July 13, 2020
MY CORNER by Boyd Cathey
What is Black Lives Matter? Its History, Goals, and Operation
Friends,
How many times, maybe at church (if
yours is holding services) or at work or among relatives, have you been
confronted by someone, usually a Millennial, who defends “Black Lives Matter”
[BLM]? How often are you asked why you
don’t support that movement—that somehow because you disagree in any way you
don’t believe in the eminently American value of “equality”?
There are some neighborhoods in nearby
Raleigh, North Carolina, where nicely-printed “Black Lives Matter” sign have
sprouted up. And if you don’t place a sign in your yard, the neighbors wonder
and begin to talk…. Perhaps you’re a “racist” because you fail to “toe the
line,” the newly-imposed, unquestionable dogma on racism and white guilt and responsibility
of white people for everything that may be wrong with this nation.
There is a marked difference between,
on the one hand, supporting constitutional rights before the law, equal justice
for even the most helpless, and providing American citizens with opportunities
based on their aptitudes and abilities, and, on the other hand, an insane
assault on every tradition and basic principle on which our republic was founded
in the name of some amorphous and ill-defined revolutionary goals. Yet, in the
media and among most political leaders there is a fudging and mixing of the
template of “black lives” (like all citizens’ lives) matter and the specific
movement that goes by that name. And it is extremely difficult to see this situation
in any other way than intentional, for specific political purposes, serving the
interests of the elites who seek to assert full control over the United States
by using the BLM moniker.
What was once considered a loosely-organized,
fringe, extremist Marxist-dominated group has now become mainstream…and the Democratic
Party and many in the Republican Party have proceeded to embrace it and impose
its proposals on the American citizenry. From Republican US Senator Mike Braun
(Indiana), who endorsed BLM openly, to almost the totality of Democrats and the
entirety of the media, the movement has become the new “civil rights” movement
of the decade, untouchable, above serious criticism, a narrative imposed on us
all from above, and enforced by street mobs below, with our supposed defenders
in public office either succumbing to its demands or embracing its revolutionary hysteria.
I have selected several items which I
hope will provide some insight on the Black Lives Matter movement, its origins,
its praxis, and its goals. I believe these may be useful when you come across
that poorly educated (AKA, college “educated”) Millennial or brain-dead social
justice warrior…not that argumentation will make a difference or convince them;
public school and college education have already infected and perverted their
thinking. But just occasionally offering facts might have a difference.
First, from the Wikipedia, a bit of
history, basically straightforward:
*****
In the summer of 2013, after George Zimmerman's acquittal for the shooting
death of Trayvon Martin, the movement began with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. The
movement was co-founded by three black community organizers: Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Garza, Cullors
and Tometi met through "Black Organizing for Leadership &
Dignity" (BOLD), a national organization that trains community organizers. They began to question how they were going to respond to
what they saw as the devaluation of black lives after Zimmerman's acquittal.
Garza wrote a Facebook post titled "A Love Note to Black People" in
which she said: "Our Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter". Cullors
replied: "#BlackLivesMatter". Mounting attention on social media
around this hashtag led to the creation of BLM….
…Black Lives Matter has organized
thousands of protests and demonstrations. Expanding beyond street protests, BLM
has expanded to activism on American college campuses….
Black Lives Matter incorporates those
traditionally on the margins of black freedom movements. The Black Lives
Matter Global Network's website states that Black Lives Matter is "a
unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial
killings of Black people by police and
vigilantes". Embracing intersectionality, "Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer
and trans folks, disabled folks, black-undocumented
folks, folks
with records, women, and all Black
lives along the gender spectrum." All three founders of the Black
Lives Matter movement are women, and Garza and Cullors identify as queer. Additionally, Elle Hearns, one of the founding organizers of the global network, is
a transgender woman. The founders believe that their backgrounds have paved
the way for Black Lives Matter to be an intersectional movement. Several hashtags such as #BlackWomenMatter,
#BlackGirlsMatter, #BlackQueerLivesMatter, and #BlackTransLivesMatter have
surfaced on the BLM website and throughout social media networks. Marcia
Chatelain, associate professor of history at Georgetown University, has praised BLM for allowing "young, queer women [to]
play a central role" in the movement.…
…Alicia Garza described the network
as an online platform that existed to provide activists with a shared set of
principles and goals. Local Black Lives Matter chapters are asked to commit to
the organization's list of guiding principles but operate without a central
structure or hierarchy. Alicia Garza has commented that the Network was not
interested in "policing who is and who is not part of the movement”….
