If America is such a hellhole
of racism, how did Oprah Winfrey, a dark-
complexioned stout black woman, become
one of the wealthiest and most influential
persons on the planet? The myth of
America's racism is evil, destructive, and
must end.
The Truth about Interracial Violent Crime
Debunking the Left's pernicious lies.
Prior to the May 25th death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, a major focus of the media during the preceding two weeks had been a video showing an incident where a young black man named Ahmaud Arbery was fatally shot by two white men in Glynn County, Georgia. The killers say that they pursued Arbery, whom they suspected of having been involved in some recent local burglaries, when they spotted him running through their neighborhood – though some accounts claim that he was merely out for a jog. Eventually a fight broke out, and Arbery was shot and killed. After a video of the deadly altercation went public in early May, there were massive protests in Arbery's behalf. On May 8 – which would have been Arbery's 26th birthday – activist Al Sharpton used the Internet to lead a “virtual rally” in the young man's memory, drawing some 105,000 participants.
In an interview four days later, Sharpton, exhorting members of the black community to “sustain” their “indignation” vis-a-vis the Arbery case for as long as possible, portrayed the Georgia killing as an extension of racist American violence dating back to the epoch of slavery: “It was expected that if you saw a black, that you would suspect that he was a runaway slave, and you had the runaway slave laws that … they would use that to hunt down blacks for vigilante groups, the KKK and others, all the way up until the modern era.”
Television personality Oprah Winfrey likewise characterized Arbery's death as a consequence of intransigent white racism: “He went out for a jog while being Black. I wonder what was he thinking in those last seconds of his life? Unimaginable to go for a run in 2020 and end up dead because of the color of your skin.”
Notably, there is no record of either Sharpton or Winfrey uttering even a single public word in memory of 34-year-old Zackary Randalls, 37-year-old Mark Gassett, or 58-year-old David Jackson. You've never heard of these individuals, of course, because they were merely three white men who were murdered three years ago in Fresno, California by Kori Ali Muhammad, a black racist who candidly sought “to kill as many white males as possible” – killings for which the perpetrator was convicted just six weeks ago. Regarding the Zackary Randalls murder, Mr. Muhammad has since explained: “When I walked up to the truck, I saw a Mexican driver and a white guy. I didn’t want to target the driver because he was Mexican, so I shot the white dude.” The media, for some mysterious reason, didn't find the story compelling enough to cover.
Neither is there any record of Sharpton or Winfrey lamenting the deaths of 86-year-old Paul Marino and his 85-year-old wife, Lidia, both of whom were murdered in cold blood by a black gunman on May 8 – the very day of Sharpton's “virtual rally” in honor of Ahmaud Arbery – while they visited the gravesite of their late son, Anthony, in a Delaware cemetery. To borrow Oprah's pithy maxim, we might say that Mr. and Mrs. Marino were just “visiting their son's grave while being white.”
Other victims whose recent murders were ignored by media outlets and camera hogs like Sharpton and Winfrey include:
Television personality Oprah Winfrey likewise characterized Arbery's death as a consequence of intransigent white racism: “He went out for a jog while being Black. I wonder what was he thinking in those last seconds of his life? Unimaginable to go for a run in 2020 and end up dead because of the color of your skin.”
Notably, there is no record of either Sharpton or Winfrey uttering even a single public word in memory of 34-year-old Zackary Randalls, 37-year-old Mark Gassett, or 58-year-old David Jackson. You've never heard of these individuals, of course, because they were merely three white men who were murdered three years ago in Fresno, California by Kori Ali Muhammad, a black racist who candidly sought “to kill as many white males as possible” – killings for which the perpetrator was convicted just six weeks ago. Regarding the Zackary Randalls murder, Mr. Muhammad has since explained: “When I walked up to the truck, I saw a Mexican driver and a white guy. I didn’t want to target the driver because he was Mexican, so I shot the white dude.” The media, for some mysterious reason, didn't find the story compelling enough to cover.
