Let's get real, and stop the bulls**t! Republican Party political leaders, Fox TV and conservative radio talk show hosts should know better.
The New York Times noted in a recent editorial that they are...
"... trying to demonize the protest movement that has sprung up in response to the all-too-common police killings of unarmed African-Americans across the country. The intent of the campaign ... is to cast the phrase "Black Lives Matter" as an inflammatory or even hateful anti-white expression that has no legitimate place in a civil rights campaign.
The "Black Lives Matter" movement focuses on the fact that black citizens have long been far more likely than whites to die at the hands of the police, and is of a piece with this history. Demonstrators who chant the phrase are making the same declaration that voting rights and civil rights activists made a half-century ago. They are not asserting that black lives are more precious than white lives. They are underlining an indisputable fact -- that the lives of black citizens in this country historically have not mattered, and have been discounted and devalued.
People who are unacquainted with this history are understandably uncomfortable with the language of the movement. But politicians who know better and seek to strip this issue of its racial content and context are acting in bad faith. They are trying to cover up an unpleasant truth and asking the country to collude with them."
Politicians like former Mike Huckabee of AK, current governor Nikki Haley of SC, and Senator Ron Paul of KY, Fox News commenters, and conservative radio talk show hosts should visit the University of San Francisco and attend one of more weeks of its course "From Slavery to Obama." The Syllabus to the Course, which I wrote, reminds us that:
"In his epic treatise The Souls of Black Folk published in 1903, renowned sociologist and historian, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, commenting on the legacy of Slavery in our country said, "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line."
More than a hundred years after he wrote those words, the racial struggles in the United States remain the most pervasive theme in our history. Slavery, the Civil War, and nearly a century of racial segregation stand as stains on the moral fabric of the United States.
Notwithstanding, the election and re-election of America's first African-American President of the United States, frank discussions on race relations in America and the historical impact of the institution of slavery upon our current society remain problematic.
The events in Ferguson, Cleveland, Baltimore, Staten Island, NY, and Charleston, SC in 2015 indicate "a fierce urgency of now" for our nation, once and for all, to confront the reality of the consequential impact of the legacy of slavery upon the current attitudes and conduct of the descendants of slaves and slaveholders.
Through an in-depth examination of the long history of white supremacy and the black struggle against it, this course is designed to enable honest and critical discussion about race in America. Readings, lectures, and activities will focus on those events and individuals that have decisively shaped and influenced America's efforts to abolish slavery and address its historical consequences and subsequent efforts to create a society based on values of racial equality and social justice'."
If these politicians and media persons are really interested in learning why Black lives matter, they should also take the time to read one or more of the books mentioned below. That might assist them in better understanding why so many White and Black persons today continue to remind us that Black lives should matter.
The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin; The Warm of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson; Parting the Waters, by Taylor Branch; We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting For, by Alice Walker; Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates; Beloved, by Toni Morrison; The Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison; or any one of the books by Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, and the current writings of Michael Eric Dyson and Cornell West, etc.
Most important of all, they have to be intellectually and spiritually honest. They should know better.
The Black Lives Matter movement didn't create the existential reality of how police too frequently treat black men in our country, resulting in the repetitive deaths of so many black men and women. The legacy of the Institution of slavery and the generational persistence of white supremacy seek to tell us, 24/7, that Black lives don't matter, unless we make them matter!!
However, we who support this new "civil rights movement" also have to be spiritually and intellectually honest. A recent column in the Wall Street Journal by Edward Conlon reminds us that, "Police bias and misconduct are serious problems but so is the epidemic of homicide among young black men."
The columnist continues by saying, "It's not up to me to decide what activists should protest, but after years of dealing with the realities of street violence, I don't understand how a movement called "Black Lives Matter" can ignore the leading cause of death among young black men in the U.S., which is homicide by their peers"
Guess what? This is a painfully astute and accurate observation that does not diminish or contradict the history of police misconduct toward African-Americans.
Accordingly, an acknowledgement of the reality of "Black on Black" gun violence raises the moral bar and imperative for the Black Lives Matter movement to include the issue of homicide among young black men, by other black men as an issue of "the fierce urgency of now"
A failure to do so risk the political and moral integrity of the movement with others, non-black and other persons who might otherwise support the Black Lives Matter movement, but who might perceive the Movement as being intellectually dishonest and morally challenged.
If not now, when?
If not us, who?