Black lives matter. That statement is undeniably true, but not all black lives matter to the group Black Lives Matter. Apparently, retired police Capt. David Dorn of St. Louis was not worthy of the same outrage as George Floyd. Dorn was gunned down by looters after answering an alarm at a pawnshop belonging to a friend. Black Lives Matter was silent. An arrest was made. Black Lives Matter was silent. As it turns out, it’s not the life that matters to Black Lives Matter, it’s the person who killed them.
It’s hard to find anyone in this country who wasn’t outraged by the murder of Floyd. There have been other accusations of police brutality that divided public opinion. The killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, was another flashpoint. Black Lives Matter was outraged. Sports celebrities wore T-shirts with “Hands up, don’t shoot” on them. Former President Barack Obama’s Justice Department with Eric Holder at the helm promised justice. After a thorough investigation, it came to the same conclusion as the FBI and a grand jury. Brown was killed after trying to wrest a gun away from a police officer, then he charged at the officer when he tried to arrest him. The whole “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative was found to be a fantasy.
The Floyd killing was different. We all watched in horror as policemen pinned him to the ground, one with his knee on his neck, for an excruciatingly long time, even after his arms were handcuffed behind his back. All of the officers have now been charged.
This should have been a unifying moment for America, but it wasn’t.
It’s interesting to note that the protests started before an arrest was made, but the rioting started after. I’ve organized plenty of protests. They are goal-oriented. Ours was to stop a state income tax in Tennessee. Each time the legislature adjourned for the day without passing it, we went home. We only came back when they tried it again. When Floyd’s killer was arrested, that should have been the end of the protest, but getting an arrest was not the true goal.
We now see what that goal was: disbanding all police.
This is not the objective of any reasonable, law-abiding citizen. This is the objective of a mob. And this mob is well-funded by George Soros and the leftist Ford Foundation, which have given more than $100 million to groups supporting Black Lives Matter.
The question is, how interwoven is antifa into Black Lives Matter? It’s hard to say. At least some of the protesters are outraged that antifa has hijacked the protests. There are videos of black demonstrators shouting at antifa members for spray-painting buildings with “BLM” and handing out bricks.
That’s another thing: the bricks. How were pallets of bricks magically appearing in cities across the country? To believe that riots across the entire country can spontaneously erupt organically is to ignore the evidence of a well-coordinated organization. If you understand that antifa’s goal is to destroy the country as we know it, then you can understand how it seizes on any opportunity to act as a wedge. It really doesn’t care who’s right, it just wants to watch things burn.
How much is Black Lives Matters a part of that? It’s hard to tell, but one surefire way to watch America burn is to disband the police. This idea is actually being seriously discussed on liberal news outlets all across the country. Rep. Ilhan Omar wants to see it happen in Minneapolis. Her friends, Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, want to defund the police. Somehow, the man who inspired them, Bernie Sanders, has enough sense to oppose defunding the police. What would they replace the police with? Apparently, it’s social workers. Nothing against social workers, but social workers aren’t going to stop a riot. Can you imagine calling a social worker when your house is being broken into in the middle of the night?
You know what else is lunacy? Acknowledging that black lives matter then recognizing that all lives matter and getting fired. It happened to an NBA announcer. Imagine daring to suggest that all buildings matter, too, and being forced to resign, as happened at a Philadelphia newspaper. What kind of country do we live in where proclaiming that every life matters is racist?
Black Lives Matter isn’t concerned about black lives. There’s been no concern over the black lives lost during the riots. There’s no concern, either, over black citizens who are killed by other black citizens. About half of the murders in America are committed by African Americans. Over 90% of their victims are black. How come those victims never get talked about?
Is police brutality a problem? It is. I’ve been on the receiving end of it, but I don’t paint all cops with a broad brush. However, police brutality is not as widespread as Black Lives Matter would have you believe. There were 41 unarmed people killed by police in 2019. Only nine of them were black, while 19 were white. We’ve all encountered or seen videos of a Rambo cop. Let’s address that and clean up our police departments. But let’s also address the portion of our population that’s disproportionately being victimized, and that’s poor black citizens being preyed upon by other black people.
These are the people on the front lines of crime. We should be devising ways to protect them. Instead, Black Lives Matter calls you a racist if you even raise the issue. These are the people being victimized, and they don’t really care what color the perpetrators are. They just want it to stop.
You think that’s bad now? Wait until you disband the police.
Phil Valentine (@ValentineShow) is an award-winning radio talk show host (and now podcaster). He’s the author of three novels and the nonfiction book The Conservative’s Handbook. He broadcasts each weekday afternoon from SuperTalk 99.7FM in Nashville.
