The Problem with Black Lives Matter, the Organization and the Slogan

That black lives matter is not a controversial opinion. In 2020 United States of America, well over 99 percent of the population agrees with this idea. Yet since March 25 and the death of African-American George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer, this slogan has been chanted, chalked on the sidewalk, spray-painted on buildings, and parroted by cowed corporations and obedient politicians as if nobody already agrees with it.

There is no controversy here. Only a handful of completely irrelevant and powerless individuals in this country are not sickened by the torture endured by George Floyd. Most communities in this country would have been happy to reexamine their police procedures immediately and without argument, so horrified was the public by the video of Floyd begging to breathe. There was no actual need to organize thousands to flood the streets of major American cities to protest Floyd's unlawful death.

There was no need for every corporation, from candy manufacturers to zoos, to assure their customers that they agree that Black Lives Matter and that they oppose all forms of racism. There are plenty of laws on the books to ensure these corporations do not practice any form of racism. On top of that, they all live in dread fear that even the most trivial racial episode might blow up on the Internet and ruin their stock prices. Let us remember Starbucks had to temporarily close all of its stores because a black individual was refused the use of a bathroom. It was immaterial that this individual was not even a customer of the store.

We need have no fear of racism occurring at any level of our government, private businesses, or even, in some cases, during private conversations. Let us remember Donald Sterling, former owner of the LA Clippers, whose girlfriend taped him without his knowledge or consent, during which conversation he made racist remarks. He was banned for life from the NBA and fined $2.5 million. For a private conversation.

But even without the threat of legal action or public opprobrium, most people in this country are basically decent and don't wish to oppress anyone. Far-left white activists and Hollywood sort-of celebrities admonish themselves and others with low melanin levels in their skin to check the ugly racism lurking in their soul, but this is more of a religious exercise (and a virtue-signalling indulgence) than a necessary purging of national evil.

Most of us would like to see a nation united in racial harmony where people can live in freedom and liberty, able to fulfill themselves through decent productive work. Nobody wants to see unarmed or harmless individuals hurt or killed by the police, no matter what skin color they have, sexual orientation, or any other distinguishing characteristic. We all agree on this.

Thus the insistent refrain that "Black Lives Matter" very quickly starts to sound like an indictment of nonblacks. The increasingly vehement repetition heavily implies that we had to be told this. We hadn't previously agreed with it. We have all been disgusting racists - merely by virtue of the color of our own skin.

It starts to sound pretty darn racist itself. You know, indicting a whole group for a perceived sin simply because of the color of their skin.

It is not surprising, then, that the group organizing itself around this phrase, Black Lives Matter, exhibits strong racist overtones. This is not the end of issues any fair-minded person would have with the organization, however. It has a history of deep anti-Semitism and appears hostile to fundamental American principles of justice and liberty.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) started as a hashtag in 2013 following the acquittal in Florida of George Zimmerman, accused of murdering a black teenager who'd been walking in Zimmerman's neighborhood. It soon became a loose organization with a website. Their overarching goal was to end perceived racist and state-approved harm to black people. Their assumption was and remains that all inequalities in outcomes for blacks is caused by racism. No other possible reason can be considered.

The organization coordinated protests following the 2014 police shooting of African American Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, which were followed by weeks of violent riots. BLM's assumption was that if a white police officer had shot a black man, then the reason must have been the violent institutional racism of the police. An FBI investigation, done during the Obama administration, later determined that the alleged fact asserted by BLM was not true - that Brown had his hands up at the time of the shooting. A jury found the policeman had shot in self defense.

BLM continues to support their view of the Brown case to this day.

In 2016, BLM ran into trouble with Jewish organizations when BLM published a lengthy treatise of principles on their website. Included was a page entitled "Invest-Divest," with a host of oft-refuted canards against the Jewish state of Israel. "The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people," stated BLM's website. They also claimed, "Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people." There is no evidence to prove either of these ugly statements. They are garden-variety anti-Semitic slurs, with Israel as the useful stand-in for the Jewish people.

Even the Anti-Defamation League, once a champion of Jewish rights but now an adjunct of the far-left Democratic Party, had to complain about BLM's stance. They went so far as to call BLM's position "repellent and completely inaccurate."

Today, BLM is a well-organized activist group, and their website has been sanitized and streamlined. Clearly receiving advice from top public relations consultants, they have excised lengthy statements regarding ancillary issues - in particular those about Israel; Jews are an important and eager financial ally, after all - and carefully craft the claims they do make in vague language.

But the anti-Semitism pervasive in the organization made itself prodigiously manifest in the violence perpetrated against visibly Jewish properties in the riots following BLM's march on May 30, 2020 in the Fairfax district. Arson and looting followed a peaceful BLM march, with 5 synagogues and 3 Jewish schools vandalized along with significant damage to shops and other businesses. One local merchant witnessed people in cars screaming "effing Jews" as they drove down the Jewish district's streets. "F* Israel" and "Free Palestine" were graffitied onto one synagogue.

BLM has issued no statement distancing themselves from these acts. On their website, their inherent racism against all whites and not just Jews manages to show through the polish. On one page readers are advised to make this one a "Black" Christmas. "We are calling for a boycott of White capitalism and #BuildBlackCommunity. This means no spending with White corporations" from Thanksgiving to New Year's," the website reads.

It is one thing to urge people to support their own community financially. It is another to demand the specific boycott of businesses of another race, as if by virtue of their race, these individuals are less worthy or harbor some guilt. The use of a capital letter to denote race, both black and white, is not mere frivolity but a deliberate attempt to elevate the idea of race above all other possible bonds that might unite people.

Also evident in the Christmas admonition is BLM's underlying Marxist ideology. They oppose capitalism, which is apparently an expression of attempted white supremacy. On other pages of the website, the group denounces the nuclear family as "Western-prescribed" and vow to free ourselves from "the tight grip of heteronormative thinking." They "do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege."

Clearly, BLM's agenda goes beyond fighting for black rights.

Their current mantra is "Defund the Police." In keeping with the general tone of aggrievedness, where the harms suffered by black people in the United States is magnified (there is "rampant and deliberate violence inflicted on us by the state") and other possible causes of unequal outcome are ignored, BLM's website claims "systemic racism allows this culture of corruption to go unchecked and our lives to be taken."

It simply isn't possible that Derek Chauvin might be one horrific human being - and not the product of some highly organized white capitalist global conspiracy against black people, acted out through the state-run police departments. Nor does BLM acknowledge that every police department in the country immediately decried the treatment Chauvin meted George Floyd. None of them supported it.

The truth is that BLM's racism is actually most vigorous toward black people. With the soft racism of low expectations, the group keeps blacks viewing themselves as victims with no hope of success without the assistance of their oppressors. According to BLM, money from defunded police departments should be redirected to "our communities" to "ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive." Without taxpayer dollars, blacks can neither thrive nor even survive.

The idea that black lives matter is obvious and needs no marches through the streets or violence to convince anyone. The demand that everyone repeat the statement amounts to offensive bullying. The organization Black Lives Matter needs the support of no one because their motives are unfounded and their goals are threatening to all who support true equality and opportunity and a real end to racism.