New York Times Defends Folly of Black Lives Matter

In a 743 word defense of Black Lives Matter, The New York Times editorial board couldn’t bring itself to sanction a single syllable shaming the grievance group for its growing number of transgressions.

“The Truth of ‘Black Lives Matter’ flat-out ignores that Black Lives Matter is based on a number of pernicious lies. Chief among them is that Michael Brown was executed by Officer Darren Wilson. If that were true, why did an Eric Holder-headed Justice Department investigation conclude that Michael Brown did not have his hands up when Officer Wilson fired the fatal shots? For this group, facts and truth don’t matter. Still, Black Lives Matter demands that Wilson be arrested.

The Times interweaves Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words and the purpose of the civil rights movement together in an effort to legitimize and beautify Black Lives Matter’s cause.

The truth, however, is much less romantic. Black Lives Matter is a disgrace to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement. To compare them is to bastardize 100 years of American history–and the legitimate hard-fought gains the movement proudly claims.

Martin Luther King, Jr., didn’t mince words when he stated his dream was that his children live in a world where they were judged by their “character” and not their “skin.”

I challenge The New York Times, America’s sanctimonious overseers, to present a King quote anywhere near the morally deprived neighborhood of “pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon.”

Would Rosa Parks stand with Houston area Black Lives Matter supporter Monica Foy, who said slain Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth had “creepy perv eyes” and deserved to be executed and shot 15 times?

How does The New York Times reconcile this incredible contradiction?

The admirable activists making the case for whatever problems of over-policing that do persist are at odds with a Black Lives Matter movement that is celebrated and seldom challenged for its habit of overindulging in generalities as it constantly convicts all of America as a devoutly racist place.

Another lie: the Times‘ assertion that unarmed black people “are disproportionately killed in encounters with the police” is simply not true and is not substantiated by facts.

It is “an indisputable fact–that the lives of black citizens in this country historically have not mattered,” the Times contends. Black Lives Matter, and the Times, for that matter, is tied to a tragic American past that no longer lends its evils to today.

In some sense, black lives do matter more than others. I am black. If I were unarmed and gunned down by police today, my story would warrant wall-to-wall press coverage. It’s hard to imagine the same outcome if I were white.

This is good and bad.

That America’s foremost news organs commit so much energy to covering every detail surrounding the death of black people–making them household names in the process–is evidence that we are far better off as a racially harmonized nation than we were 50 years ago. And that’s good. But this societal progress wasn’t achieved by decisive movements like Black Lives Matter.

It’s no accident then that 64 percent of black people prefer the phrase “all lives matter.”

Now for the bad. Such an intense focus on black lives has normalized a callous disassociation of a victim’s humanity if he happens to be white when killed by a cop. Or, as evidenced in Houston–if he happens to be a cop.

It’s as if we have all been shamed into nodding our heads in agreement that we must care less about police-involved shootings unless the victim is black.

The New York Times’ defense of Black Lives Matter also misses the point, and an opportunity. Their editorial came on the same day that slain Texas Deputy Sheriff Darren Goforth is being laid to rest. Their defensive editorial also coincided with this Chicago Tribune headline: “Chicago marks deadliest day by gunfire in more than a decade.” Yet neither far more relevant threats to black lives warranted a single mention in the Times’ self-serving sermon.

The news stories on cities like Chicago, consumed by black-on-black carnage resemble Somalia more than America.

Yes, Social Justice Warriors. I just played the black-on-black crime card. Why? Because one can be both outraged and motivated to solve the vexing problem of black criminality while simultaneously acting to improve policing in one’s own community.

But Black Lives Matter wants fewer police in minority neighborhoods. Specifically, they want a “national policy specifically aimed at redressing the systemic pattern of anti-black law enforcement violence in the United States.”

This is just nonsense and borders satire.

The New York Times is concerned with parsing out the importance of recognizing the Black Lives Matter movement ahead of the fact that all lives matter–yet seem unwilling to recognize that one of the impacts of the movement has been to increase the threat against police officers. So if to just say, “All Lives Matters” is to “cover up an unpleasant truth” as the NYT claims, then you also have to admit that embracing Black Lives Matter with no acknowledgement of the associated violence against police is no less of an effort at concealment.

Neither The New York Times nor Black Lives Matter wants to broaden the parameters of the conversation about the vexing problems in black precincts. Both groups want a narrow conversation centered on inflated instances of racism.

If we talk about black poverty, should we also ask how 70 percent illegitimacy rates (90 percent in some inner cities) might contribute to our malaise? Or do we continue to pretend that the persistent problem of black poverty is the result of racism and discrimination alone?

Black Lives Matter is not a civil rights movement. When a Black Lives Matter spokesman says the phrase “All lives matter” is a “violent statement,” the group itself becomes an affront to our most sacred democratic principle: that all men are equal in the eyes of the law.

Thanks, but no thanks. I would rather not be lectured about the perils of civil rights suffrage and police oppression by an editorial board that’s whiter than a Coldplay concert.

What does it say about The New York Times‘ concern for black lives if they–in an editorial about how black lives matter–decided to completely ignore the countless communities suffocated by crime and a gang culture that sends infinitely more black bodies to the morgue than police?