Neither is there any record of Sharpton or Winfrey lamenting the deaths of 86-year-old Paul Marino and his 85-year-old wife, Lidia, both of whom were murdered in cold blood by a black gunman on May 8 – the very day of Sharpton's “virtual rally” in honor of Ahmaud Arbery – while they visited the gravesite of their late son, Anthony, in a Delaware cemetery. To borrow Oprah's pithy maxim, we might say that Mr. and Mrs. Marino were just “visiting their son's grave while being white.”
Other victims whose recent murders were ignored by media outlets and camera hogs like Sharpton and Winfrey include:
- Joyce Whaley, Patricia Nibbe, and Nettie Spencer – three middle-aged white women who were brutally stabbed to death by a black killer at a Tennessee truck stop in early April;
- Heather Perry, a 21-year-old white woman who was shot to death in a Denver alleyway on May 9 by Cornelius Haney, a convicted armed robber who had just been released from prison in order to protect him from contracting the coronavirus;
- Logan Allen Stacks, a 17-year-old white boy who was gunned down by two black teens on March 27 in Lancaster County, South Carolina;
- Dr. Beth Potter, a 52-year-old white physician who dedicated her career to helping “underserved communities,” and her husband, educational consultant Robin Carre, who were shot execution-style by a pair of black teens on March 30 in Madison, Wisconsin; and
- Kristopher Dacus, a 33-year-old white man who on February 26 was shot multiple times and killed by four black teens in the North Little Rock, Arkansas cemetery where he worked.
Let us assume for a moment that Ahmaud Arbery – who quite obviously was a volatile and menacing character with a criminal history – was in fact the innocent victim of a horrific, wholly unjustifiable murder. Even if that were the case, why should his death garner more attention from American media outlets and civil rights activists, than, say, the deaths of the 13 aforementioned whites whose lives were mercilessly snuffed out by black killers in 6 different states? Perhaps a case could be made in favor of such a double standard if white-on-black killings were commonplace in American society – on the theory that the condemnation of such occurrences might help raise people's collective consciousness about the deadly ramifications of white racism. But in fact, white-on-black homicides in the U.S. have been exceedingly rare for many decades.
Conventional “wisdom” maintains that violent crime tends largely to be an intra-racial affair, where whites target mostly whites, and blacks target mostly blacks. This is certainly true for homicide, but much less true for other crimes of violence such as assault, rape, and robbery.
Let us look first at homicides that involved whites and blacks during 2012 and 2013. During those years, white killers nationwide chose to target white victims approximately 93 percent of the time, and black victims 7 percent of the time. Meanwhile, black killers targeted black victims 84.7 percent of the time, and white victims 15.3 percent of the time.
But violence in America crosses racial lines much more frequently when the crimes in question are rape, robbery, and assault. In 2012 and 2013, for instance, blacks in the U.S. committed an annual average of 560,600 violent crimes (excluding homicide) against whites, while whites committed a yearly average of 99,403 violent crimes against blacks. In other words, blacks were the attackers in about 85 percent of all violent crimes involving blacks and whites, while whites were the attackers in 15 percent.[1]
Those broad figures, however, do not even begin to tell the full story about interracial crime. To get a complete picture, we must also look at crime statistics from the perspective of the offender. That is, when a given violent offender chooses a victim to target for a crime, does he tend to target a victim who is a fellow member of his own racial group, or does he tend to go after a victim from another racial group?
Here are the facts:
- When white offenders committed crimes of violence (excluding homicide) against either whites or blacks in 2012-13, they targeted white victims 95.8 percent of the time, and they went after black victims a mere 4.1 percent of the time.
- By contrast, when black offenders committed crimes of violence against either whites or blacks in 2012-13, they targeted white victims a whopping 48.5 percent of the time, and they went after black victims 51.4 percent of the time.[2]
If we factor into the equation the relative sizes of America's white and black populations, we find that, statistically, any given black person in 2012-13 was about 27 times more likely to attack a white, than vice versa.
