Though Black Lives Matter started as an authentic call for social justice, after being taken over by violent anarchists, it has steadily descended into a war against the foundations of our nation. Its vicious, senseless violence has taken its greatest toll among the most vulnerable low-income communities it purports to speak for.
Support for Black Lives Matter became a popular and facile way to signal one’s virtue. But do Black Lives Matter supporters such as LeBron James and other NBA stars, mayors of cities that are under siege, and corporate philanthropies condone the wanton violence, devastation, and death that are now perpetrated by radical, violent anarchists in the name of “social justice” for black people?
If not, they have a moral responsibility to say that — and to explain that to the residents of low-income communities whose neighborhoods have been devastated by rioters and looters and whose children have been left defenseless and dead as police officers, under attack, have abandoned protecting their streets.
In the name of Black Lives Matter and wrapped in the cloak of the civil rights movement’s moral authority, these domestic terrorists have launched brazen attack after brazen attack against citizens and the police. The violence has now descended to the point of the callous celebration of death.
In Portland, a participant in a Patriot Prayer demonstration was gunned down. The horror of the death of this man was exacerbated by the rioters’ celebration. “I am not sad that a f—ing fascist died tonight,” a woman shouted into a megaphone at a Black Lives Matter-antifa gathering. “He was a f—ing Nazi. Our community held its own and took out the trash.” An American flag was burned in celebration as the crowd reveled in the news.
This despicable incident was preceded by a series of brazen vicious attacks by Black Lives Matter forces. Black, white, and elderly men and women were attacked by (largely white) radicals as they left the Republican National Convention.
The police especially have been under attack. In Seattle, a plan was aborted that would have sealed off exits to a police building with quick-drying concrete and set the building on fire, trapping those who were inside. In Portland, Oregon, a mattress and other debris were laid against the door of a police association building and ignited.
Just a day earlier, police were attacked by protesters who hurled objects, broke windows, and scrawled graffiti. In mid-August, police offices were pelted with fireworks that Black Lives Matter rioters reportedly hurled at them.
For those who support Black Lives Matter, the skyrocketing rates of black-on-black violence and homicides that have resulted from their war against the police are an inconvenient truth. But for the vicious Black Lives Matter opportunists, this is a story that must be quelled.
Among the community leaders of the grassroots network of the Woodson Center are mothers throughout the country whose children’s lives had been taken in the rampant street violence. To ease the constant pain in their hearts, several have committed themselves to support and comfort other mothers whose children’s lives have been lost to homicide.
One of these courageous women contacted me last week. She said that when she had decried the death of one child by a soulless street thug, she received a message from a Black Lives Matter representative that she should “tone it down” and that it was “diluting their message.”
This incident reveals clearly that the true agenda of the racial grievance rioters has nothing to do with protecting the most vulnerable and nothing to do with a conviction that every black life matters.
Robert L. Woodson Sr. is the founder and president of the Woodson Center.