The loose structure of Black Lives
Matter has contributed to confusion in the press and among activists, as
actions or statements from chapters or individuals are sometimes attributed to
"Black Lives Matter" as a whole. Matt Pearce, writing for
the Los Angeles Times, commented that "the words could be serving as a political
rallying cry or referring to the activist organization. Or it could be the
fuzzily applied label used to describe a wide range of protests and
conversations focused on racial inequality."
Concurrently, a broader movement
involving several other organizations and activists emerged under the banner of
"Black Lives Matter" as well. For example, BLM is a member
organization of the Movement for Black
Lives established to respond to
sustained and increasingly visible violence against black communities in the
U.S. and globally by police. In 2015 Johnetta Elzie, DeRay Mckesson, Brittany Packnett, and Samuel Sinyangwe, initiated Campaign Zero, aimed at promoting policy reforms to end police brutality. The
campaign released a ten-point plan for reforms to policing, with
recommendations including: ending broken windows policing, increasing community oversight of police
departments, and creating stricter guidelines for the use of force....
Politico reported in
2015 that the Democracy Alliance, a gathering of Democratic-Party donors, planned to meet with
leaders of several groups who were endorsing the Black Lives Matter movement,
including the Black
Youth Project 100, the Black Civic Engagement Fund, the Center for
Popular Democracy, Color of Change and the Advancement Project.
In 2016, Black Lives Matter and a
coalition of 60 organizations affiliated with BLM called for decarceration in the
United States, reparations for slavery in the United States, an end
to mass surveillance, investment in public education not incarceration, and
community control of the police: empowering residents in communities of color
to hire and fire police officers and issue subpoenas, decide disciplinary
consequences and exercise control over city funding of police.
Black Lives Matter originally used
various social media platforms—including hashtag activism—to reach thousands of people rapidly. Since then, Black
Lives Matters has embraced a diversity of tactics….
BLM generally engages in direct action tactics that make people uncomfortable enough that they
must address the issue. BLM has been known to build power through protest
and rallies. BLM has also staged die-ins and held one during the 2015 Twin Cities Marathon….
According to a study from the Bureau of
Justice Statistics from 2002 to
2011, among those who had contact with the police, "blacks (2.8%) were
more likely than whites (1.0%) and Hispanics (1.4%) to perceive the threat or
use of nonfatal force was excessive."
In 2019, police officers shot and
killed 1,001 people. About half of those killed were white, and one quarter
were black. According to the The Washington Post,
"The rate at which black Americans are killed by police is more than twice
as high as the rate for white Americans.” However, author Heather Mac Donald argues:
“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.”
In 2019, the police fatally shot 14
unarmed blacks and 25 unarmed whites.
*****
Next, four additional articles which
offer a more investigative view of Black Lives Matter, its operation, and its
activities:
Marxists, Islamists and Radicals Behind the BLM Movement Hijack
America – While Others Sheepishly Comply
By Joe Hoft Published June 28, 2020 at 11:27am
We reported a month ago that recent riots in the US in
many Democrat-led cities around the country are hardly spontaneous. They are
coordinated. The groups behind these riots are linked to communists, Islamic
groups and the Democrat party.
A major problem is that many US politicians, the mainstream
media and companies are complying and supporting this hijacking.
…We now know the following groups are involved with this movement:
1. US Based Islamist groups
2. Marxists Both Domestic and Foreign
We know that China is doing all it can
to stoke the fires in the US (much like the Democrats and MSM proclaimed Russia
did in the 2016 election). China has an initiative to rule the media and
today’s media is certainly tied to China in ideology and reporting. We reported the following from a former CIA Operations Officer Charles “Sam” Faddis
who penned a post where he outlines China’s efforts to rule the media in the US
today. Below are pieces from his article published at andmagazine.com:
We are now weeks into what amounts to
a nationwide insurrection. Monuments have been defaced, statues toppled, and
the commercial centers of our great cities gutted. Yet, throughout, most of our mass media has characterized
violence and lawlessness on an unprecedented scale as “peaceful protests.” The
scope of the destruction has been concealed. The demands of the anarchists and
Marxists rampaging across America seemingly systematically mischaracterized simply
as demands for justice and reform.
What’s going on? How, in a nation
rooted in the rule of law and respect for the democratic process, have we
reached a point where violence and lawlessness are not only condoned but
championed? Why are the guardians of the First Amendment seemingly in league
with groups dedicated to destroying the existing social order?
