The Happenings:
Deray McKesson is the leader of the activist group "Black Lives Matter". He's running for Mayor of my hometown Baltimore, MD. His platform reflects the mission of his activist group BLM.
Although Reed Hastings (CEO of Netflix) and Omid Kordestani (Twitter Exec) donated a trivial sum of $6000 each, it's support non-the-less for such a controversial movement.
Whether or not these individuals or the companies they represent actually support McKesson or BLM is irrelevant. They obviously want you to think they do.
What exactly is the mission of the BLM Movement?:
Quoted directly from the BLM website:
"When we say Black Lives Matter, we are broadening the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. We are talking about the ways in which Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity."
"#BlackLivesMatter is working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. We affirm our contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression. We have put our sweat equity and love for Black people into creating a political project–taking the hashtag off of social media and into the streets. The call for Black lives to matter is a rallying cry for ALL Black lives striving for liberation."
According to them, "black lives matter" specifies the injustices as follows:
- How Black poverty and genocide is state violence
- How 2.8 million Black people are locked in cages in this country is state violence.
- How Black women bearing the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families is state violence.
- How Black queer and trans folks bear a unique burden from a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishizes us and profits off of us, and that is state violence.
- How 500,000 Black people in the US are undocumented immigrants and relegated to the shadows.
- How Black girls are used as negotiating chips during times of conflict and war.
- How Black folks living with disabilities and different abilities bear the burden of state sponsored Darwinian experiments that attempt to squeeze us into boxes of normality defined by white supremacy, and that is state violence.
I disagree because I'm not a Racist:
- The use of the term genocide is a bit extreme in this scenario. Genocide suggests an intentional homicide of a group of individuals solely because of their ethnicity or beliefs. The burden of proving genocide is on the claimant in this case and if this were true, attributing it to "State Violence" is a bit redundant. But Poverty is only a form of "State Violence" if you're black?
- America has the highest incarceration rate in the entire world. This is a legitimate problem. Non-violent crimes carrying mandatory minimum sentences and the privatization of the prison system is a huge problem here. Again, the fallacy here is that incarceration is only State Violence if you are black.
- This notion is self-insisting. Obviously what is bad for the Black Community does not exclude females. Why is this listed separately as if it is mutually exclusive of the previous arguments?
- This is clearly a direct notion provided by McKesson himself as a gay black man. Can anyone even provide any sort of legitimate context to this? Even if context is provided , it's only State Violence if you are black. I think we see the trend now.
- If you're in the US and you're undocumented you're legally defined as an "illegal immigrant". You're obviously going to "relegate to the shadows" if you're doing something illegal.
- Now we're extending the cause to include non-state allegations by referring to something that isn't a domestic issue. Would it not be more wise to solve the domestic problems before advocating international policies? These clauses that bear little relevance to previously alleged "State Violence" is where the objectives lose value. You can't fix Africa with a broken America, can you?
- This is purely subjective. If someone want's to provide a context, please do.
The recurring theme is that socioeconomic issues that plague all ethnic groups are essentially being redefined in as "State Violence" only when they occur to a member of the black community. That is Racist.
The Facts:
1. From 2009 - 2012, there were 59,259 total homicides with about 19,000 being the killing of black males.
2. Of these 19,000 black male killings, 89.6% were committed by another black male. Only 2.5% were the result of police force.
3. From 2009 - 2012: While about 57.9% of individuals killed in legal self-defense were black males, 73.1% were killed by other black males.
From 2009 - 2012: Black males constituted only 6% of the total US population, yet comprised 33.8% of all murder victims, 89.6 of which were at the hands of another black male. Of the legal justified killings of black males, 73.1% were done by black citizens. Only 2.5% of black Americans killed were the result of police force, whether armed or unarmed.
The biggest threat to a black man is another black man. Does black lives matter really care about black lives? Do any of their objectives attempt to address the underlying issue of black on black violence and its social repercussions? Is any legislation going to change what is clearly a cultural issue?
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