No, and let’s ignore all that pious blather about dialogues and discussions as well, if not more so. Most of these innocent sounding calls for “conversations” about race are hypocritical traps designed to serve one of two purposes: either to signal the virtue and purity of the persons issuing the invitation or to draw simple minded people into show trials where colorless people (CPs) confess and people of color (POCs) accuse. Future generations (assuming they fight their way back to clear thinking) will recognize the first decades of the twenty-first century as a period characterized by gibbering on a national scale. The favored forms of gibbering are slogans full of meaning in which slogan-slingers believe passionately but can’t define.
“Black Lives Matter” started as a phrase throbbing with pathos. A video of George Floyd dying a horrible death beneath the knee of officer Chauvin charged BLM with a huge surge of energy. I’d guess the number of BLM signs, graffiti, and bellowings runs into the millions by now. We know it has a special meaning which “all lives matter” would corrupt and “white lives matter” would defile. Sometimes we may hear reasons why this is so, but most people don’t know what they are. They just know that there are reasons so clear and conclusive that no one really needs to know them.
How many people have found their way to the Black Lives Matter website. Any? How many reporters, editorialists, and pundits have found it? Any? These are rhetorical questions, but my readers can answer them. Do they know anyone who has taken advantage of their internet connections to check it out?
I can help here. Find your way to https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/ and you can read a lot of things that you won’t find in the Muddy Stream Media. The BLM tells us that they were enraged by the death of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman. A year later their “Black Lives Matter Freedom Ride” to Ferguson, Missouri in search of justice for Mike Brown inspired them to return home and began building the infrastructure for a Black Lives Matter Global Network.
“Ferguson,” their website tells us [helped] “to catalyze a movement to which we’ve all helped give life. The organizers boast that their network has ousted anti-Black politicians, won critical legislation to benefit Black lives, and changed the terms of the debate on Blackness around the world.”
The BLM website doesn’t mention that Eric Holder, the first Black United States Attorney General, appointed by Barack Obama, the first Black American president, had this to say about justice for Mike Brown: “Michael Brown’s death though tragic did not involve prosecutable conduct by Officer Wilson,” this attorney general admitted. “These findings may not be consistent with some people’s expectations.” The BLM propagandists expectations were clearly not met. They adjusted to their disappointment by omitting any reference to Holder or Obama. The “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” theme was too useful to be undermined by facts. So they went right on running around with their hands up.
Although their emphasis on Black suffering and white guilt are the primary source of BLM influence their site is determined to include all current ultra-progressive appeals in their manifesto. Here are five examples and how they pitch to every American victim group.
“We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”
“We foster a queer-affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of hetero-normative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).”
“We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbelief, immigration status, or location. We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead. We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence. We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.”
“We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.”
Old folks have some grievances too, so they naturally have a pitch for them. Thus: “We cultivate an intergenerational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, show up with the capacity to lead and learn.”
These precious sentiments tell us that the BLM membership is not recruited exclusively from the ‘hood’. It includes some sure enough intellectuals. “We practice empathy.” They tell us “We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.” I’ve had hundreds of Black students from towns in Middlesex County, NJ. Never heard any of them talk about connecting with contexts. Same applies to white, Hindu, Moslem, Korean, or Chinese students. None of them use academical lingo in my experience.
John Frary of Farmington, the GOP candidate for U.S. Congress in 2008, is a retired history professor, an emeritus Board Member of Maine Taxpayers United, a Maine Citizen’s Coalition Board member, and publisher of FraryHomeCompanion.com. He can be reached at jfrary8070@aol.com.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
