Does BLM Have It Wrong?

Andrew Kotecki, Lenses Writer

The Black Lives Matter movement has been receiving a lot of press as of late. While its original purpose was to protest police brutality and support the African-American community, the US public is still unsure of the movement’s tactics, but is afraid to speak against it for fear of being labelled racist. However, a strong case can be made that the ideals of the political movement are extremely important to modern day but are carried out in rather questionable ways.

Shortly after the mass shooting in Orlando, a BLM member took the stage at a vigil for the victims. She immediately began talking about how more people should show up to BLM movements instead of the vigil. She claimed that because most of the people at the vigil were white, they were too privileged to understand the black and white dichotomy of tragic events like these. She stated that the people at the vigil were only there for white people not anyone else. The crowd booed her insensitivity during a time of pain for so many.

Black Lives Matter also held up a Pride parade in Toronto with a list of demands. They called for the removal of police, more money for BLM, and more representation within the Toronto LGBT community. The parade complied but later said it was only to get the parade moving again. So while what BLM was calling for was a good thing, they were minimizing the importance of pride. It sends a clear message to the public that, “Only we matter,” instead of providing respect for a community that is also just beginning to blossom. Their list of demands also contradicts their original goal because instead of protesting police brutality, they are disrespecting the gay community.

Aside from the fact that BLM has some odd tactics for a good cause, they are also misjudging the problem of police brutality entirely. While racism is a large part of police brutality, excessive police power is the more devious issue at hand. Make no mistake, police on black brutality are very disproportionate to the rest of the population; however, the larger problem is militarised police, no-knock raids, and the blind trust in them that’s held by citizens and the justice system alike.

In the case of an accidental shooting, an officer can legally call his or her union representative before the paramedics and suffer no ill consequence. They then have a day to get the story straight of what went down. And while grand juniors indict nearly 100% of civilian cases brought before them, police cases are almost never indicted.

The focus on race alone is BLM’s most juvenile issue. Acting on emotion alone and referring to the past that tells them police attack blacks, they hurt only themselves by pushing away allies of any other race that have been affected by police brutality. If BLM can get its act together and stop creating disturbances to the general public, focusing its attention to the true matter at hand, it becomes less of a joke organization and more of a real powerhouse against the broken police system.