the smear campaign on BLM

My pastor’s views are still developing (which is not the same undeveloped) on all the related issues, but yesterday he explicitly denounced “Black Lives Matter” as an ungodly secular movement whose objectives are at mortal odds with the biblical mission of the church and exhorted his congregation to stay away. He also rejects critical race theory (And feminism) as a destructive and divisive worldly philosophy also unsupported by the scriptures. (Tiribulus)

Mainstream Christianity in the USA is a mystery to me. They reject the universal provision of healthcare and a decent welfare system for the poorest people in their country. Because someone once told them that would be ‘socialism’ – and socialism is communism and communism is the baaaaaaad, bad debil.

But just when you think the words of the character Jesus from their holy book the Bible couldn’t be any more misrepresented, you find out they don’t want to accept that Black Lives Matter. They don’t want to accept that Black people within their country suffer from sustained, institutional racism or accept that a movement aiming to raise awareness of the numbers of deaths with the Black community could be useful.

I’ve been following some of the smear campaign against Black Lives Matter with great interest. Why would a nation on the point of compassionately reaching national awareness about this issue through largely peaceful protests, spin on its heels and start digging for any kind of negative behaviour that they can latch on to BLM?

Random unaffiliated person shooting policemen? Blame BLM. Groups of drunk young people disrespecting policemen? Blame BLM. Random schoolchildren ranting incoherently about white privilege? Blame BLM. Small groups of random, angry people threatening to kill White people? Blame BLM.

The idea is to blame BLM for anything negative or violent relating to the need to confront the issue of racism within the USA, and thereby discredit the notion than any racism exists, or that there is any need to campaign for change within American society.

But not until I read Tiribulus’ comment above did I realise why. BLM was founded by three queer Black women – not a decent White heterosexual man in sight! Let’s read about what they want, and let it sink in why White Christian patriarchal America is rushing to shut this down as fast as it can:

Black Lives Matter is a unique contribution that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes.  It goes beyond the narrow nationalism that can be prevalent within some Black communities, which merely call on Black people to love Black, live Black and buy Black, keeping straight cis Black men in the front of the movement while our sisters, queer and trans and disabled folk take up roles in the background or not at all.  Black Lives Matter affirms the lives of Black queer and trans folks, disabled folks, Black-undocumented folks, folks with records, women and all Black lives along the gender spectrum.  It centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements.  It is a tactic to (re)build the Black liberation movement.

When we say Black Lives Matter, we are talking about the ways in which Black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity. It is an acknowledgement Black poverty and genocide is state violence.  It is an acknowledgment that 1 million Black people are locked in cages in this country–one half of all people in prisons or jails–is an act of state violence.  It is an acknowledgment that Black women continue to bear the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families and that assault is an act of state violence. Black queer and trans folks bearing a unique burden in a hetero-patriarchal society that disposes of us like garbage and simultaneously fetishizes us and profits off of us is state violence; the fact that  500,000 Black people in the US are undocumented immigrants and relegated to the shadows is state violence;.the fact that Black girls are used as negotiating chips during times of conflict and war is state violence; Black folks living with disabilities and different abilities bear the burden of state-sponsored Darwinian experiments that attempt to squeeze us into boxes of normality defined by White supremacy is state violence.  And the fact is that the lives of Black people—not ALL people—exist within these conditions is consequence of state violence.

When Black people get free, everybody gets free

http://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/