Not in the literal sense. Charles Manson wanted to incite a race war because he thought that after a race war that saw blacks kill all non blacks (Manson and his “family” would survive however…) that he would return to rule them. You can be pretty sure that the Black Lives Matter guys aren’t seeking to start a race war so they can be ruled by a white guy… But they certainly seem to want a race war.
Just as Charles Manson was not connected with reality, the ideas behind the Black Lives Matter movement are equally disconnected to reality. Remember “Hands up! Don’t Shoot!”?
Black Lives Matter peddles the fiction that black men across the country are in mortal danger from police. That is simply a lie. An interesting study was just reported in the New York Times that showed that although black men are approximately 20% more likely to have a physical confrontation with police when compared with white men, they are also approximately 20% LESS likely to be shot by police when compared with white men in similar situations… A few years ago the Washington Post reported similar findings.
What is not a lie however is the fact that the lives of black man are indeed in danger, but that danger comes from other black men… not the police. To put that in crystal clear perspective, according to the CDC, the number one cause of death among black men between the ages of 15 & 34 is homicide. Literally, 43.7% of the young men in that cohort who die each year are murdered! The equivalent rate for white men in the same cohort is 7.3%. And regardless of the lies BLM tells you, most of those thousands of young black men are not being killed by police, they are being killed by other black men.
And it is thousands… In 2014, according to the FBI, 5,209 black men were murdered in the United States, 90% of those by other black men. During that same year 268 black men were killed by the police… that number includes criminals in shootouts with police, those resisting arrest and others threatening citizens. In addition, typically only 10% of those killed by police are unarmed, although unarmed doesn’t mean they weren’t a danger to police or others. So, as a thought exercise, let's imagine that 50% of the fatal shootings of black men were unjustified. That would mean that 134 innocent black men were killed by police that year. At the same time, we know that 5,209 black men were killed, 90% of them by other blacks. That equates to 4,688 black men killed by other black men. So... do the math absent the BLM calculator... even assuming that 50% of all police shootings of black men are unjustified - when the real number is likely in the low single digits - black men are still 35 times as likely to be killed by other black men than they are by the police.
There are no doubt instances of innocent black men being killed by bad cops. But that number is literally a tiny fraction of the encounters black men have with cops annually. And that's the problem with the BLM. It's a race pimp movement that focuses massive amounts of attention on a problem that is infinitesimally small when compared to real dangers that black men face... i.e. murder at the hands of other black men, violence perpetrated by other black men, unemployment, lack of positive role models in the home, etc.
BLM makes it out as if America in 2016 is the same as it was in 1950 and maybe not so different than it was in 1870... But that's simply not true. We've probably come 95% of the way in eliminating racial barriers in this country and while more still needs to be done, BLM proffers the fiction that the problem keeping so many black men from succeeding in America is white cops and institutional racism. Neither is true, and to the extent that BLM and Al Sharpton and Barack Obama focus on that they aren't focusing on the real, substantive issues that could give young black men real opportunities to succeed in life like a good education, a good entry level job to learn marketable skills and a nuclear family where a mother and father are able to provide good moral values and teach him to work hard, have respect for others and basically how to grow up to be a successful man.
But those things are hard and there’s no press or money in it while protesting and snarling traffic are easy… and they generate lots of press and big checks from liberal white guys like George Soros. And that’s the key to understanding the BLM movement… It’s fundamentally just another liberal group seeking money and power. Facts don’t matter. Results don’t matter. BLM is little different than the government’s war on poverty. Americans have spent $40 trillion “fighting” poverty and we’re exactly where we were when we started. The program is a failure, but lots of people are making lots of money off it. Same deal with the ethanol boondoggle.
Liberals aren’t in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of getting money for pretending to try and solve problems. Facts and outcomes are simply irrelevant. Success is measured by how much money or TV appearances can be generated, not how many people can actually be helped. And so it is with the Black Lives Matter movement. Create the illusion that black men around the country are being hunted down and killed by an army of rouge racist white cops then step in and take up the position of defender of the innocents… This is pure propaganda for the purpose of gaining attention, money and finally power. So what if the fictional “Hands up! Don’t Shot!” meme set Ferguson, MO aflame? So what if protests ignite a powder keg in Baltimore that results in a sharp uptick in murders – most of the victims being black? So what if black men are so incensed by the BLM fiction that they start shooting cops from New York to Texas to Louisiana? Not really good for anybody, but at least the Black Lives Matter leaders get a lot of cable TV airtime.