Some of the explanation no doubt lies
in the fact that much of what passes for our mainstream media is simply so
blind in its hate for Donald Trump that it will support anyone and anything
that seems to oppose him. There are other factors at work, however, and some of
what is transpiring may, in fact, be due to a decidedly anti-American
agenda and the desire of a particular foreign actor not
only to damage this great nation but to promote its own particular ideology.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
uses propaganda and influence operations as a means of projecting its power and
weakening its enemies. Chief amongst the targets for these kinds of operations
is the United States. These operations are not run on some kind of ad hoc
basis. They are coordinated and directed at a national level by the CCP’s United Front Work Department.
The CCP’s United Front system mobilizes the party’s “friends” to
strike the party’s enemies. The system has existed for a long time, but it has
been greatly energized and expanded in recent years by Xi Jinping. It operates
inside foreign political parties, diaspora communities, colleges and
corporations, all with the goal of promoting the party’s interests. The express goals of the United Front system include undermining social cohesion, exacerbating racial
tension, and influencing politics.
3. Domestic Terrorists
Across the country we have seen
numerous incidents of domestic terrorists tearing the big cities apart from
groups like Antifa. In Portland, Oregon, Antifa showed up as was expected. The same in Washington DC where Antifa set a church on fire and attacked the people’s
house – the White House. In Santa Monica, Antifa set a police car on fire and chased the police away.
4. Democrats and their media lackeys
The problem with all of this is the
reaction from politicians and the mainstream media but also from US companies
and other organizations. In an effort to remain supportive of
the anti-discriminatory mindset, US companies are doing all they can to prevent
being labeled as ‘racists’. One action is to mandate that their
employees watch garbage videos created by BLM related groups which are paid for
the video.
(One such example is here – a horrible Anti-American video promoting a racist USA.)….
In addition, there is pressure on
companies to prevent any dissent from false, fraudulent, Anti-American,
dishonest, pro-communist messages in the MSM. Many companies, under
pressure for leftist-communist groups in turn put pressure on entities like
Facebook and Twitter to curtail pro-American conservative thought.
Facebook over the weekend announced that it will put more sanctions on conservative free speech,
like that reported at this site, in an attempt to comply with liberal, Marxist
and radical Islamic pressure. (Of course, the liberals at Facebook have
no problem with shutting down conservative pro-Trump messages. They’ve
been doing it for years.)
It’s clear that the recent riots around
the country are not spontaneous. They are coordinated and planned. There
is a very high probability these riots are related to the same individuals
involved in similar activities over the past year. It is becoming clear, these
people are related to US based Islamist Organizations, domestic terrorists and
others related to the Democrat Party. These people hate America.
*****
Race Stats for Protesters
Finally Come Out, Destroy Leftist Narrative
The headline of the news release from the Pew Research Center was a master
class in trying to make the headline fit the prevailing narrative: “Recent
protest attendees are more racially and ethnically diverse, younger than
Americans overall.”
“Large-scale protests and rallies for racial equality have
captured public attention and amplified calls for policy reforms in recent
weeks,” the Wednesday article began. “Some 6% of U.S. adults say they have
attended a protest or rally that focused on issues related to race or racial
equality in the last month, and those who have are more likely to be nonwhite
and younger than Americans overall, according to a recent Pew Research Center
survey. They are also more likely to live in an urban area and to identify with
or lean toward the Democratic Party.”
Let’s say you stopped reading there. What would be your takeaways
on the reading comprehension tests? a) Lots of people attended these protests.
b) Those people skewed nonwhite. c) They tended to be urban and Democratic in nature.
You’d only get a high-D, however — 67 percent right. As for what
you got correct: a) Yes, 6 percent is a high number. c) The crowds were urban
and tended to vote for Democrats. As for b) — well, let’s talk about that.
The Pew Research Center’s survey of protest-goers is heavily
dependent on what you’re willing to consider “more likely to be nonwhite and
younger than Americans overall.” Younger? Yes, definitely. “About four-in-ten
(41%) of those who say they recently attended a protest focused on race are
younger than 30; among all U.S. adults, 19% are in this age group,” Pew said.
“In turn, those ages 50 and older are underrepresented among the
protesters, while those ages 30 to 49 represent a similar share of those who
have attended a protest as they do of the adult population overall.” The
problem comes out when you look at how many people who attended protests that
were supposed to be about black people achieving racial justice were actually
black.