In more recent years, the disproportionate prevalence of black-on-white crime has only gotten worse. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2018 there were 593,598 interracial violent victimizations (excluding homicide) between blacks and whites in the United States. Blacks committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies, or 90.4 percent, while whites committed 56,394 of them, or about 9.5 percent. Moreover:
In more recent years, the disproportionate prevalence of black-on-white crime has only gotten worse. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2018 there were 593,598 interracial violent victimizations (excluding homicide) between blacks and whites in the United States. Blacks committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies, or 90.4 percent, while whites committed 56,394 of them, or about 9.5 percent. Moreover:
- When white offenders committed crimes of violence against either whites or blacks in 2018, they targeted white victims 97.3 percent of the time, and they went after black victims 2.6 percent of the time.
- By contrast, when black offenders committed crimes of violence against either whites or blacks during that same year, they targeted white victims 58 percent of the time, and they went after black victims 42 percent of the time.[3]
City Journal also reports that according to Justice Department data, blacks in 2018 were overrepresented among the perpetrators of offenses classified as “hate crimes” by a whopping 50 percent—while whites were underrepresented by 24 percent.
These numbers are staggering. If America were teeming with white racism, those guilty of interracial crime would be disproportionately white. But instead, the exact opposite is the case. Thus, the enormous amount of attention given to white-on-black attacks – which are statistically rare in the United States – is an obscene and senseless absurdity. The notion of ubiquitous white racism manifesting itself in unacceptably high levels of white violence against blacks, is one of the most destructive and monstrously evil lies of our time, creating levels of racial mistrust and animosity that are wholly unwarranted.
NOTES
[1] Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 2012-13, Special Tabulation, Table 10.
[1] Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 2012-13, Special Tabulation, Table 10.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization, 2018, Table 14.
“Black
Christians should protest the Democrat party's anti-Christian agenda which has
led to the moral decay of the black community; fatherless households, gangs,
crime, generational poverty, incarceration, and record-high black on black
homicides.” LLOYD MARCUS
Barack
Obama’s race hustling criminal coddling set the more recent tone where state
and local law-enforcement officers were routinely attacked, accused of serial
hate-inspired killings of suspects; where civilized norms were declared the
illicit fruit of white privilege; where the epidemic of black-on-black
homicides was either ignored or blamed on unresolved racial grievances. GEOFFREY P. HUNT
BLACK LIVES MATTER? OR BLACK LIVES LOOT???
Watch:
Rioters Use Forklifts to Smash into Best Buy in California During Daylight
Hours
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/02/watch-rioters-use-forklifts-to-smash-into-best-buy-in-california-during-daylight-hours/
CBS Sacramento
2 Jun 20201,347
2:31
Vandals
participating in the widespread riots in response to the killing of George
Floyd commandeered at least one reach forklift to break into a Best Buy in the
city of Fairfield, CA, during daylight hours yesterday, several videos show.
13% of the population in the USA is black
BUT THEY COMMIT 85% of all violent interracial crimes, 80% of all shootings, 79% of all robberies, 59% of all murders, 52% of all violent juvenile crimes, 45% of all drug offenses..
49% of all murder victims are black. 42% of all cop killers are black.
99% of all major riots involving property damage, looting and civil disobedience are committed by blacks as opposed to ANY OTHER minority in America.
BUT THEY COMMIT 85% of all violent interracial crimes, 80% of all shootings, 79% of all robberies, 59% of all murders, 52% of all violent juvenile crimes, 45% of all drug offenses..
49% of all murder victims are black. 42% of all cop killers are black.
99% of all major riots involving property damage, looting and civil disobedience are committed by blacks as opposed to ANY OTHER minority in America.
93% of all black murder victims are murdered by another black.
