The Black Lives Matter Movement: The Preening of Petulant Millennials vs. Actually Accomplishing Anything

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I remember once hearing a question posed by some would be philosopher: “If you could do something that cured all of the ills of the world, but only if someone you despised would get the credit, would you do it?” It’s an interesting question with a number of elements to it. Are you really a humanitarian or do you just want to be seen as such? What’s more important, your legacy or the lives of others? Are you able to overcome petty jealousy for the “greater good”? Of course as it’s a hypothetical question you can answer and gain all of the approval without actually having to do anything.

I couldn’t help but think about that question when I read about a group of Black Lives Matter protesters shutting down Chicago’s Magnificent Mile shopping district on Black Friday. The protests were in response to the killing of Laquan McDonald by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke. Shouting “No Justice, No Shopping” the protesters were demanding the resignation of the mayor, the police commissioner and the prosecutor. Their crimes? Not releasing the dashcam video earlier and taking too long to charge Van Dyke. He had been charged earlier in the week. Whether there was obstruction somewhere, we will see. Justice may be moving slowly, but the system is working.

But of course that doesn’t matter to the BLM protesters. The goal of the BLM movement is not to save black lives but rather to give protesters a feeling of making a difference while actually doing nothing. If the goal of the BLM movement was to save black lives, they would be protesting the murder of 9 year old Tyshawn Lee by a black gang member who targeted him because his father was in a rival gang. If the goal of the BLM was to save black lives they would be protesting the murder of another 9 year old, Jamyla Bolden, who was doing her homework at home when she was killed by a black man with a history of violence. If the goal of the BLM was to save black lives they would be protesting the drive by shooting of 10 year old Marlon Eason by two black gang members. But of course they’re not. We don’t see attempts to close down highways in Washington or restaurants in Atlanta to protest those killings.

Why? Because focusing on those kinds of things would take courage, would require more than facile sloganeering. The thing that distinguishes the BLM movement from real civil rights heroes of the last century is that men and women like Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, John Lewis and thousands of others did what they did in the face of real racism and threats of real violence… when police were spraying them with fire hoses, siccing 100 lb dogs on them and beating them with clubs. And those were just the government officials in front of the cameras. With the killings of Medgar Evans, Wharlest Jackson, four little girls in a Birmingham Baptist church and many others it became clear that it wasn’t only racist police that had to be feared but Klansmen and others seeking to stop the march of civil rights at any cost. Despite all of that, there were tens of thousands of people across the country who marched and sat in and sued for equal rights. That was courage. And it made a difference.

What we see today from the BLM movement and much of the left is not only not courageous, it’s nonsensical… in addition to being a disgrace to the memory and history of real civil rights heroes. It’s easy to picket a store where people are just trying to do their Christmas shopping and few are going to bother trying to cross your lines when they can simply choose Amazon. It’s easy to sit down in a bucolic Ivy League library and spew epithets until the targets simply go away. It’s easy to go on strike if your football team is so bad it doesn’t have anything to play for in the first place. While these are all courageous “civil rights” actions in the eyes of the lefties, most importantly, they can get activists seen on TV, pretending to make a difference. But make no mistake… They’re not making a difference. They’re not fighting for the right to vote. They’re not fighting for equal access to schools and universities. They’re not fighting to remove Jim Crow laws. No, these “civil rights” activists are fighting for “safe spaces” where they won’t get their feelings hurt. They’re fighting for “justice” for Michael Brown, an 19 year old black man who was killed while attacking a police officer after he had committed a robbery. They’re fighting to take names off buildings of men whose lives did not comport to modern values.  They’re fighting to remove flags they find offensive.

Which brings us back to the initial question… Do BLM protesters truly want to do things of consequence that might actually help improve the lives of black Americans or do they simply seek glory? Count one for vanity. Picket gangs who are killing hundreds of young black men and women and children each year? Nope. Organize voters to dump leftist Democrats whose progressive policies have victimized urban communities across the country and saddled them with failing schools, high taxes, staggering crime and stultifying unemployment? Nope. Fight to repair black families where 72% of all children are born to single mothers? Of course not.

