Does #BlackLivesMatter Really Care About Black Lives?

Paul R. Brian

Violent protests have taken at least 17 lives so far in the ongoing US riots sparked by the recent killing of George Floyd. The majority have been victims of rioters and criminals and include a number of black Americans and police, as well as black Louisville man David McAtee who was brutally shot down by authorities. Although President Donald Trump has tried to pin most of the blame for the overall chaos on the violent Antifa group — which does deserve some focus for their concerted acts of terror and sabotage, but is far from some mastermind Bond-level villain — liberals and conservatives should not make the mistake of turning a blind eye to Black Lives Matter (BLM) and black supremacists, whose rhetoric and actions have been involved in turning these protests into a bloodbath.

Reverse Racism Ridiculousness

White conservatives and liberals have increasingly shied away from criticisms of any segments of the black community. White liberals generally do this because they seem to have adopted an atavistic, borderline racist idealization of all things African-American — literally raising their arms to the sky and chanting inane, self-righteous talking points during a recent rally — and white conservatives because they have become hooked on the “Democrats are the real racists” narrative and want to prove that conservatives are the real supporters of the black community. Actual discussions of the problems faced by black America are generally framed by liberals and conservatives as “how can we use this to support our agenda or candidate?”

Of course the reality is that just as all police officers are not racist murderers and life-threatening racist attitudes do exist in various police departments, not all black people are universally peaceful, humble-hearted passive objects for white people to attach their post-religious, super-charged Whole Foods organic aisle-style veneration onto. In addition, many black Americans are socially conservative and strongly supportive of law and order, horrified by the lawlessness, drug abuse and crime that’s overtaken their communities.

The attempt by BLM and white liberals to encompass all people of color into a suffocating intersectional blanket is no less disgusting than when this is also done to foreign victims of war and injustice and racist, imperial violence, who are welcomed in only conditionally and transactionally as victim props by fanatical white leftists who embrace an incredibly skewed, harmful and culturally imperialist conception of identity, reality and the world.

It’s time to ditch the narratives and take an honest look at black identity extremism and the wider BLM movement.

What is BLM?

Officially, BLM is an “anti-brutality movement” that started after the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012. It was founded in 2013 by “three radical Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi” according to the BLM website. They opened up over 30 chapters around the country, but the larger organization is informal, decentralized and not “official,” being more of a grassroots movement. The police killings of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling and Michael Brown have prompted mass reactions and protests from BLM, which turned violent in Ferguson, Missouri and at other times included chanted threats against the “pigs” (police).

The recent death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MO was the spark that ignited the fire, but the horrific murder of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY in March of this year also steadily built up anger, as did a viral video of a white woman in New York’s Central Park threatening to call police on a black man and use his race against him for him pointing out she was breaking leashing regulations with her dog. Although the majority of BLM supporters and marchers are just regular people concerned over racism and police violence, the group has a pattern of steadily nurturing extremist elements and turning a blind eye to militant members and anti-white hatred fomented from its ranks.

Can You Really Blame BLM for Violent Looters, Anarchists and Racial Extremist Criminals?

As blogger Jessica Zang wrote, “We cannot confuse these people with those who are trying to peacefully enact change and raise awareness. The actions of looters have corrupted the message of those who are demonstrating without violence, and we must recognize that this should not serve as an excuse to stop listening to the pleas of the vast majority.”

The problem is that even if every single looter and violent rioter was not a supporter of BLM or any racist ideology — which is incredibly unlikely — the movement is able to pursue a double-edged tactic by not moving more forcefully to condemn violence and violent rhetoric from its supporters and those latching onto the wider protests. By being mostly peaceful but having a fringe vanguard which is violent, BLM is able to maintain plausible deniability and moral cover even as its more radical offshoots engage in aggressive behavior that increases submissiveness among many in the populace and frightens politicians from overstepping their condemnations in case their state or city comes into the eye of the storm next.

