(ThyBlackMan.com) Of course African American lives matter – and they should matter first and foremost to African Americans. I say African American lives matter because we are not black. Black is the color of my car tires, not my skin. Black is a term used by our people who do not know the geographic origin of our identity. The term “black” is full of negatives in the dictionary and not by coincidence. Black is a label we have never bee, a term placed on us.
If we lead the way in how we must be treated by first treating our own people that way, we are then smart enough, wise enough and powerful enough to change the tone in this country. No we should not bow down and yes worldwide attention must be drawn to our cause. But not by using violence, disruption, anger and confrontation when there are lawful, strategic and balanced methods available. All of the peaceful means have not been exhausted yet therefore the utilization of riots, violence, disruptions and confrontations that even further place African Americans at risk is both unwise and unnecessary.
Just as there was in King’s day, there are groups today who approach problems in the wrong way. One such group is Black Lives Matter. This article will prove that.
The agency where I am an instructor and senior legal analyst has reached out to several Black Lives Matter groups at least 5 times in hopes of sharing lawful solutions for the prevention, intervention and curative results for private citizens. When they finally answered, they responded with insults, anger, ignorance, threats and bad attitude. They would not listen to anything that did not feed their thirst for anger, confrontation and civil unrest. We tried to tell them the chants calling for attacks on police officers would have them ending up on the FBI watch list but they don’t see that. We tried to tell them they could one day become classified as combatants but they would not listen.
BLM works with groups and people ready to cause havoc and mayhem. What decent group or wise activist is endorsing them?
We tried to tell Black Lives Matter the solutions were economic, spiritual, sociological, judicial, legislative and psychological. We tried to tell Black Lives Matter that it was also an issue of credibility, community collaboration and addressing black on black crime in order to set a higher standard of how our people must be treated, but they didn’t want to hear that. They were about blame, escaping any personal responsibility, making demands, disruption and confrontation.
After so many attempts, we have concluded that Black Lives Matter cannot be reformed. BLM should be dismantled and dissolved. Why? Because they are feeding a stereotype of African Americans as ignorant, violent and angry. The group has been hijacked by other groups with hidden agendas such as “Transgender Lives Matter“. This diminishes the original cause because there is no other struggle in this country that can come close to the struggle, plight, racism, degradation and oppression that African Americans have repeatedly encountered.
There are numerous lawful and impacting ways to STOP and PREVENT POLICE BRUTALITY! To find out how, send an information request to atlantacrimecommission@yahoo.com
Black Lives Matter has created its own bad reputation, even in the African American community. They see any civilized way of attacking the problems we face as bowing down because they don’t know the most effective ways to get results. Yet what are they accomplishing? They started off with unrealistic demands like calling for the government to get rid of the military industrial complex instead of going for mediations, arbitrations and negotiations. And they are not evolving much at all.
I am a balanced person but I cannot honestly find much of anything positive to say about Black Lives Matter. Their platform seems to be based on rudeness and ignorance. As one example of proof, look at how they ignorantly took over the microphone at a Bernie Sanders meeting early in his campaign. I am not a fan of Sanders but he does have a strong civil rights record on the African American community and he marched with King. There are a dozen other examples. Just look around.
I recently participated in a 2 mile walk against “black on black crime” on a cold day with over 300 people. Where was the Black Lives Matter group? BLM is a group of reverse racist and you cannot fix racism with more racism. Nor is it wise to go head to head with the system when you are not prepared for the consequences.
Black Lives Matter does not represent all or even most African Americans, though police brutality is very real and disproportionately used against our people. The statistics easily prove this is true. But if poor methods of combating the problem place African Americans more at risk, we are working against ourselves and that is something BLM refuses to see or cannot understand. Some have ears but they cannot hear and eyes but they cannot see.
Their reactions are not based on expertise in investigations or research. BLM largely reacts based on rumors, social media posts, videos and bandwagon anger about life in general. I am not saying videos like the one of Sandra Bland, Eric Garner or Samuel Dubose do not tell the story. I am saying sometimes there is more to the incident than the video footage. Imani Perry, an African American professor at Princeton University, was guilty. But she went straight to social media and spouted that she was a victim. Imani was driving on a suspended license. Imani was speeding. Imani failed to appear in court on a ticket years earlier. Imani had a warrant. There are actual victims but she was not one of them.
Where is the Black Lives Matter group when thousands and thousands of unborn babies are killed by abortion in the African American community every year? If “black lives matter” to them as they say, where are their marches, rallies, protests and riots over “black on black” crime? They are strangely and largely silent because all they want to tackle is racism. But racism is not the only thing that is killing our people.
So if you know anybody in Black Lives Matter, tell them to find another way to bring about change. People who act or react out of anger (or emotion) usually make bad decisions that place themselves and others at unnecessary risk because emotion tends to neutralize intellect and sound thinking. I am sure BLM does have some people who are sincere, but they are overshadowed by the loud, angry, ignorant members.
Staff Writer; Marque-Anthony
To Anonymot Again:
Lets take a balanced look at the issue you mentioned about verbal violence. Trump supporters have also been violent and justified violence just like Trump has in his hate speech. But Trump supporters continue to deny the obvious and excuse ignorance. So we see the same thing on both sides. You have to overstand why the people in BLM are angry, not excuse their methods.
To Anonymot:
I hear you. The NAACP was started by both African American and Caucasian people. Being a role model does not stop disproportionate arrests and convictions that are happening every day. Go to wwww.policemisconduct.net or http://www.killedbypolice.net and tell them about role models. It’s hard for an African American to listen to a role model when he never knew his dad, when his mother has to work two jobs and when his head is being slammed against the pavement by a rogue or racist cop.