We don’t hear much of that, if any, because the BLM movement isn’t about finding solutions to the challenges that many blacks face in America. No, the BLM movement is an attempt by petulant millennials and other SJWs to find their inner Kim Kardasian so that people will pay attention to them and they can pretend that they are making a difference. They are making a difference, but it’s not the one they think it is. Take a look at Baltimore, Ferguson, Chicago and New York and see what’s happening with crime in general and murder in particular after the movement demonized police. The majority of the victims of those crimes are black men and women and children, many of whom are just trying to make their way through their daily lives of work or school or raising a family. They are doing so do so in crime riddled Democrat communities enabled by “activists” like those from BLM who focus attention on easy targets where they know they will encounter little resistance, but in the end accomplish less than nothing.

They do have one thing right however. There are problems in black communities across the country. The problem is not police however. The problem is not white racism or institutional racism. While those problems will crop up now and again, the real problems of black communities have much more to do with family breakdown, failing schools, black on black crime and individual responsibility – problems shared by the larger population but which seem to disproportionately cripple black communities. And of course government strangulation of freedom and opportunity.  But those are tough issues which don’t lend themselves to empty headed sloganeering like “Hands Up!  Don’t Shoot!”.

Fittingly, the patron saint of the BLM movement is Barack Obama, the king of obfuscation, misdirection and failure. Perhaps when he is a “retired statesman” the country will finally have had enough of the tyranny of “community organizers” and “activists” who seek not to make real change, but rather to wrap themselves in the cloak and glory of “civil rights” as they seek to loot the public treasury and silence opposition. Something good from Barack Obama… finally!

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Like the quest for “sensible gun control”, BLM screams and riots to solve a problem that does not exist and, therefore, will not be resolved. So, BLM protests will be perpetual; there will always be a black person killed by police… because, due to the conditions set up by the left, blacks will continue to be committing most of the crimes and acting vengefully while committing them. So, this feeds the BLM need for disruption which will feed the black animosity against lawfulness…. etc, etc, etc.

Almost as ironic as protesting killing at a Planned Parenthood facility is the BLM protesting of unjust killing in Chicago. Only the left could be so audacious.

Still nothing to say about the Christian terrorist attack on the Planned Parenthood clinic?

Can any members of blm speak English, write a complete sentence, know how many illigetament kids they have, who is their real daddy, have an income, or sell drugs.
stupidity is abound in this cauldron of illiteracy.
Noting will change, cut off all welfare checks for six months, cancel all of the fool’s free cell phone users on welfare. Cut off all food stamp programs for six months.
Now this is Keynesian economics at its finest.

What might that black teenager, high on drugs and holding a knife, have done to a black victim IF police hadn’t stopped him by shooting him to death?
Sure, we may never know.
One thing is sure, however.
IF shooting him even once was justifiable, so was emptying an entire magazine into him.
I cannot imagine if we could see the alternate trees of possibilities how that saved victim would be grateful to police that his/her attacker is dead.

People not as lucky as the would-be victim on this particular criminal:
http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/homicides

I guess not.

@Bill: Are you saying because abortions are being performed at this PP facility it’s O.K. to go in with guns blazing?
Does anyone here believe that—stand up please.

@Jeff D: Where is your verification that Dear shot up the abortion clinic in the name of Christianity? Where is your verification that he is a Christian? Don’t pull a hamstring jumping to the conclusions you would like to see, dummy.

@Rich Wheeler:

Are you saying because abortions are being performed at this PP facility it’s O.K. to go in with guns blazing?
Does anyone here believe that—stand up please.

Are you FAMILIAR with the word “ironic”?

@Jeff D: You mean the democrat, transgendered leftist who shot people outside the child killing center and then ran inside it to hide? This democrat, transgendered leftist did not shoot any of the baby killers.

Right wingers add 1 plus 1 and get 3 all the time. All I’m doing is the same sort of arithmetic.

@Jeff D: No they don’t and no you aren’t. You are lying in order to try and turn a tragedy into a political asset. Each and every time there is a shooting, you on the left try to find a Tea Party or Republican element to exploit, but it usually comes up liberal.

@Jeff D: Where are you getting that he was motivated by religion? There have been no motives released, they did not say this guys shanty was filled with bibles, he did not scream this is for Jesus when he committed this terrible act.
There are atheists that are sickened at the parting out of babies ripped from a womb too.