Even prominent leading BLM figures like DeRay McKesson have regularly engaged in shameful race-baiting and deflection, widening cultural, racial and political divides in the name of bringing people together. There is a major difference between saying the law should be applied equally and black people are valuable and saying that white people are inherently guilty, wicked and harmful to black lives just by virtue of being avatars of systemic racism and a white-dominated economic and political system.

Black Identity Extremism

The FBI has been warning for years that “black identity extremists” are dangerous and are a serious threat, but under the white noise of the buffoonish Trump Administration these warnings were dismissed as fearmongering, race-baiting and a “fantasy” by illustrious institutions such as the Brennan Center. How much of a fantasy does it seem like now? One might note the incident in which black identity extremist Gavin Eugene Long gunned down six cops in Baton Rouge, LA in July, 2016. What about in December, 2019 when members of the insane and aggressive Black Hebrew Israelites stabbed and shot Jewish people at a kosher deli in Jersey City, New Jersey killing three? Was it a “fantasy” back then, too?

The FBI warned that black extremist ideology “will very likely serve as justification for such violence” as targeting police and destruction of property going forward and that certainly appears to be the case. The number of white people joining onto BLM and committing vicious acts in its name also seems to have burgeoned as the cause increasingly comes to resemble, as Damian Thompson put it for Spectator USA, a “religion for woke white people.” When idiots like former Hillary Clinton campaign guy Brian Fallon call to “defund the police,” one can only look at them in amazement for the parody they have become of a sane adult as they frantically scramble to boost the latest absurd virtue signal of the most deranged elements of the left. One can almost hear people searching online for how to hire paramilitary private police forces for their suburban communities.

Flipping the Script

As Paul Mutsaers writes, in many ways BLM is a movement designed to change the individual focus of America’s “legal culture” to one of group concerns and grievances. The horrendous murders of Walter Scott, Philando Castile and many other black Americans have made frantic headline news for weeks, while the numerous brutal police slayings of white Americans (including unarmed white Americans) often go unreported and get filed away as just another statistic, although the massacres at Ruby Ridge and Waco in the 1990s managed to shock society as a whole nonetheless.

As Vox notes, black Americans are around three times more likely to be shot by police as white Americans. Despicable, get out your pitchforks. But wait, what is the rate of black American violent crime compared to white American violent crime? Well, 52 per cent of homicides recorded in the data between 1980 and 2008 were done by black Americans, who make up only 13 percent of the population.

Recent statistics are no more promising.

As Wall Street Journal reported, “In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.”

This passage should give pause to even the most outraged protester.

The Media Lies, People Die

It is understood that analysts and academics attribute this to social and economic problems as well as racial injustice of the past, but to not even mention higher black crime rates when talking about why so many black people are arrested or end up in tense situations with police is unconscionable journalistic fraud that should be disqualifying. Black Americans are being killed across the country in these riots, but the mainstream media doesn’t seem overly concerned about them. Are they “collateral damage” to the righteous expression of anger? The current riots have seen over 700 arrested and 132 officers injured in Chicago alone. 

The vast majority of black homicides are against other black people, something which the media tends to dismiss and rarely covers, as each murderous bloodbath of a weekend between black gangs rolls around in Chicago, often catching innocent passerby in the process. Where was the national uprising of outraged safe space saints when beloved (white) teacher Cynthia Trevillion was hit by a stray bullet while walking to dinner with her husband in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood? Where was the international media outrage about gang violence killing innocent people in American streets and often never being caught or held remotely accountable? That’s right: nowhere to be found apart from local and city news and among Trevillion’s devastated family, friends and former students.

What about looters being let out of jail the next day in New York due to bail reform laws? Or gunmen and rioters released from jail in St. Louis the night after staging a horrifying kill zone that took down four cops? Does that sound fair to people of any ethnicity? It sounds like criminal negligence and the fall of a republic.