33% of all crimes in America are committed by 3% of the population; blacks between the ages of 16 and 36
8% of America’s population are black men, yet they account for 40% of America’s total prison population.
33% of all crimes in America are committed by 3% of the population; blacks between the ages of 16 and 36
8% of America’s population are black men, yet they account for 40% of America’s total prison population.
40% of blacks are on welfare
Only 59% blacks graduate high school (Detroit, only 20%)
Over 60% of black households have no fathers present
72% of black mothers are unwed!
Blacks account for 38% of abortions (only 13% of population and contraceptives are FREE)
Over 60% of black households have no fathers present
72% of black mothers are unwed!
Blacks account for 38% of abortions (only 13% of population and contraceptives are FREE)
(STATISTICS FROM Dept.
of Justice, Dept. of Commerce, FBI and USA Census (ALL and sect.5 Law
Enforcement))
This Black American Deems Floyd Protests Unnecessary
As a black American, Democrats and fake news media demand that I
agree with the George Floyd protests. I say the protests are unnecessary and
are totally politically motivated. The American people of all races including
President Trump have expressed their outrage over the wrongful death of Mr.
Floyd. The officer who killed Mr. Floyd has been charged with murder. The three
officers who watched the abuse have been fired and investigated. So, where's the beef? Why are opportunists looting stores, burning
businesses, and beating up whites in the name of demanding justice? Who is
opposing justice for Mr. Floyd? The answer is no one.
Therefore, what is the real purpose of the riots, hate, violence,
and chaos in our streets? The answer is politics. Democrats and fake news media
believe by generating racial hate, they can ensure that blacks will vote
against Trump in November.
Like a magician uses misdirection, Democrats and fake news media
hope to focus blacks' attention away from the fact that blacks have
experienced unprecedented
prosperity and record low unemployment since
Trump has been in the Oval Office.
Leftist political hacks say the killing of George Floyd reflects
America's systemic racism, a country dominated by white supremacists. They say
America was founded by racist white men for racist white men. Folks, such bogus
and divisive rhetoric is nothing more than leftist intellectual-sounding
gobbledygook. There are not enough white supremacists in America to elect
anyone to any public office.
In the real-world America, blacks are not suffering persecution. I
realize saying that will get me in trouble, but it is true. America is the
greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to pursue their
dreams. The perverted thinking of leftists has to make everyone a victim of
someone or something. Democrats and fake news media brand blacks who do not
harbor resentment for whites and America traitors to their race.
Blacks are only 13% of the population. White America
gifted its first black president two terms. And yet, far too
many blacks
absurdly believe Democrats' and fake news
media’s lie that white America did
not want a black man in
the White House. If America is such a hellhole
of
racism, how did Oprah Winfrey, a dark-
complexioned stout black woman, become
one of the wealthiest and most influential
persons on the planet? The myth of
America's racism is evil, destructive, and
must end.
Racism along with every other sin will exist until Jesus returns.
However, there is not enough racism in America to stop anyone. This is why it
is so offensive hearing wealthy black celebs filling young black minds with the
lie that white America has stacked-the-deck against them. I wish blacks would
ignore such crap and simply pursue their dreams.
Despite countless glaring examples of blacks thriving in America,
Democrats and fake news media relentlessly sell the lie that blacks can't catch
a break in this horrible country. This is why they persecute successful blacks
who love their country and do not view themselves as victims.
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden said, “If you don't vote
for me, you ain't black.” Biden has also absurdly said, “Republicans want to
put y'all back in chains.” Biden insultingly views blacks as brain-dead idiots
eager to stay on Democrats' government dependency plantation.
In 2020 America, the tired old battered, tattered, and torn race
card has been begging to retire for several years. Democrats refuse to retire
it because they believe playing it wins them emotional, mindless black votes,
trumping logic, facts, and commonsense.
All of the people who are protesting because cops routinely murder
blacks and because America is racist are responding to lies. Cops do not murder
blacks so
much as blacks murder blacks. America is not racist. Why do you think people risk everything to
get here? Trump is building a wall to keep illegals out, not to keep people in.