@Wade Smith: Why do you suppose this “Dem” was handing anti-Obama literature to his neighbor?
Did you know transgendered Kaitlyn/Bruce Jenner is a Republican?
I think we all agree this guy has serious problems—beyond that, why make stuff up?.

@Rich Wheeler: The report on the transgender leftist has been debunked, my thinking is it was a really crappy strike against those who leap that this guy was a christian rightwing ect… best placed in the Onion pages.

@Rich Wheeler:

Why do you suppose this “Dem” was handing anti-Obama literature to his neighbor?

http://www.inquisitr.com/217466/8-liberal-celebs-turned-sour-on-obama/

Did you know transgendered Kaitlyn/Bruce Jenner is a Republican?

Did you know that the vast majority of transgenders identify as liberal?

Why is it so important to show this guy to be a conservative? Guilt?

@Bill: Transgender BS Thanks Kitt.
Libs turned on BHO because he’s too Conservative–lol

@Jeff D: That’s just a moronic libturd comment that requires nothing to be said!!

@Rich Wheeler: Who said libs turned on Obama because he was too conservative? Maybe not liberal enough, but most (not just high-profile, dim-witted celebrities) have turned on him because he lies far too much.

Or, because he is black? Do you like that one?

@Bill: Not Lib enough/ too Conservative—semantics.
Because he’s Black?—that would be your tribe–from the gitgo.

@Rich Wheeler:

It’s your tribe (political party) that thinks blacks are too stupid to run their own lives so your tribe believes that the government should do it for them. It’s also your tribe that supports Planned Parenthood abortion clinics being placed conveniently in minority neighborhoods so poor, desperate, minority women will seek out a doctor that is willing to take a life, not save one.

If your tribe could not play the race card, your tribe would never win another election but your tribe is so stupid, and racist themselves, they can’t comprehend that some one would dislike this president, not because of his race, but because he is inept and is doing his level best to destroy our great nation.

What do you call someone who lies about what another person said? Does this fit:

LIAR

Duty, honor, country. Guess you forfeited the “honor” part.

@retire05: Liar –it fits you perfectly 05.
IN FACT If you’ll promise to stop telling lies about me I’ll promise to stop telling the truth about you.

@Rich Wheeler:

I did not lie about you, you lied about me. But you don’t have the honor to admit it.

And just what “truth” do you think you know about me? You know nothing about me. All you do is spin the truth and throw accusations at others. IOW, you’re a typical liberal.

@retire05:Same ol same ol.

Straight question–You’ve said this crazy shot people in the street–Do you think maybe he just wandered into PP and took hostages because he was on his rampage in the vicinity? Seriously.
I say wait till the truth comes out, then PUBLISH it.

We could make our own little story as to his motives, the propane tank he was carrying, the 3 in the parkinglot outside wouldnt tell him where the 7/11 was for exchange so he offed them for a fossil fuel, therefore…must be global warming.
Or maybe we can wait for a statement from the nutjob.

@Rich Wheeler:

Why is your side, and the complicit media, calling it the “Planned Parenthood” shooting? The shooter didn’t harm anyone inside the Planned Parenthood office. He shot people outside, including killing a cop. Why not call it the “name the street” shooting?

You know why. Rahm Emanuel told you why. Never let a crisis go to waste, remember?

I don’t know why the guy did what he did. Maybe he’s nuts. Maybe he just doesn’t like businesses on that particular street. Maybe he thinks he’s Napoleon. But the left is going nuts calling it the “Planned Parenthood” shooting to get as much traction out of it as they can. So while you may wait for the answers that will eventually come, your “tribe” is not. And not a peep from you condemning them for jumping the gun.

@retire05: I don’t know why the guy did what he did.

Me, neither.
But he didn’t target PP.
He shot people nearer the bank.
He holed up inside PP but didn’t shoot anyone there.
He lived out-of-state right up until pot became legal in Colorado.
Then he moved into Colorado and lived so poor he didn’t even have electricity.
So, no talk radio or internet.
I wonder why he self-identified as female.

@Nanny G: The female thing could be a stupid clerical error, voting registries are not 100% accurate.

@Nanny G:

But he didn’t target PP

Nope.
.

He shot people nearer the bank.

Yep.

He holed up inside PP but didn’t shoot anyone there.

So he obviously wasn’t after them.

He lived out-of-state right up until pot became legal in Colorado.

Was he in a state of opportunity?

