Ken Berwitz
An optimist would say theBlack Lives Matter movement is working. Even if there were no other signs ofprogress, the incessant, contorted attacks the movement now faces from theright would be evidence enough. Only a movement that’s making inroads woulddraw such ire and condemnation. So the criterion for optimism and progress is not that Black lives are any more valued, any better off than before, it is that “the right” opposes and attacks it. What a brilliant start.
A pessimist would say that conservative crazy-talktactic is working, drumming up fear among white Americans and turning the mostgalvanizing civil rights group of our time into a perceived threat. Amazing. Now we are being told that opposition is “conservative crazy-talk”, that opposing it is racist, and that #blacklivesmatter – which has no formal membership and is best known for marching in the streets either suggesting or demanding that cops die, after which there sometimes is rioting, looting and burning – is “the most galvanizing civil rights group of our time”. Did someone pipe hash smoke through the vents of the editorial board conference room while they wrote this?
On Fox News, Black Lives Matter is the newBenghazi, the newest favorite target of the panoply of conservativecommentators and conservative presidential candidates. The right has expandedits rhetoric from demonizing immigrants to accusing the civil rights movementof inciting violence against police officers. What a remarkable statement. Aside from barfing out more far-left standard-issue stereotypes (e.g. invoking the Fox News bogeyman, again singling out conservatives as the only ones against #blacklivesmatter and reminding us that they are evil racists), we are now told that this somehow ties to “demonizing immigrants” (no mention that virtually all opposition is to illegal immigrants, not legals) and that the group\’s inciting violence against police officers is nothing more than an accusation. Has anyone on the Post-Dispatch editorial board ever seen or heard the specific, in-so-many-words death threats against police that everyone else has? Have they not read – maybe not in the Post-Dispatch, but in newspapers that noticed – about the police officers who have been killed just in the past month or two? I guess not.
Black Lives Matter seeks justice within the criminaljustice system not only for unarmed blacks killed by police but also for themany blacks killed by other blacks whose cases go unsolved, often because theyare just swept under the rug. Uh….#blacklivesmatter cares only about Black deaths it can mine for racial agitation. It does not care whether those deaths were justified (or do you still believe Michael Brown was surrendering with his hands up, begging Officer Wilson not to shoot). And it couldn\’t give two craps about the vast majority of Blacks killed, because they are killed by other Blacks, which does not fit their narrative. Wake up.
Black Lives matter is not about creatingdivisions. It is not about scapegoating police. It isabout bringing diverse Americans together for a just cause. It is a multi-facedfront: black, LGBT, clergy of many faiths, millennials of all races and individualsof varied economic backgrounds and ages. What a remarkably obtuse, naive load of BS. The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board may be ready to confer sainthood on the #blacklivesmatter movement, and may think that it is some huge organization which is embraced by just about everyone but those crazy conservatives and Fox viewers, but, in truth, it is none of those things. It is a small group of racial agitators, cop haters and racists – a good many appearing to fit all three categories – who can gather up a few hundred people to chant hate-slogans and then either either watch the rioting, burning and looting which has accompanied their actions in Saint Louis, Baltimore and New York among other places, or join in the fun. The fact that the Post-Dispatch joins so many other mainstream media venues in trying to build it into more is another story.
That covers about half the idiotorial, and is more than enough to explain why I call it an idiotorial. But there is plenty more, which you can use the link I\’ve provided and read if you care to.