Mainstream Media Hypocrisy and Incitement at All-Time Highs

How would CNN and CBS react if groups of peaceful, mostly white protesters assembled to rally against the lockdown? We already know, since it happened the last few weeks in Michigan and cable news was so breathless in its condemnations of the anti-lockdown protest and its “dangerous message” that they looked like they needed respirators. Yes, but many of the protesters had big weapons. Right, and did they fire them? Did these “anti-science rubes” engage in running street battles leading to multiple cops shot such as happened recently on the streets of St. Louis, MO? Imagine if even one white protester had discharged a firearm during anti-lockdown protests: the level of media hysteria would have started these riots against non-mask-wearers more quickly than the death of George Floyd was used to start this uprising.

Is BLM a Step Toward Black Pride and Black Rights?

Many pencil-armed Antifa members and BLM advocates with posters of Malcolm X on their wall seem not to realize that X would despise the way their main boost is coming from white establishment figures and how they are simply the biggest tools of the multinational capitalist system out there. Do you think X would want LA Mayor Eric Garcetti to bow down before him while “protesters” destroy black-owned businesses? Would he want Garcetti’s approval and veneration? Really? Certainly, early in his life X did advocate violent revolution, but he did so in the quest for black pride, separatism and nationhood, not as part of a journey to unleash anarchy and ruin the existing structure of society that could have been transformed into black communities based on strength and independence. Among its philosophy, BLM points to being very inclusive of everyone including white people who will accept everything they say as Gospel as well as accepting of queer and transgender people and globalism. How very intersectional.

X would have been repulsed by the fusion of social liberalism and black nationalism, just as Che Guevara would have gaped in disbelief at the socially liberal, pink-haired college kids talking about how gender isn’t real and wearing his t-shirt without understanding anything about his actual worldview apart from its economic portion.

The 2016 targeted murder of five Dallas police officers that injured nine others by New Black Panther and African American Defense League supporter Micah Xavier Johnson wasn’t a step toward black nationalism or black pride and independence: it was a horrifying act of terrorism that probably fueled race-based hate in the hearts of many white people and worsened the divide between white police officers and black citizens. Chances are that even the militant X would be repulsed by the constant victim-narrative coupled with nameless looters and rioters who sully the whole message for justice they are ostensibly seeking. Even if it is only 1% of protesters or less it speaks to the wildness of a mob and an inability of the group to control or discipline those who jump on the bandwagon or decide to head out for some late night looting and cop shooting.

All the property destruction, killing of black people like retired police officer David Dorn and the many police and civilians being injured — including by acts of police brutality in the case of McAtee — is not advancing the interests of the black community, but it would also be erroneous to imagine that most of the violence is not also being done by black extremists and is all attributable to dangerous — but pathetic — Antifa agitators and their rainbow-haired freak comrades, insane intersectional imbeciles, Maoist muppets and pathetic communist college miscreants. These people are certainly present and even dominating in some white-majority areas, but to think they are the main driver of the protests is as yet unproven and seems unlikely, although the danger of feral cats and brainwashed extremists should not be underestimated.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day the failure of authorities and particularly liberal governors to protect their cities as well as silently accept the sudden 180 degree turn on social distancing and quarantine is absolutely alarming.

As Leon Wolf put it recently of the enormous suffering people have endured under lockdown only to see now that apparently it was not mandatory: “God, I hope people are held responsible for this somehow.”

Did anybody excusing the violence and mass-spreading of COVID-19 around the United States — and other parts of the world — stop to think what black people think about black and white BLM extremists and anarchists unleashing hell on their businesses and community? This shouldn’t be a conservative talking point, it should be common sense: unfortunately much of the media has shut off their critical thinking as the price of career success at legacy and new media propaganda outlets.

The thing which should scare people is a future scenario in which a real authoritarian and dictator who doesn’t just want to sit back and blame others for a national crisis or go on a silly photo op with his generals comes into power: 1933 didn’t happen in a vacuum.