It’s maybe no coincidence that race relations today seem to be as bad as they were in the 1960’s when Charles Manson was seeking to start his own race war. On the backdrop of a president who has been making race an issue for eight years we have Black Lives Matter out in the streets trying to incite unrest and acting as the spark for violent protests. When times are difficult and there is much angst among the citizenry there will always be charlatans who try to inflame tempers for their own gain. Charles Manson and the Black Lives Matter movements may have had very different long term goals, but the blood spilled in their names is very much the same. The only difference is that with BLM the amount of blood is much larger, and Charlie was never invited to the White House…
Black Lives Matter peddles the fiction that black men across the country are in mortal danger from police. That is simply a lie. An interesting study was just reported in the New York Times that showed that although black men are approximately 20% more likely to have a physical confrontation with police when compared with white men, they are also approximately 20% LESS likely to be shot by police when compared with white men in similar situations… A few years ago the Washington Post reported similar findings.
What is not a lie however is the fact that the lives of black man are indeed in danger, but that danger comes from other black men… not the police. To put that in crystal clear perspective, according to the CDC, the number one cause of death among black men between the ages of 15 & 34 is homicide. Literally, 43.7% of the young men in that cohort who die each year are murdered! The equivalent rate for white men in the same cohort is 7.3%. And regardless of the lies BLM tells you, most of those thousands of young black men are not being killed by police, they are being killed by other black men.
And it is thousands… In 2014, according to the FBI, 5,209 black men were murdered in the United States, 90% of those by other black men. During that same year 268 black men were killed by the police… that number includes criminals in shootouts with police, those resisting arrest and others threatening citizens. In addition, typically only 10% of those killed by police are unarmed, although unarmed doesn’t mean they weren’t a danger to police or others. So, as a thought exercise, let's imagine that 50% of the fatal shootings of black men were unjustified. That would mean that 134 innocent black men were killed by police that year. At the same time, we know that 5,209 black men were killed, 90% of them by other blacks. That equates to 4,688 black men killed by other black men. So... do the math absent the BLM calculator... even assuming that 50% of all police shootings of black men are unjustified - when the real number is likely in the low single digits - black men are still 35 times as likely to be killed by other black men than they are by the police.
There are no doubt instances of innocent black men being killed by bad cops. But that number is literally a tiny fraction of the encounters black men have with cops annually. And that's the problem with the BLM. It's a race pimp movement that focuses massive amounts of attention on a problem that is infinitesimally small when compared to real dangers that black men face... i.e. murder at the hands of other black men, violence perpetrated by other black men, unemployment, lack of positive role models in the home, etc.
BLM makes it out as if America in 2016 is the same as it was in 1950 and maybe not so different than it was in 1870... But that's simply not true. We've probably come 95% of the way in eliminating racial barriers in this country and while more still needs to be done, BLM proffers the fiction that the problem keeping so many black men from succeeding in America is white cops and institutional racism. Neither is true, and to the extent that BLM and Al Sharpton and Barack Obama focus on that they aren't focusing on the real, substantive issues that could give young black men real opportunities to succeed in life like a good education, a good entry level job to learn marketable skills and a nuclear family where a mother and father are able to provide good moral values and teach him to work hard, have respect for others and basically how to grow up to be a successful man.
But those things are hard and there’s no press or money in it while protesting and snarling traffic are easy… and they generate lots of press and big checks from liberal white guys like George Soros. And that’s the key to understanding the BLM movement… It’s fundamentally just another liberal group seeking money and power. Facts don’t matter. Results don’t matter. BLM is little different than the government’s war on poverty. Americans have spent $40 trillion “fighting” poverty and we’re exactly where we were when we started. The program is a failure, but lots of people are making lots of money off it. Same deal with the ethanol boondoggle.
Liberals aren’t in the business of solving problems. They are in the business of getting money for pretending to try and solve problems. Facts and outcomes are simply irrelevant. Success is measured by how much money or TV appearances can be generated, not how many people can actually be helped. And so it is with the Black Lives Matter movement. Create the illusion that black men around the country are being hunted down and killed by an army of rouge racist white cops then step in and take up the position of defender of the innocents… This is pure propaganda for the purpose of gaining attention, money and finally power. So what if the fictional “Hands up! Don’t Shot!” meme set Ferguson, MO aflame? So what if protests ignite a powder keg in Baltimore that results in a sharp uptick in murders – most of the victims being black? So what if black men are so incensed by the BLM fiction that they start shooting cops from New York to Texas to Louisiana? Not really good for anybody, but at least the Black Lives Matter leaders get a lot of cable TV airtime.
It’s maybe no coincidence that race relations today seem to be as bad as they were in the 1960’s when Charles Manson was seeking to start his own race war. On the backdrop of a president who has been making race an issue for eight years we have Black Lives Matter out in the streets trying to incite unrest and acting as the spark for violent protests. When times are difficult and there is much angst among the citizenry there will always be charlatans who try to inflame tempers for their own gain. Charles Manson and the Black Lives Matter movements may have had very different long term goals, but the blood spilled in their names is very much the same. The only difference is that with BLM the amount of blood is much larger, and Charlie was never invited to the White House…
good post
ReplyDeletei was thinking the same thing about helter skelter
ReplyDelete