All Lives Matter. Period

This article first appeared in Eagle Rising.


At first glance, there seems nothing objectionable about the phrase, "black lives matter". Yet, there is much objectionable about the Black Lives Matter movement. While many may join for what they feel are the right reasons-to protest peacefully, many, including many of its leaders, are not in for the right reasons.

What started off as a rather obnoxious bunch of young people getting in the faces of white people in cafes and university campuses and demanding to know if they thought black lives matter has now evolved into something more sinister. Just in the past year we saw a march in St Paul in which BLM activists were chanting, "Pigs in a blanket. Fry'em like bacon", and marchers in New York City chanting, "What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want them? Now." That was accompanied by the gunning down of two NY City cops. What has followed has been a wave of police assassinations inspired by the BLM movement. most notably in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Not even the despicable New Black Panther Party has run up such a tally.

Try as they may to distance themselves from police shootings, they can't. Their words have consequences, and they must confront that fact. The Dallas killer, as we was cornered after killing 5 cops, told police that Black Lives Matter was part of his motive.

Also objectionable is the effort of the BLM crowd to brand anyone who answers, "All lives matter" or Blue lives matter" as racist. They say it does not address the special circumstances of black deaths. That argument should be rejected out of hand.

First of all, BLM has nothing to say about the thousands of young black men who are shot and killed every year-not by police-but by other young black men. Often, innocent victims like little black children are caught in the crossfire. Chicago is a prime example, where the South Side is a virtual killing field. What does BLM have to say about that? Crickets.

Similarly, what does BLM have to say about the hundreds of thousands of black fetuses that are aborted every year? Again, not a word. They can't say much about the rare instances where a black person is murdered by a white. True, it happened often in the Jim Crow South, but today it is rare. The number of whites murdered by blacks far outnumbers blacks killed by whites.

No, it is only when a white cop kills a black suspect in the line of duty that matters to BLM. While it is true that there have been a handful of questionable instances-such as the shooting in North Charleston, SC, we have a justice system to deal with it. The cop in the Charleston case has been fired and charged with homicide. I expect he will be convicted. On the other hand, we have more cases like the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, which after riots and full investigations by state and federal authorities proved that it was a case of self defense.

But in spite of it all, good shootings, bad shootings, nothing justifies the assassinations of police officers around the nation, and BLM has, indeed, inspired such shootings. There should be a full scale federal investigation by the Justice Department to determine if there is a conspiracy to murder police.

As for those who get in our faces and demand, "Do you think  black lives matter?" our response should be firm: All lives matter. period. Punto final.