Then he moved into Colorado and lived so poor he didn’t even have electricity.
So, no talk radio or internet.

But, but, but “hateful rhetoric” the left says.

I wonder why he self-identified as female.

Cause for the defense? He was gender confused?

My guess he’s just someone who’s gone off the rails as his neighbors said he spoke jibberish (my term). Or sometimes we just have to admit there is evil in the world and evil people who carry out that evil and we will never understand why but I’m sure we can rely on the left to play it out to their benefit.

@Jeff D: Jeff do you know something the rest of the world doesn’t?? Do you know this guy was focused on Planned Parenthood?? Do you know this guy is a Christian?? Or as likely your just a libturd POS who just likes to display ignorance!!

It appears denials that Robert Dear was religiously motivated would be what is commonly referred to as wrong:

For Robert Dear, Religion and Rage Before Planned Parenthood Attack

One person who spoke with him extensively about his religious views said Mr. Dear, who is 57, had praised people who attacked abortion providers, saying they were doing “God’s work.” In 2009, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concerns for the privacy of the family, Mr. Dear described as “heroes” members of the Army of God, a loosely organized group of anti-abortion extremists that has claimed responsibility for a number of killings and bombings.

That religion would figure in was a safe bet from the beginning. Dear fits a profile that most who have committed acts of terrorism against women’s clinics and abortion providers will fit. Possibly all fit it. I can’t think of a single exception.

@Greg: Doesn’t make him a Christian now does it?? At least radical islamic terrorist leave their positive identity by crying out to their god as they complete their evil tasks!! And yet we have a president that can’t even utter reality!! BTW roughly half of all abortions end up with a dead female!! Talk about a war on women !!

@Common Sense, #30:

Doesn’t make him a Christian now does it??

The Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, and the United Church of Christ are all pro choice Christian churches. They leave such decisions to the conscience of the woman involved, pointing out that there are no Biblical passages stating specifically when existence as a person begins, or that address the matter of abortion. The bible suggests that life begins with breath, when the spirit enters the body. It doesn’t require the same punishment for one who has caused the loss of an unborn child as it does for one who has committed murder. Instead, it requires restitution, as in the case of property damage.

Being a Christian doesn’t make a person a terrorist any more than being Muslim makes a person a terrorist. But there are Christian extremists, just as there are Muslim extremists. There are Christian terrorists, just as there are Islamic terrorists.

I love how the left media blames conservative rhetoric from politicians and cable news.
The guy lived in a shanty style travel trailer no running water or elect, how the hell was he getting cable or TV to twist his mind? A clerical error had him listed as a woman on the voter register so then he becomes gender confused. He didn’t preform his horrible crime in stilettos did he? Did the candidates arrive at his shack to tell him he should attack this clinic?
Watch the next few days the hate and blame that will be spewed by the left that will have nothing in reality to do with this tragic situation.

@Greg: God said before your where born I knew you. Doubt that will help you.

@Greg:

It appears denials that Robert Dear was religiously motivated would be what is commonly referred to as wrong:

It appears you don’t pay very close attention to anything but what you want to. There were no denials that he was Christian or even Christian motivated… the subtlety you failed to realize was a refute of YOUR side declaring, without any evidence or reason, other than political motivation, to DECLARE his actions religiously and Christian motivated.

Furthermore, despite your “firm” foundation based on what some guy said, we still don’t know his motivation. He may have been motivated by some misguided religious principle, but wedon’t yet know. As with Wheeler, for every straw you cling to, there is an equal and opposite straw that refutes it, so just take a step back, take a deep breath and resolve yourself to the possibility that you just may not be able to exploit these deaths politically.

Being a Christian doesn’t make a person a terrorist any more than being Muslim makes a person a terrorist. But there are Christian extremists, just as there are Muslim extremists. There are Christian terrorists, just as there are Islamic terrorists.

Wow. Tell us something we DON’T know. A Muslim person could run a stop sign and hit a car; that doesn’t mean they plowed into a car because they are Muslim. However, if they yelled “Aloha Snackbar” as they plowed into a car, they MIGHT be motivated by radical Islamic fervor. Now, when someone shoots up a crowd of people and screams, “Christ be Praised!!”, get back with me.

