One of the traits you will always find in those of us who have left the Democratic Party is a serious skepticism. Almost all of our journeys began by asking these types of questions, rather than blindly accepting the narrative that is forced upon us from all angles.
Back in the States, I was being taught not just what to think, but how to think, through my philosophy classes, discipleship in FOCUS, ROTC training, and Criminal Justice and Philosophy studies. This was the beauty of my liberal arts education, that I was actually developed into a person with an ability to reason, and not just another Progressive clone that automatically accepts and regurgitates Marxist talking points.
I, along with many others, would get my first real taste of Marxism and soft-totalitarianism in 2013, although I didn’t know it at the time. After George Zimmerman was acquitted from murder charges that came from the death of Trayvon Martin, three self-proclaimed radical Black organizers created a “Black-centered political will and movement building project called #BlackLivesMatter.” Source
When the organization began, it seemed innocent enough for everyone to support. Almost the entire country agreed with the statement that black lives matter, so we quickly began using the hashtag and supporting the organization in a number of ways. What we came to find out, though, was that the organization represented much more than a common sense phrase. Time would reveal that BLM would seek to make extremely complex situations appear black and white, or more accurately black versus white, in support of a specific agenda – the agenda of the radical left.
I want to look at a few of the cases that were central to the popularization of the BLM movement.
First is the case of Trayvon Martin. This case was exceptionally heated and complex. It seemed like new details were being released week after week. Nobody ever really knew what happened, because nobody was there to see it. In an article for the New Yorker written by the self-indulging and technologically inept Jeffrey Toobin, the author cites the call that George Zimmerman, who killed Martin, made to a non-emergency police dispatcher.
According to the details of the call, Zimmerman states that there had been a number of unsolved break-ins in his neighborhood recently. He says, referring to Martin, that there is a very suspicious guy walking around with his hand on his waistband looking at houses. According to the article’s transcript of the call, the dispatcher asked Zimmerman to disclose Martin’s race. He never made mention of it until he was asked.
But the fact that Zimmerman made the statement that Martin was black, regardless of being asked, was used as what would become a foundational strategy of the headlining cases that made the BLM founders and organization famous…and wealthy. Namely that we began assuming things were not just potentially influenced by race, but rather that they were almost exclusively motivated by racial bias and bigotry.
One of the most perplexing parts of the Trayvon case, which would resurface again in different forms in future cases, was that Zimmerman was far from embodying the features of Hitler’s ideal Arian race. It doesn’t take a PhD in sociology to recognize that Zimmerman is actually of mixed race, which started a slew of debates about whether race is primarily biological or cultural.
Since we live in a world of unfettered relativism and subjectivity, Zimmerman was deemed white, despite the fact that nobody asked him what he identified as during this country-wide societally-driven investigation. Ironically, nobody asked him for his pronouns either, because such a thing was considered highly nonsensical and was almost nonexistent at the time. Because Zimmerman was deemed white, his deadly encounter with Martin in 2012 and subsequent acquittal in 2013 was seen as yet another sign of the thriving white supremacy here in America. Shortly after, we got the official creation of BLM, the organization, that same year.
It turns out that when you create an organization to fight an enemy, in this case the enemy being white supremacy and racist white cops, you have to continuously look for the next battle. Similar to my constant search for racism in my early high school years, BLM was able to find racism nearly everywhere they looked, even when it wasn’t there. In 2014, BLM really seized the opportunity with this next case.
On August 9th, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.
An AP News Article from August, 2019, that’s five years later, describes the event as follows, “On Aug. 9, 2014, Michael Brown and a friend were walking in the middle of Canfield Drive, a two-lane street in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, when a police officer drove by and told them to use the sidewalk. After words were exchanged, the white officer confronted the 18-year-old Brown, who was black. The situation escalated, with the officer and Brown scuffling. The officer shot and killed Brown, who was unarmed.”
On March 4th, 2015, after more than 6 months of FBI investigation, the Department of Justice released their report on the case. Please remember, this is President Obama’s DOJ leading this investigation with the oversight of his appointee to Attorney General, Eric Holder. Their account of the facts derived from their investigation read much differently than the way most news outlets, celebrities, and other influential people discussed the case then and discuss the case now.
