Black Lives Matter facts
Just 24% of whites think white police officers shooting innocent black people is a bigger problem than black people shooting black people, while 62% of blacks think white cops shooting innocent black people is the bigger problem. http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/harry-siegel-black-lives-hard-facts-article-1.2154579
When Donald Trump supporters attacked a Black Lives Matter protester at a November rally, the Republican presidential candidate responded: "Maybe he should have been roughed up." http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/black-lives-matter/421839/
While a number of officers who have killed have gone on to face charges, prosecutors by and large remain reluctant to charge officers. For those seeking full accountability, officers going to trial are no slam-dunks. Just last month, a judge in Baltimore presiding over the trial of the first officer involved in Gray's death announced a mistrial after jurors were deadlocked on charges of manslaughter and other related charges. http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/police-reform-2015
Xavier Johnson, a 32-year-old pastor in Dayton who monitors the movement for his doctoral dissertation, argues that boomers should do more to fix the generational misunderstanding. "When you look at this group [BLM] from the bottom up, you see young people who are grieving from the pain inflicted on black bodies," he told me. "They saw Michael Brown, someone their age, uncovered in the street for four hours baking in the hot sun. There were unarmed Eric Garner in New York, and Tamir Rice, a little kid police killed who was playing with a toy gun. They see churches on mostly every corner, but not where they are. They see a black president who they feel ignores them. They are showing righteous indignation for a system that does not value their humanity." https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/24/i-was-a-civil-rights-activist-in-the-1960s-but-its-hard-for-me-to-get-behind-black-lives-matter/
Texas announced shortly after the decision that a voter identification law that had been blocked would go into effect immediately, and that redistricting maps there would no longer need federal approval. Changes in voting procedures in the places that had been covered by the law, including ones concerning restrictions on early voting, will now be subject only to after-the-fact litigation. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html?_r=0
Across the country, Black Lives Matter activists are investing time and effort to recruit and train a legal aid and emergency response network. For the protest movement to survive, a powerful support network will need to be in place. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/black-lives-matter/421839/
Sure, there are black criminals (whom the media have reserved for them the word "thug" as a code for black) who harm other black people. For example, gang violence. However, these crimes aren't happening because they are black. These crimes are not racially motivated. These crimes occur because they are criminals. Criminals are diverse. They come from various different racial backgrounds, socio-economic backgrounds, genders, sexual orientations, etc. But not once has anyone ever uttered the phrase "white-on-white crime" as a justification for the unfortunate, unlawful acts that may happen to them. There are several cases of white people killing/raping/abusing other white people, but somehow the fact that they're white never seems to enter into conversation. http://feministculture.com/index.php/2015/08/31/blacklivesmatter-101/
"BLM rejects the usual hierarchical style of leadership, with the straight black male at the top giving orders," Lightsey said. The BLM also gives special "attention to the needs of black queers, the black transgendered, the black undocumented, black incarcerated and others who are hardly a speck on today's political agenda." https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/24/i-was-a-civil-rights-activist-in-the-1960s-but-its-hard-for-me-to-get-behind-black-lives-matter/
His appeal gave credence to the argument put forward by the New York Patrolman's Benevolent Association (PBA) and right-wing media that the Black Lives Matter movement somehow bore responsibility for the killing of the two officers. "There's blood on many hands tonight—those that incited violence on the street under the guise of protests, that tried to tear down what New York City police officers did every day. That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall, in the office of the mayor," ranted PBA president Patrick Lynch. http://isreview.org/issue/96/black-lives-matter
"People used to believe that if you go to college and dress the right way, have a certain level of education, you would be spared," said Erika Totten, the cofounder of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Black Lives Matter. "Now there's a growing recognition that that's not the case. College campuses don't shield you from discrimination. Students are waking up en mass and realizing that they have to bring the fight there too." http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/black-lives-matter/421839/
Although Hollywood has finally produced a film about the historic struggle in Selma in 1965 that brought about the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court has already knocked down some of its provisions—ruling in 2013 to eliminate the provision of the act requiring lawmakers in states with a history of discriminating against minority voters to get federal permission before changing voting rules, on the grounds that in a "post-racial" society such provisions are no longer necessary. Meanwhile, conservative lawmakers around the country have been busily pushing through voter identification laws that are aimed at reducing the number of low-income people, particularly African Americans, who are eligible to vote. http://isreview.org/issue/96/black-lives-matter
