I read Lupe Fiasco twitter and agreed with his thoughts on the BLM lack of critical thinking. I personal agree to the main theme of the movement but disagree with much of the rallies. I think plenty of those families would like less publicity and more clarity.
One of the problems is that BLM is a Far Left movement based on the Black Panthers and other Black nationalist groups, and draws its inspiration from Assata Shakur, so it isn't mainstream. That means that it gets its tactics from Communist and agitprop movements that are confrontational and divisive.
When they lay down on the freeway it just pisses people off, including Black people who are trying to get to their jobs. When they interrupt politicians (like Bernie Sanders) it turns the crowd against them. OR marching into university libraries where people are studying so they can scream at White students. Then they demean their White allies and preach segregation. Talk about driving the Civil Rights Movement back fifty years.
If they stuck with the message of being against police brutality and made sure they were documented and confirmed cases of brutality (as opposed to taking a video out of context), explain how Black people experience discrimination today, and do peaceful non-in-your-face marches, then they'd have more support.
black lives matters is about the police shooting innocent unarmed black people
it has nothing to do with the black panther party or black nationalism
how can a video of unarmed men being murdered on film be taken out of context?
BLM says that they are against police shooting innocent unarmed people. They're actually against and for more than that. Look at their website:
http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/And there are a lot of BLM supporters who advocate killing cops.
http://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2016/07/0...justified-rage/http://twitchy.com/sd-3133/2016/07/08/me...adly-handiwork/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj4ARsxrZh8https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PelVrRyNCU0But the leaders of BLM say they're against attacks on police, and I am glad that they are making a point of this now:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/09/us/black-lives-matter-protests/But they haven't always condemned threats on police. Sometimes they even defend them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wG_xm-J7Z4And it is partially based on the Black Panthers. The founders of BLM said so:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matterhttp://newsone.com/3357018/bridging-the-gap-intergenerational-black-lives-matter-black-panthers/http://theconversation.com/black-panthers-and-black-lives-matter-parallels-and-progress-48313One of the inspirations for BLM is Assata Shakur, a former Black Panther who became a bank robber and was an accomplice to at least one murder, was convicted and sent to prison, then was broken out in 1979 and fled to Cuba where she lives today:
http://www.thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2670As for videos taken out of context, I was making a general statement and not necessarily a comment on the Alton Sterling and Philando Castile videos. Any video can be taken out of context because they only show things from a single angle and usually a portion of the event. That's why when there's a crime and there's more than one video, all videos need to be seen.
I'm for the local police departments as well as the Justice Dept. going over all police shootings that result in death. But if the local investigation AND the Justice Dept. exonerate the police, we should probably respect those decisions. I don't think that all local police investigations will be fair, but I think if the Justice Dept. and the FBI also look over the evidence and come to the same conclusion, then those decisions probably are valid. That's one thing I don't see BLM doing. Once BLM convicts someone, they continue the narrative even if it's proven not to be true. That's one of the problems I have with them, aside from some of their tactics.
I think it's ridiculous of those people who make blanket condemnations of all police. Just like we don't think it's fair that some bad BLM supporters should represent the entire movement (like Rush Limbaugh calling BLM a "terrorist" group), neither should bad cops represent all police. When those officers in Dallas were pushing protesters away as they were running
toward the bullets, they had no choice but to respect that. Cops put their lives in danger every day because they have a desire to protect, and there are more cop killings in the past couple of years than in decades. The same day five were killed in Dallas, others were killed in Missouri, Georgia and Tennessee.