Here are some of the highlights that I’ve pulled out from their report:
• Officer Wilson spotted Brown and a friend walking in the middle of the street
• Brown and his friend had just committed a strong arm robbery at a nearby convenience store, after which the store clerk called the police and reported that Brown and his friend had stolen several packages of cigarillos
• Radio transmission recordings establish that Wilson was aware of the theft and had a description of the suspects as he approached Brown and his friend
• Wilson suspected Brown and his friend were involved in the incident at the Ferguson Market based on the description he heard on the radio and the cigarillos in Brown’s hands
• Wilson then pulled his car ahead of them at an angle, stopping them from walking further
• Wilson and other witnesses stated that Brown reached into the SUV through the open driver’s side window and punched and grabbed at Wilson, which is further corroborated by bruising on Wilson’s jaw, scratches on his neck, the presence of Brown’s DNA on Wilson’s collar, shirt, and pants, and Wilson’s DNA on Brown’s palm
• Wilson withdrew his gun because he could not access less lethal weapons while seated inside the SUV
• Brown then grabbed the weapon and struggled with Wilson to gain control of it
• Wilson fired and shot Brown in the hand
• Autopsy results and bullet trajectory, skin from Brown’s palm on the outside of the SUV door as well as Brown’s DNA on the inside of the driver’s door corroborate Wilson’s account that during the struggle Brown used his right hand to grab and attempt to control Wilson’s gun
• Soot from the muzzle of the gun found embedded in the tissue of Brown’s hand wound along with other evidence that proves Brown’s was within inches of the muzzle of Wilson’s gun when it was fired
• Brown proceeded to run at least 180 feet away from the SUV before turning around and charging back at Wilson. Several witnesses stated that Brown appeared to pose a physical threat to Wilson as he moved toward him
The rioting that began the next day would go on for years, resulting in over sixty arrests, more than $4.5 million in damage, and the death of two St. Louis area police officers.
BLM, like most radical left organizations, never misses an opportunity to seize a tragedy and use it to their advantage. I was a senior in college in the Fall of 2014. And while I had sympathized with some of the other cases that happened in between the deaths of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, this one just didn’t seem right.
Having a deep love for the black community and a sincere respect for law enforcement, I started to see myself as being one of the only voices of reason in my social circle. Why not wait until you see the facts, taking things case by case, rather than blindly committing yourself to one narrative?
It was the first time I became aware of the rush to conclusions by both republicans and democrats.
Are some cops racist? Probably, yes. Do some unarmed black men commit acts of violence against police that warrant deadly force? Also yes. Do I believe I can see a 30-second news clip and determine what “justice” means in a particular case that will take the FBI 6 months to thoroughly investigate? Definitely not. But many people do on both sides of the political aisle. And even after the investigation comes out, it’s unlikely that those who spent all that time digging themselves into their fighting positions will be willing to accept the truth and change course.
Black Lives Matter and their passionate followers were the perfect example of this rigid commitment to the narrative. The BLM website currently states: “In 2014, Mike Brown was murdered by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. It was a guttural response to be with our people, our family — in support of the brave and courageous community of Ferguson and St. Louis as they were being brutalized by law enforcement, criticized by media, tear gassed, and pepper sprayed night after night.”
Does that sound a bit misleading based on what the DOJ discovered and released about this case nearly 7 years ago? Of course it does to any rational person. It continuously boggles my mind that Mike Brown is consistently included in the litany of BLM martyrs whose deaths are held up as heroic acts of social justice along with the violence, looting, and other forms of evil behavior that followed them.
Speaking of misleading, did you know that 1,000 or more unarmed black men were killed by the police in 2019? That’s true, at least in the minds of 53.5% of people who self-identified as “very liberal” in a 2020 survey. The actual number according to the Mapping Police Database was 27. According to the Washington Post database, that number was 12.
Maybe you’re thinking that this line of thought is just among those who are extreme, so let’s look at what the moderates reported in the same survey. Among those who self-identify as moderate, some 66.4% of them estimated that the number was about 100 or more, with a quarter of them saying it was at least 1,000 or more. This means that 2/3s of our nation’s moderates believe that the number of unarmed black people killed by police in 2019 was 4-8x higher than it actually was.
Why do you think that is?
Part Three will be released on September 27, 2023 right here on Locals. Stay Tuned!
