The Black Lives Matter movement, which has come to be associated with recent race riots following the death of George Floyd, has become an influential player in U.S. politics, as it has gained a following by claiming that blacks are systematically targeted for demise.
While Black Lives Matter (BLM) commands respect for its political pull on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill, Democratic lawmakers are vastly more supportive of it than Republicans. Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican and 2016 presidential candidate, stood out on the GOP side by marching with protesters from the movement recently.
President Donald Trump, like politicians across the country, has condemned the killing of Floyd. He said June 1 that he was “an ally of all peaceful protesters.”
“I think they’re trouble. I think they’re looking for trouble,” he said. “I looked at a couple of the people that were interviewed from the group.
Black Lives Matter Founded
This movement, now at the center of often-violent protests in cities across the United States, grew out of the death of black teen Trayvon Martin.On April 11, 2012, George Zimmerman was charged with the second-degree murder of Martin, but the case against him eventually fell apart as it became clear that Martin had been the aggressor. A jury acquitted Zimmerman in July 2013.
The case against Zimmerman was the “seminal race hoax of the Obama years,” said documentary filmmaker Joel Gilbert. His movie, “The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud That Divided America,” was released last year.
In 2013, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi drew upon outrage over the Martin case to found Black Lives Matter.
“It was a response to the anti-Black racism that permeates our society,“ she wrote. ”Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.”
Cullors has said she’s focused on combating what she terms “the current system” of “white supremacy” and “anti-blackness” that imposes “state violence” on black Americans.
Violence
Although Black Lives Matter portrays itself “as a spontaneous uprising born of inner-city frustration, ... it is, in fact, the latest and most dangerous face of a web of well-funded socialist/communist organizations that have been agitating against America for decades,” according to Maryland-based researcher James Simpson, formerly a contributor to The Epoch Times and now a candidate for Congress.The movement claims to be nonviolent.
“The Black Lives Matter Network advocates for dignity, justice, and respect. ... Black activists have raised the call for an end to violence, not an escalation of it,” it states on its website, BlackLivesMatter.com.
Yet Black Lives Matter activists often urge and perpetrate violence against police.
The recent protests and the accompanying rioting and looting in hundreds of U.S. cities have caused commentators to compare 2020 to 1968, the last year that saw such widespread civil unrest, following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
Critics say that Black Lives Matter, which has been securing large donations from the corporate world in what may indicate a significant cultural shift in the country, has been violent from the outset.
At a Minneapolis fair protest the year before, its activists shouted, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon!”
The movement grew after another black teen, Michael Brown, was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. Brown was shot after he tried to grab the officer’s gun during an altercation.
Black Lives Matter soon adopted the slogan “Hands Up–Don’t Shoot!,” which was based on a story, later proven false, that Brown had been killed after raising his hands to surrender and saying “Don’t shoot,” according to Discover the Networks.
Officials appointed by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder investigated the killing and concluded that the officer had acted in self-defense.
The Epoch Times reached out to the Black Lives Matter organization for comment, but it didn’t immediately respond. Numerous professors who have expressed support for the movement also failed to respond to inquiries.