In Brief: Some Lives Matter?
BLM “is a purely ideological organization and movement.”
Political analyst Matt Walsh takes a look at the reaction to the police shooting in a Minneapolis suburb and wonders about all the other deaths that don’t fit the narrative.
Consider the fact that between January 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021 there have been 507 white people shot to death by police, compared to 271 black people. And yet nobody knows the name of any of those white people, save one: Ashli Babbitt. She was an unarmed woman shot in the neck and killed by Capitol Police on January 6. We know her name not because BLM rallied to her cause, but because they so conspicuously refused to do so. …
Aside from Babbitt, the names of the other white people killed by police are known only to their families and friends. Not one mass protest has been staged on their behalf. Not one riot has broken out. Not one building burned in their honor. Not one pair of shoes looted from a Foot Locker. It is a curious thing that those who are still overwhelmed by the pain of George Floyd’s death, a year later, could be so selective in their pain. Was Floyd more deserving of our mourning? Was Daunte Wright?
Walsh explains that the statistics are being manipulated.
The excuse most commonly given for this disparity in coverage and outrage is that, while black people are killed by police less often, when you account for population disparities, they are still more likely to be killed by police. That statistic needs context, however. Yes, black people are disproportionately likely to be killed by police, but they are also disproportionately likely to commit violent crime. The more violent crime a community commits, the more arrests there will be, and the more opportunities for arrests to turn lethal.
He asks many rhetorical question about what makes certain lives worth all the uproar while others get nary a peep before concluding:
Black Lives Matter is a purely ideological organization and movement. Only those deaths which are useful to their ideology can be acknowledged. Non-useful police killings can either be ignored or actively defended, as the political circumstances warrant. The outrage that tears our cities apart is a hollow, politically calculated outrage. It is an outrage that sits on its hands, waiting to spring into action only on behalf of those with skin tones dark enough to politically justify the reaction.
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- Black Lives Matter