We are extremely blessed to be Americans living in America.
Americans should be angry and protest about failing schools
controlled by Democrats. Students graduate who cannot read their diploma.
People should be angry and protest Planned Parenthood's black genocide. Why
are 36% of America's
aborted babies black?
Black
Christians should protest the Democrat party's anti-Christian agenda which has
led to the moral decay of the black community; fatherless households, gangs,
crime, generational poverty, incarceration, and record-high black on black
homicides.
I refuse to
pander to Democrats' and fake news medias' lie that protests against cops,
white supremacy, and America are necessary. America is the greatest land of
opportunity on the planet for all who choose to pursue their dreams. This truth
should be repeatedly shouted from the rooftops.
God
instructed Pharaoh, “Let my people go.”
God instructs us, “Let my people know.” Spread truth.
God instructs us, “Let my people know.” Spread truth.
Pin the Tail on Champions of Lawlessness and Anarchy
American cities aflame
after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police should
come as no surprise.
Those small businesses
and lives of everyday Americans that weren’t already crushed by the Democrat
governors’ prolonged Covid-19 lockdowns were debilitated by the Dem mayors
across the nation enabling and ennobling rioters, roving thugs, and bomb-throwers.
Democrats own the
consequences of their devastating policies, starting with Lyndon Johnson’s
Great Society welfare state. Barack Obama’s race hustling criminal
coddling set the more recent tone where state and local law-enforcement
officers were routinely attacked, accused of serial hate-inspired killings of
suspects; where civilized norms were declared the illicit fruit of white
privilege; where the epidemic of black-on-black homicides was either ignored or
blamed on unresolved racial grievances.
Where Marxist mayors
demonizing and disarming their own police, nullified enforcement of criminal
codes by issuing stand-down orders; embraced militant advocacy of open borders,
enacted sanctuary city statutes to harbor illegal aliens; refused to prosecute
and/or deport illegal aliens with long violent records including rape,
kidnapping, sex trafficking, and murder.
“For what it’s worth,
every public official responsible for the mayhem is a Democrat—the governor,
the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and even Hennepin County Attorney Mike
Freeman, who finally had Chauvin arrested on Friday. And it was current
Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar, the former county attorney, who failed to prosecute Chauvin for
misdeeds in the past. Democrats collectively run a state that has one of the
widest racial disparities in the country in
terms of education and income.”
“In a magnificent
monologue on his television show, Tucker
Carlson peeled back the headlines to expose the festering reality that has
brought us to this pass.
“The ideologues will tell you,” he noted,
“that the problem is race relations, or capitalism, or police brutality, or
global warming. But only on the surface. The real cause is deeper than
that and it’s far darker. What you’re watching is the ancient battle
between those who have a stake in society, and would like to preserve it, and
those who don’t, and seek to destroy it.” That’s exactly right.
“Writing in the dark days of 1939, Evelyn
Waugh noted that “barbarism is never finally defeated; given propitious
circumstances, men and women who seem quite orderly will commit every
conceivable atrocity.”
“Many if not most of the violent hooligans
defacing our cities today are young beneficiaries of the richest and most
generous society the world has ever seen. At school, they were taught to
despise their country as racist, sexist, colonialist, and exploitative,
attitudes that were reinforced in college and from the megaphones of the media,
Hollywood, and our elite universities. How thin is the line between
civilization and violent anarchy!”
It was
the Dems who created multi-generational wards of the state, yet never delivered
a better life to any of its captives, filling a reservoir of resentment, and
pent-up fury.
Instead
of safe neighborhoods, good schools, and a climate for businesses to thrive and
add jobs, the Dems ushered in wretched schools where union spoils are a higher
good than children’s futures, where small business entrepreneurs have to
compete with drug dealers on street corners, and no one is shielded from
gunfire.
