it also can answer complex questions about Middle Eastern relations- queries so complex that Google can’t answer them. We organized and analyzed geopolitical data to make it more accessible and easy, hopefully you enjoy!