“Black Americans account for 17% of those who say they attended a
protest focused on race or racial equality in the last month, compared with
their 11% share of all adults in the survey,” the news release said. “Hispanic Americans account for 22% of recent
protest attendees, versus 15% of all adults. The difference is less pronounced
but still statistically significant when it comes to the share of protesters
who are Asian (8% vs. 5% of the adults surveyed). While 64% of U.S. adults are
white, just 46% of those who said they attended a protest focused on race in
the last month are white.”
The results came from a web survey
managed by Ipsos of 9,654 respondents between June 4 and June 10. The margin of
error was 1.6 percentage points.
So, the difference between the share of adult black respondents
and the percentage of black individuals in attendance at the protests in which
the Black Lives Matter movement played
a large part and which were perceived to be about black Americans standing up
for their rights was just 6 percentage points.
The vast majority of people who were protesting for racial
equality, in other words, weren’t black. This wasn’t at all like the skew of
Democrats-to-Republicans. “When it comes to political party affiliation, about
eight-in-ten (79%) of those who say they participated in a protest or rally
focused on race or racial equality in the last month identify with or lean
toward the Democratic Party, while just 17% say they are Republican or
Republican-leaning,” the news release said. [….]
While many black Americans may be
frustrated with their treatment by law enforcement, that’s largely not
who was protesting. The demonstrators, according to this survey, were within 5
percentage points of being majority white. But that’s not what the narrative
was — and that’s likely not what the narrative will remain. Facts and
narrative, however, are two very separate things, no matter how hard the Pew
Research Center wants to make them fit.
*****
BLM BUSTED – Disgusting Interview
Released…
June 22, 2020
(Gateway
Pundit) – Irami Osei-Frampong, a University of Georgia graduate student and
teaching assistant recently wrote that some white people may have to die before
black communities will be made whole. [Note: His name is spelled Irami
Osei-Frimpong on Twitter.] Osei-Frampong made the comments on Facebook and says
he’s confused on why his words are so controversial.
WSBTV
reported: “A University of Georgia graduate
student is getting criticism for comments he wrote on Facebook. The man at the
center of the controversy is Irami Osei-Frampong — a philosophy graduate
student employed by the university as a teaching assistant. He speaks
frequently about race and equality, but some critics believe he crossed the
line when he made a post online that stated, “Some white people may have to die
for black communities to be made whole.” Another social media post said:
“Fighting white people is a skill.” The teaching assistant told Channel 2’s
Tony Thomas he’s confused by the backlash. “I’m confused why that is so
controversial,” Osei-Frampong said. Osei-Frampong appeared on Cox Media Group
radio station WGAU Tuesday morning, insisting he’s not calling for violence,
but believes it should remain an option.”
You can't have a multi-racial working class
solidarity with a White population whose primary financial commitment is tied
to sustaining the racial hierarchy.
Getting poor bigots raises just makes them more effective bigots. 3:30 PM - Jun 21,
2020
thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/white-people-may-die-black-communities-made-whole-far-left-uga-teaching-assistant-black-lives-matter-movement/
*****
Black Lives Matter Leader:
‘If This Country Doesn’t Give Us What We Want, Then We Will Burn Down This
System’
Black Lives Matter greater New York Chair Hawk Newsome issued what
many have interpreted as a terroristic threat during his appearance on Fox News
Wednesday evening. Mr. Newsome told Fox News host Martha MacCallum that if
Black Lives Matter doesn’t get what they want, they will burn the system down.
“If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn
down this system and replace it…. I could be speaking figuratively. I could be
speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation.” said Newsome. Senior
legal advisor to Trump’s team Jenna Ellis said in response to Newsome’s
remarks, “Newsflash: The United States doesn’t negotiate with violent
terrorists.”
We already knew Black Lives Matter are radical neo-Marxists and
the co-founder confirmed it during an interview
last week. Patrisse Cullors, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter proudly
admitted she’s a radical, anti-white Marxist.
Black Lives Matter is seeking to transform America by defunding
the police, dismantling capitalism, ‘destroying the patriarchy,’ breaking down
the nuclear family unit, emptying prisons, redistributing wealth in the form of
reparations among other far left objectives.
Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioters have destroyed small businesses,
targeted churches and razed buildings to the ground.
Tonight one of the leaders of BLM openly threatened to burn down
the system if his people don’t get what they want.
Where is the FBI and DOJ??
