If all black lives mattered to Black Lives Matter, why weren’t they in Chicago last month when Mekhi James, a three-year-old black toddler, was shot and killed? Young Mekhi was just one of 100 people shot in Chicago over a single weekend. Another was a 13-year-old girl who was killed inside her own home while showing her mom the latest dance move.
In addition to campaigning for the abolition of the police, a policy that would surely increase the number of such killings, BLM was busy in Tulsa protesting a president who has done more in his first three years as president to boost the prosperity of black people than Joe Biden did in eight years as vice president.
The leadership of BLM has made clear that only one thing will cause them to stop the looting and rioting — Trump’s defeat. But why? Have Trump’s policies created more jobs for black people, Hispanics, and women than ever before? They did, at least until the global pandemic hit. Trump rarely passed up a chance to say how proud he was of that accomplishment.
Have Trump’s policies moved more black people from welfare to work than during Barack Obama’s eight years? Yes.
Did Trump sign landmark legislation to put more money, more regularly, into historic black colleges? Well, yes. Yes, he did.
Did Trump push through criminal justice reform so fewer black people go to prison for minor offenses? He did.
Is Trump bucking the powerful teachers unions to give black families more choices in deciding where to send their children to school? He absolutely is.
Yet Trump is somehow the problem. BLM wants Trump out of the White House in favor of Biden, who did none of these things during his six terms in the Senate and two terms as vice president. In fact, in many cases, Joe was part of the problem.
As a senator, Biden led the charge for mandatory sentencing, which put more black people in prison for minor offenses. The Obama-Biden administration’s answer to people trapped in poverty was free cellphones and more food stamps. Obama-Biden’s economic policies led to a stagnating economy, fewer jobs, a low rate of black small-business startups, and a widening wealth gap between black people and just about everyone else.
It was Biden who talked about his opposition to court-ordered school busing using this kind of obvious dog-whistle language: “Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle.” (Imagine if Trump were to say something like that!)
Even now, Biden continues to deny black families access to quality schools by siding with teachers unions against new charter schools and voucher programs. And 10 years ago this week, Biden heaped praise upon his mentor, the late Ku Klux Klan leader and senator, Robert Byrd, as a “mentor,” “friend,” and “guide.”
Despite all this, it’s Trump that BLM wants out and Biden they want in. So is it really black lives that matter to Black Lives Matter? Or is it the socialist economic policies that Biden has increasingly identified with since he started his campaign for president?
Until Trump became president, too many in both parties had largely given up solving the real problems of black Americans. Democrats attempted to buy their votes, and Republicans, reeling from constant partisan accusations of racism, seldom addressed black voters at all.
Neither approach has been acceptable to Trump, who has made regular appearances in the black community. But instead of taking the Democrats’ approach, Trump promised to create more jobs to close the wealth gap, find ways to encourage more black homeownership and black business startups, and give black families more choices as to where to send their children to school.
Then Trump did something few politicians have done in recent times, Republican or Democrat. He kept his promises.
Black Lives Matter isn’t primarily concerned with making black lives more prosperous, more independent, safer, or more full of hope and opportunity. To find someone who’s actually worked to do those things, you have to look to Trump.
John Philip Sousa IV, is a businessman and the author of John Philip Sousa, A Patriot’s Life in Words and Pictures and Ben Carson, Rx for America. Sousa is chairman of the Stars and Stripes Forever PAC.