Where
vermin infested apartments are better than living on the streets, barely.
Where
police officers and firefighters don a bulletproof vest before responding to a
call. Where corrupt mayors and city councils loot their constituents’ meager
take-home remains, to pay for second homes and obscene wardrobes.
And
now the good citizens who endured such prolonged humility and depravation,
especially small business owners who just wanted a chance -- a puncher’s chance
against all odds -- have seen their sweat equity, a tiny bit of tangible
reward, up in flames as Dem mayors and governors talk of the sanctity of
protest voices even as some use violence as their medium, while watching their
cities burn to the ground.
Yes,
the Dems are directly responsible, and the rest of us would be complicit in
denial, or in soft-pedaling the obvious.
"Progressive Democrats are incapable of keeping
their people safe," he said, "because they
have criminal-friendly policies that are pathetic, that are
dangerous, and now we are seeing the results not only there [in
Minneapolis], but watch the cities that start burning.
"They are all going to be run by so-called
progressives, idiot Democrats who let criminals out of jail, who
set bail for murderers and encourage exactly this kind of
thing."
As John Wohstetter points out from The
American Spectator “ When you reward bad behavior, expect more of it”
Wohlstetter chronicles
the inept and incoherent responses to riots in the late 1960s to the 1990s from
which we have learned nothing.
“Detroit 1967-- five days of violence,
with more than 40 fatalities and more than one thousand injured. …It was the
worst rioting in America since the 1863 New York City draft riots, not to be
exceeded in scale until the 1992 Rodney King riots (LA 1992)…
“Detroit and Newark
(also 1967—four days of violence 26 deaths, over 700 injured) never recovered
from the destruction of 1967. Washington, D.C. never fully recovered from the
riots after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King…
“And in 1991
NYC Mayor
David Dinkins took a “let off steam” approach, as black rioters marched through
the streets of Crown Heights shouting “Heil Hitler!” as they assaulted Jews,
after a rabbi’s car accidentally struck two children, killing one. A rabbinical
student — a student guest from Australia, a more civilized place than was New
York City in 1991 — was stabbed to death. “
The false narratives
endorsed and disseminated by Democrat politicians and the press about the
Baltimore police and Freddie Gray, George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, the
Ferguson police and Michael Brown endure against truth tellers consigned to the
shadows.
Dems stood aside while
dozens of their neighborhoods were firebombed, businesses destroyed, cities
ravaged --- activated by Democrat mayors and their states attorneys, county and
city DAs whose selective readings of criminal statutes emboldened and
offered safe harbor to unrepentant violent criminals and revolutionary
anarchists -- all supported by Obama’s radical communist community
organizer sympathies, who vilified Tea Party patriots while beatifying Occupy
Wall Street deconstructionists.
The Democrats have
successfully disintegrated decency and civility, re-shaping society.
Lawlessness, anarchy, random violence, and destruction of private property
frames their new normal. Imposing nihilist tyranny of the majority as a
substitute for a constitutional process in resolving competing political
visions, punishing victims while cheering criminals, are all standard- issue
Dem behaviors, unconditionally underwritten by the MSM and purveyors of social
media.
And so, we have the likes
of David Gergen, establishmentarian, onetime advisor to four presidents, now a
political analyst for CNN, lamenting that AG Barr’s plea for returning to “law
and order” was a dog whistle, harkening to the civil rights days in the South,
having no place in the present discourse.
Clueless Minneapolis
Mayor Jacob Frey issued this pee-on-the-ashes nonsense while his city was
ablaze:
“The
City encourages everyone to exercise caution to stay safe while participating
in demonstrations, including wearing masks and physical distancing as much as
possible to prevent the spread of COVID-19,”
All of America’s most
important cities from NYC to LA, to Chicago, to Seattle, to Boston, to Chicago,
to Minneapolis, to St Louis, to Houston to San Francisco, to Washington DC,
Baltimore, and Philadelphia are run now, and for the most part have been for
last half-century, by Democrats, are to some degree in ruin, ungovernable.