There’s a certain irony to the fact that so many ”hate” crimes have to be ginned up by BLACKS (pretending to be ”racist whites) against BLACKS because there are so few actual racist ”hate” crimes.
Here’s the latest one I know of:
Twitter threats to black Kean students made by black alum, police say.

McKelvey, a self-proclaimed activist, participated in a student rally to raise awareness of racism on college campuses on Nov. 17, but left midway through and walked to a computer station in a university library.

Once there, McKelvey allegedly created an anonymous Twitter account – @keanuagainstblk – and began posting threats of violence against black Kean students.

The first message around 10 p.m. said “kean university twitter against blacks is for everyone who hates blacks people” and a tweet about there being a bomb on the campus, and then continued with several other tweets about shooting black students at the university.

i will kill every black male and female at kean university

— kean university (@keanuagainstblk) November 18, 2015
After making the posts, McKelvey returned to the rally and attempted to spread awareness of the threats, authorities said.

That night on McKelvey’s personal Twitter account she posted photos of the rally and screenshots of the tweets.

Too bad it took the police over 2 weeks to hone in on the real hate activist.
Whites probably got a lot of grief (undeserved) during that time.

@Nanny G: The article does not cover what the punishment for making a false threat was. WAS there punishment? Probably not, as the perpetrator is black and we can’t be being “prejudiced” against blacks simply because they commit a crime.

@Nanny G: Just type in fake racist accusations and get 11,700,000 hits but I am positive some of those will lead to some weird porn sites.

@Bill, #34:

It appears you don’t pay very close attention to anything but what you want to. There were no denials that he was Christian or even Christian motivated… the subtlety you failed to realize was a refute of YOUR side declaring, without any evidence or reason, other than political motivation, to DECLARE his actions religiously and Christian motivated.

I don’t recall anyone of note making hasty declarations concerning the situation. In fact, there was considerable reluctance for authorities and mainstream news outlets to jump to the conclusions that were already on many people’s minds.

As it turns out, Dear did have religious motivations, and a reported prior history of vandalizing Planned Parenthood clinics. It’s also very likely that his “no more baby parts” remark is directly related to the central theme of recent Center for Medical Progress propaganda videos, which were calculated to foment anger and outrage.

Dear committed an act of domestic terrorism, as did the man who assassinated Dr. George Tiller during church services. One could make a list of the victims of anti-abortion Christian terrorism in the United States. It wouldn’t be short, and the list of attacks against clinics would be far longer.

@Greg: As far as I know as of NOW, the police have not released any information of any of his statements other than him saying “no more baby parts”… or something to that affect.

The media calls this the “Planned Parenthood Shootings”, yet it is COMPLETELY unclear if Planned Parenthood, abortion or WHAT he was after.

http://michael-in-norfolk.blogspot.com/2015/11/domestic-terrorist-kills-3-at-planned.html “seeking to put distance between Robert Lewis Dear and right wing anti-abortion Christians.”

http://www.patrick.net/?p=1287277&c=1245004 “Christian terrorist”

The Colorado Planned Parenthood Shooting– Blame the GOP Our Version of Saudi Wahhabi Islam

“blame the GOP”

I could go on forever. The left INSTANTLY jumped on this to blame Republicans and Christians.

He could have been a Methodist minister killing abortion clinic receptionists… or he could be a left-wing, anti-gun zealot trying to create support for revocation of the 2nd Amendment… or he could be a total whacko with a motive known only to himself. If you have definitive proof confirming or denying any of this, you feel free to provide it.

One could make a list of the victims of anti-abortion Christian terrorism in the United States.

Hell, you don’t have to:

No, America Doesn’t Have a Christian Terrorism Problem

If you have some time, make a list of the lies the left has told about conservatives. That’ll keep you out of mischief for a while.

In light of the San Bernardino shootings, we should declare CAIR a terrorist organization. We need common sense Muslim control.

Hey, it doesn’t matter that we don’t have all the details or facts… the guy has a funny, Muslim-sounding name, so let’s use that to achieve a lot of agenda-driven objectives.

After all, it is the approved method of the left.

Dear had white hair and a white beard; register ALL Santa Claus’… they could be killers.

I know why the workplace violent Farook did not get away and why the police chase was at a terrifying 35 mph. his wife was driving, well trained in explosives and weapons but get away not so much.
Lesson Dont choose a female raised under shariah law to be your driver…moron