I am not screaming verbal violence, I am building awareness and thousands of people have read my article and attended my seminars on police encounters and stopping police brutality. It is presumptuous of you to tell African Americans what we should be doing when you have not walked in our shoes. It is not as simple as you make it sound. The problems are complex and multifaceted so the solutions must be the same.
The solutions are political, legislative, judicial, economic, spiritual, sociological and psychological. No one way is enough.
To Jay Mole, you sound like a young person but you will learn there are better ways than those used by BLM. By now I am sure they are on the FBI watch list and several have joined us and our methods, leaving BLM. Only a fool places himself at unnecessary risk or fights battles in ways he is guaranteed to lose.
They have gained nothing and have no credibility with any reputable real activist who walked with King. Who endorses them? What have they achieved? Videos recorded by African Americans brought police brutality to light, not BLM. You do not play into the hands of those who are hoping you will do just that. The powers that be are hoping for more people to think like BLM because they are ready with Cointel Pro, martial law, plenty of underground jail cells, the NDAA etc. Wake up. Think smart.
Mary thank you for sharing that wisdom about our approach.
I deal with facts, hard evidence and the truth from all angles
My goal is to get people to think, talk, share and realize why they do what they do.
Charles u agree that we should simply call ourselves Americans. Yet we are not treated like Americans, we are treated like second class citizens and menaces to society. We are discriminated against institutionally, economically and judicially so how can we feel like “Americans”? As a matter of fact, America was founded on lies, thievery, traitors fleeing from Europe, deception, slavery and killing the indigenous people of this land. And when we call ourselves African Americans, at least we make the effort to identify with the homeland of our genealogical and geographic origin.
Then there is our culture and its wide variations. Don’t forget our beliefs, which in fact should define us spiritually and morally or we have lost our entire value system. So on some areas, esp those which work against our people, we have to stay divided for a while. I, for example, find homosexuality a Biblical abomination. But I do not hate homosexuals.
You make some excellent points on what we should be outraged about and I wish it were just that simple.
Change comes from within. Change doesn’t come when you refuse to look in the mirror because you hate who you are, or who you have become. Black people as of late have been using any and every reason to not look into the mirror. We find any and every distraction to stay away from that mirror.
I have caucasian skin and grewup in a town in southern Illinois. The valdictorian of my hs class was an American girl with color and so was the captain of our basketball team. In college I joined NAACP then moved to cracker cental Florida where I could have been lynched if they knew about my NAACP activities. I’m talking about the 1940s/50s. I grew up simply color blind.
In 1960 I moved to Paris and met a painter in a jazz club.I had studied painting at UNM. He was from Trinidad, but graduated as class President from the celebrated St. Martin’s school of Art in London. He was the most brilliant, broadly cultured man I ever met. We bacame like brothers. Oddly enough, he went off for 4 years to teach at Southern Illinois U in Carbondale for 4 years.
All of this to say that I believe that it’s only by being a role model does one really change the mind of another person. It is not by legislation. As different as their ideas were, MLK and Malcolm X were marvelous, because of their minds and their personna, not because they had a bullhorn and screamed into it.
When I moved to Paris the France was as color blind as my home town. In the ’60s there was a series of parades in Paris by marching, chanting, yelling Americans demanding color equality. The French looked around saying, “I hadn’t noticed they were different! So they are.” and black white racism grew. It was more complex, as you can guess, but I protested those headlining protests. BLM is the same mistake.
Screaming verbal violence neither makes friends nor changes mind. It’s an infantile way of blowing off steam by stamping ones feet. What Afro-Americans need as we go into a neofascist time of Trump and Hillary is more integration through education, through being grown ups, through being color blind vis à vis white. BLM is exactly the wrong approach to changing more than blatant lip service like Hillary gives.
Nah – not buying it. Firstly, #blacklivesmatter have a site that clearly states their purposes. So, to simply say, as your proof, you reached out to them and they (as if, they are a collective and not a group of entities under the same banner) responded with ignorance and anger tells me…well, nothing. I would have to take your word for it. I’ve seen their peaceful actions, so to label them with such a broad stroke is very telling, in my opinion. Black Lives Matter have addressed black-on-black crime as well. They addressed more than their main issue – which involves injustice altogether.
It’s funny how Black Lives Matter come under so much scrutiny that seems to be missing when it comes to other groups.
I can hear you when you present like this.
I want to help when you talk like this.
I respect you and value your cause when you present this way.
I heard a very calm guy talk on the radio the other day. when he spoke of the foundational problems of the communities in stress.
I wanted to help. and want to help.
I can hear a cause when it is not shouted at me.
I cannot embrace a cause when I am threatened with it.
I strongly agree with what you are saying, but I do have some questions and concerns. I would love to see Americans united as Americans and not divided by identifiers like Italian American, Asian American, gay American, and so on. I do understand what you are saying about being called black and how that term can be both negative and inaccurate. However shouldn’t we as Americans refer to ourselves just as Americans regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and so on rather than splitting into groups meant to divide us? Shouldn’t the goal be that we ALL feel we are Americans and we are ALL treated the same as Americans? Why does the media need to mention race, ethnicity, gender, or any other descriptor when mentioning the victim of violence? Shouldn’t we as Americans ALL be equally enraged by police brutality, or murder, or rape? Shouldn’t we as Americans all be concerned about police being used for revenue collection? Shouldn’t we as Americans be considered that our laws are designed to limit freedom and imprison the poor? Why should these things be the concern of only 1 group when these things affect ALL Americans?