Covid-19 is a sideshow
compared to the takeover of American urban life by the malignant Democrats, as
they champion the house arrest of everyday innocent and healthy Americans,
while reopening America to the erstwhile underworld, now mainstream
practitioners of despoiling all that is good.
The Illusion of 'Peaceful Protestors'
The
rioting is all about politics, not justice.
June 2, 2020
Bruce
Thornton
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism
Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Last week we watched the sorry
spectacle of aimless destruction supposedly in response to the death of a black
man at the hands of the police. The predictable script from Ferguson and
Baltimore was reprised, the same bumper-sticker empty slogans brandished, and
the same pointless destruction and looting occurred that were worse than
useless for solving the injustice the protestors supposedly want remedied.
Just as predictable was the media
coverage, which mixed ratings-bait lurid footage of the violence with clichés
like “peaceful protestors,” youthful passionate idealists moved by righteous
anger over racial injustice, but compromised by “outside agitators” exploiting
the tragedy for their own nefarious extremist ends, most likely alt-right and
white supremacist ones. And, of course, the blue-state mayors and governors
whose appeasing riot-control protocols worsened
the riots while frantically trying to avoid blame and exploit them for their
own political aims.
What is missing, as usual, is the
truth about these protests and their alleged causes––They’re all about politics,
not justice.
One thing that is obvious from
watching the footage is that these riots have become a rite of passage for the
college-age demographic, a sort of “woke” spring break memorialized by
cell-phone cameras, selfies, tweets, Instagram, and Facebook postings. The
other cohort comprises the shock-troops of left-over leftism like Antifa, the
same bougie thrill-seekers and political illiterates who filled the ranks of
Occupy Wall Street and the other international outfits that regularly protest
at meetings of the IMF and G7. Young people, particularly young males, are
naturally drawn to vandalism and posturing, and these “protests” give them
ample opportunities to preen before the international press. And who doesn’t
like some free stuff looted from stores? Isn’t all property “theft” anyway?
More recently, the cause du jour has
been the alleged racist killings of young black men by the police, which
spawned Black Lives Matter. This canard has been exploded repeatedly by scholars
analyzing FBI and DOJ homicide data. But facts are irrelevant when it comes to
the “truth,” as Joe Biden made clear last year when he said “we choose truth
over facts.” The lie’s purpose is really to keep alive the idea of the indelible
racism manifested now in “systemic racism” and “implicit bias.” These vague
ideas are in fact confessions that real racism––obvious in Jim Crow laws, legal
segregation, daily violence and humiliation, lynchings, and riots––is
negligible today. Thus any pretext, no matter how specious or even false, must
be promoted and exploited to keep “racism” and victimization alive. It is the
mechanism victim-based identity politics relies on to gain political leverage,
and keep the racialist grievance-industry factories humming.
So every time a black man is killed
by the police, even if, unlike the current tragedy, it is justified, as it was
in Ferguson, the race industry hacks and hustlers congregate like vultures to
feast on the dead. After all, such relatively rare shootings are one of those
“crises” the left never let go to waste. That’s why the “peaceful protestors”
cliché is dubious. First, despite the rote adjective “peaceful,” most of them
are willing to act as buffers between the police and the thugs who hurl rocks
and bottles, burn cars, and loot businesses. The “peaceful protestors” and
Antifa are two brigades in the same army, and there’s no more ideological
difference between the two than there is between Hamas’s terrorist and
political wings.
Next, their youthful “passion”
and “idealism” don’t cut any ice. Nazis and Bolsheviks were passionate
idealists too. What counts is what you are passionate about. Passionate protest
predicated on a lie, whether it’s Jewish treachery or racist cops murdering innocent
blacks, in the end serves evil rather than good.
