Opinion: Conservative Media Willfully Paints Wrong Picture of Black Lives Matter

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Long before the Charlottesville tragedy, America was defined by hate. Our country was shaped by savagery and divisiveness. Fortunes were sowed on the backs of slavery and rights denied, in the name of intolerance. The American Civil war was fought to instill a simple idea into the consciousness of the entire country forever. Somehow along the way millions have come to forget that Black Lives Matter.

There has been an undeniable rise in overt racial antagonism, violence, and crime – certainly not coincidentally – since the election of Barack Obama. This trend has only gained momentum and intensity under the incendiary leadership of Donald Trump, who embodies the ideals of White Nationalism. Make no mistake, the outward display of ignorance is not new, only revived, and the deeply rooted motivations have merely emerged from hibernation. To establish a peaceful society, the pieces of society must obtain peace. There can be no rest until America stands as one, finally with the realization that Black Lives Matter.

The alt right media messaging has set out to paint a picture of BLM as purveyors of chaos and social anarchy, while systemically avoiding the underlying issues that people of color demand to be addressed. Insecurity and fear are the fuel of ignorance and those who deny obvious injustice are doing everything within their power to ignore conspicuous malfeasance. However, these ugly infringements occur all around us and mass media denial cannot change the essence of truth. Black Lives Matter.

African Americans have always been treated unfairly and abused by law enforcement, hand in hand with the judicial system. Through the years, police officers have seen fit to employ the use of batons, dogs, fire hoses, patrol cars, broken broomsticks, boots, and bullets to subjugate people of color. Nowhere in the history of this country have Caucasians faced such inhuman brutality, unless it was in defense of African Americans.

Members of the conservative media and it’s alt right followers would have Americans believe that BLM is a collection of hate mongers or even worse, a terrorist group. BLM has been conveniently associated with the aggressive tactics of anti fascist groups as a means of discrediting and disabling a growing coalition echoing the Civil War. It’s a familiar right wing tactic that preceded the demise of African American icons, such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers.

The BLM movement is not an organization that advocates violence. It is, however, confrontational. BLM is imploring people to confront the truth of police brutality and a skewed justice system. We have witnessed entirely too many public executions of African Americans by law enforcement, without any meaningful consequences for decades. This is not a new phenomenon. The only part that is fresh is the inclusion of video evidence that suggests clear human rights infractions by offending officers. People of color are routinely given harsher sentences than Caucasians for the same crime. The war on drugs was fought in minority neighborhoods, while in some cases, the importation of drugs into these communities was allowed virtual free passage.

Suggesting that BLM is a racist group is beyond the realm of reality. African Americans are not marching or protesting under the premise of racial superiority, but rather, human equality. BLM are not carrying torches or sticks to intimidate other races, but they carry the weight of a grim and unjust truth, to assault the senses of naysayers. The differences are monumental.

The conservative media will have you believe that members of BLM are responsible for the lawlessness of rioting and looting instead of peaceful protest. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet it’s regularly presented in right wing circles as fact. We must not fall victim to tactics designed to divert and distort the issue of injustice. Black Lives Matter does not intimate that other lives matter less, only that black lives matter equally.

Black Lives Matter is a descendant of our Civil War and to suggest that the leaders of the Confederacy are deserving of historical reverence, is a blasphemous slight to men who fought for freedom. There should be no monuments dedicated to the fathers of slavery, as there can be no silencing of the voices that call for balance and fairness in America. Everything has a moment of reckoning and that time has come, and it is now that America must admit that Black Lives Matter, not in the name of color but for the sake of humanity. Embrace diversity and truth. #Resist intolerance and hate.