[1]“Black Lives Matter.” At first blush, it seems difficult to imagine anyone taking issue with the obvious, self-evident truth articulated by those three simple words. But when we peel away the veneer of deception, we find that Black Lives Matter (BLM) is in fact one of the most destructive, hateful, racist movements in living memory. Founded by a core group of revolutionaries who detest the United States and revere the nation’s most devoted radical enemies, BLM is, at its essence, an ideological reincarnation of the Black Panther [2] movement that flourished in the Sixties.
Black Lives Matter was established [3] two years ago in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the “white Hispanic [4]” who was tried for murder and manslaughter vis-à-vis the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin. According to BLM, Zimmerman’s act was but a microcosm of the “virulent [5] anti-Black racism” that “permeates our society” and continues to exacerbate [6] “the deep psychological wounds of slavery, racism and structural oppression.”
Emphasizing [6] the permanence of America’s depredations, BLM maintains that: (a) our nation’s “corrupt democracy” was originally “built on Indigenous genocide and chattel slavery” and “continues to thrive on the brutal exploitation of people of color”; (b) “the ugly American traditions of patriarchy, classism, racism, and militarism” pervade every aspect of our society; (c) “structural oppression [6]” still “prevents so many from realizing their dreams”; and (d) blacks in the U.S. are routinely “de-humaniz[ed] [5]” and targeted for “extrajudicial killings … by police and vigilantes” in our “white supremacist system.”
You see, “Black Lives Matter” means a whole lot more than just “Black Lives Matter.”
The lead founder of BLM is Alicia Garza, a young woman who candidly reveres [3] Assata Shakur—the Marxist revolutionary [7], former Black Panther, and convicted cop-killer whose 1979 escape to Fidel Castro’s Cuba was facilitated by the Weather Underground Organization [8] and the Black Liberation Army. Others whom Garza praises [9] for their “extraordinary” accomplishments include Angela Davis [10] (a Marxist and former Black Panther); Ella Baker (an avowed socialist [11] who had ties [12] to the Communist Party USA [13] and the Weather Underground); Audre Lorde [14] (a black Marxist lesbian feminist); and Fannie Lou Hamer [15] of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [16], a ’60s group that urged blacks to embrace “Black Power,” “fill [them]selves with hate for all things white,” “wage guerrilla war [17] on the honkie white man,” and “burn America down.”
In recent months, you’ve likely heard some commentators—generally in reaction to black killings of fellow blacks or of police officers—tweak Garza’s signature catch-phrase to suggest that “All Lives Matter.” But this type of ideological deviation is unacceptable to Miss Garza, who reminds us that blacks “are uniquely [3], systematically, and savagely targeted by the state” in a way that no other people are. “[S]tand with us in affirming Black lives,” she declares. “Not just all lives. Black lives. Please do not change the conversation by talking about how your life matters, too.” The “tired trope that we are all the same,” Garza elaborates, serves only to “perpetuate a level of White supremacist domination.”
“Black Lives Matter”? You bet. Other lives? Screw you.
Another of BLM’s co-founders, Patrisse Cullors, is a self-identified “freedom fighter [18]” who advocates [19] dramatically “reducing the law-enforcement budget” and forcing some police departments to be entirely “disbanded or abolished.” “With a reduction of law-enforcement money,” says Cullors, “we can then be putting it back into Black communities”—i.e., government-funded programs that provide “black folks” with “jobs,” “housing,” and “healthy food.” In other words, a Marxist paradise filled with dutiful slaves who are entirely dependent upon Washington.
The third and final co-founder of BLM, Opal Tometi, is [20] a “Black feminist writer” and “cultural organizer” who contends [21] that “the racist structures that have long oppressed Black people” perpetuate a “cycle of oppression” that “allows [21] law enforcement to kill Black people at nearly the same rate as Jim Crow lynchings” once occurred in the Old South.
To improve the allegedly abysmal condition of blacks in the United States, BLM has issued a series of non-negotiable demands [22]. These include: (a) “an immediate end to police [6] brutality”; (b) “full, living-wage employment for our people”; (c) “decent housing [6]”; (d) “freedom from mass incarceration [6]”; (e) “a public education [6] system that teaches the rich history of Black people”; and (f) “the release [6] of all U.S. political prisoners.” Most of these demands are modeled, sometimes word-for-word, on those that were articulated by the Black Panthers in the 1960s.
Recently, BLM sponsored [23] a panel discussion on “Policing, Race, and Injustice,” featuring a talk by former New Black Panther Party chairman Malik Shabazz [24]. That’s the same Malik Shabazz who has openly advocated a race war in America; who has exhorted blacks to avenge police shootings of African Americans by creating “funeral[s] in the police community”; who refers to “the white man” as black people’s “common enemy”; who characterizes America’s founders as nothing more than a loathsome pack of “Indian killers, slave traders, [and] slave owners”; and who praised Osama bin Laden after 9/11 as a Muslim “brother” and “a bold man” who was bravely “standing up” for his beliefs and “bringing reform to this world.”
Have you noticed that the supporters of BLM are able to recite the names of their sainted martyrs—Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Timothy Russell, Malissa Williams, etc.—as easily you can name the members of your own immediate family? Notably, however, they can’t name any of the 6,000 black Americans whose lives are snuffed out each year by black killers. Those unfortunate, anonymous souls, you see, aren’t worth a damn to the BLM crowd, because their deaths can’t be exploited to gin up hatred against white cops, or to spark race riots in the streets. So while the names and likenesses of Trayvon, Eric, Michael, Freddie, and the rest are emblazoned on t-shirts [25], hoodies [26], and banners [26] bearing the “Black Lives Matter” slogan, BLM views victims of black crime—whatever the race of those victims—as worthy of adorning nothing more than a roll of toilet paper.
“Black Lives Matter” is a misnomer. A more accurate name would be “Black Lives Matter if They’e Terminated by a White Person or a Cop; All Other Black Lives Can Go to Hell.” It doesn’t roll quite so easily off the tongue, but it’s exactly what BLM believes.