Finally, the idea that these
“peaceful protestors” should be given the benefit of the doubt because they are
trying to effect “change” and promote “justice” is equally bogus. First, even
if they are sincere, as no doubt some are, they are protesting against a crime
that is relatively rare. It is juvenile utopianism to expect that out of nearly
a million police officers in the U.S., there won’t be a few bullies or psychos.
Thus given the 50-60 millions of encounters between police and civilians every
year, it is equally childish to expect none will not result in abuse of
authority. Of course, police departments should be held accountable for their
hiring, training, and accountability protocols, but they can’t keep out every
potential abuser.
Second, as we’ve already noted, the
crime they are protesting is rare. If black lives really “matter,” all this
“passionate anger” should instead be directed towards the shameful toll of dead
black men every year, 6200 in 2019, the overwhelming majority at the hands of
other blacks. This is the real crisis, one that the black establishment elites
in government, popular culture, and media shamefully ignore. The reason is
obvious: black-on-black crime doesn’t advance the politically and fiscally
profitable narrative of white “racism.”
Nor will the “legacy of racism”
determinist argument work. It ignores the significant improvement in most black
lives since World War II, and the role in weakening black families and
communities in the Sixties played by progressive Great Society
redistributionist entitlements, changes in sexual mores, the decline of
faith, and the whole “if it feels good, do it” ethos––all of which were
promoted and celebrated by the left. Better stick to manufactured crises and
fantasies like “implicit bias.”
Finally, as Ross Douthat pointed out last Sunday (amidst his usual
irrelevant NeverTrump clichés), disorganized violent protests have been shown
to be counterproductive, achieving the opposite of the protestors’ alleged
aims. Summarizing the research of Princeton political scientist Omar Wasow,
Douthat writes:
Looking at data from the civil rights
era, Wasow argues that “proximity to black-led nonviolent protests increased
white Democratic vote-share whereas proximity to black-led violent protests
caused substantively important declines” — enough to tip the 1968 election from
Hubert Humphrey to Nixon. More broadly, in news coverage and public opinion
from those years, nonviolent protests (especially in the face of segregationist
violence) increased support for civil rights, while violent protests tipped
public opinion away from the protesters, and toward a stronger desire for what
Nixon called law and order, and Wasow calls “social control.”
Scenes of vandalism and violence such
as those broadcast last week, and the destruction of businesses and
neighborhoods, some of them black, will likely have a similar effect,
contributing nothing to the protestors’ alleged purposes, and more likely
turning more and more ordinary voters against them. After all, Derek Chauvin,
the cop who leaned on George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes while Floyd pleaded for
help, has been charged with 3rd degree murder, as well as being
fired along with three other officers. It’s not clear what more the protestors
want done.
Of course, Chauvin could be
acquitted, which would indeed be a miscarriage of justice. And if that should
happen, we will no doubt see the same violence from last week replayed. But
if––a big “if”–– there are sincere “peaceful protestors” who want to
demonstrate against that verdict, they’ll avoid last week’s carnival of
vandalism and looting. They will look to the protests of the Civil Rights
movement, and organize a march in which clergy, politicians, and other civic
leaders and adults participate with solemn dignity and decorum, and with
specific proposals for avoiding such an outcome. But gathering a crowd of
slovenly, entitled overgrown teenagers––mixed in with thuggish punks who
somehow can afford to travel around vandalizing and looting–– will harden most
citizens’ antipathy to such spoiled ingrates and their specious pretexts.
Of course, that’s all improbable
speculation. The point of these violent protests is not to effect change. It is
to generate disorder and leverage more power for the left, and more immediately
to damage Donald Trump, who of course is already being blamed for Floyd’s death
and the subsequent riots. That death is being demeaned by the progressives who
are adding it to their long, dishonest indictment of Trump.
That’s what happens when a political
party has nothing to offer any voters not already enlisted as its client––photogenic
“crises” are created as a diversion from a bankrupt platform and a senile
candidate. The “peaceful protestors” are either willing participants in this
political theater, or useful dupes.
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