"The movement is evolving and there are different ways that people are working to advance that and make that happen," said Tarik Mohamed, an activist based out of New York City who recently set up a super PAC intended to advance the agenda of Black Lives Matter. "We need to continue to evolve our political voice, and that's what I'm trying to do." http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/black-lives-matter/421839/
Two Atlanta plainclothes officers opened fire and killed a 92-year-old woman during a mistaken drug raid on her home. As they pried the bars off her front door, she fired a single warning shot with an old revolver. The police responded by smashing the door down and shooting at her 39 times. One of the officers tried to disguise their error by planting bags of marijuana in her basement. The two officers pleaded guilty and received unusually stiff sentences of six and 10 years in a federal prison. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/thousands-dead-few-prosecuted/
"Violence and brutality of any kind, particularly at the hands of the police sworn to protect and serve our communities, is unacceptable and must not be tolerated. We need a societal transformation to make it clear that black lives matter..." Bernie Sanders http://2016election.procon.org/view.answers.election.php?questionID=002038
The U.S. Secret Service and local law enforcement briefly detained a photographer on assignment for TIME at a Donald Trump rally at Radford University in Virginia Monday, following a scuffle that saw the photographer thrown to the ground in a choke hold. Chris Morris, a veteran White House photographer working on the campaign for TIME, stepped out of the press pen to photograph a Black Lives Matter protest that interrupted the speech. A video shows that Morris swore at a Secret Service agent who tried to move Morris back into the pen. A separate video of the event shows that the agent then grabbed Morris' neck with both hands and threw him into a table and onto the ground. http://time.com/4241899/donald-trump-rally-time-photographer-chris-morris/
(Against) If this young movement had embraced the well-meaning advice of its elders earlier, instead of responding with disdain, it could have spent recent months making headway with political leaders, instead of battling the disheartening images of violence and destruction that have followed its protests against police brutality in black neighborhoods. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/24/i-was-a-civil-rights-activist-in-the-1960s-but-its-hard-for-me-to-get-behind-black-lives-matter/
A 2015 Washington Post analysis found that of the thousands of fatal shootings by police since 2005, only 54 officers have been charged. Far fewer were actually convicted. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-lives-matter-violence-cops_us_55e77d82e4b0c818f61a9de8
(Against) It's a phrase some white people invoke when a conversation turns to race. Some apply it to Ferguson. They're not particularly troubled by the grand jury's decision to not issue an indictment. The racial identities of Darren Wilson, the white police officer, and Michael Brown, the black man he killed, shouldn't matter, they say. Let the legal system handle the decision without race-baiting. Justice should be colorblind. http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-bias/
Besides Brown, there have been a succession of cases of police murder of unarmed Black men in a matter of weeks this summer--including Eric Garner, choked to death by the NYPD; John Crawford, shot by police in a suburban Ohio Walmart as he held a toy gun; and Ezell Ford, who witnesses claim was shot in the back while he lay prone on the ground in Los Angeles http://socialistworker.org/2014/08/27/what-divides-black-america
(Against) New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told crowds that the movement's anti-police rhetoric has put lives at risk. "They are calling for the murder of police officers," Christie incorrectly claimed. http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-runner-up-black-lives-matter/
And when they are convicted or plead guilty, they've tended to get little time behind bars, on average four years and sometimes only weeks. Jurors are very reluctant to punish police officers, tending to view them as guardians of order, according to prosecutors and defense lawyers. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/thousands-dead-few-prosecuted/
(Against)In December the man who killed two NYPD officers while they were eating lunch in their patrol car posted on his Instagram page, "Going to put pigs in a blanket" before carrying out his killings. In Ferguson when news of the NYPD slayings hit, BLM protestors chanted and celebrated, "Pigs in a blanket!" We saw the same over the weekend in Minneapolis. This isn't happening in one place, it's happening around the country. BLM activists are using their own words and inspiration from convicted cop killers to promote the assassination of police officers. http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2015/09/02/exposing-black-lives-matter-for-what-it-is-promotion-of-cop-jilling-n2046941
We watched a child bake on the asphalt on a middle American town last weekend, while the cop who killed him fled without calling in the murder or staying on the scene. And while sitting on our seat's edge waiting for accountability, we had to reckon with the protracted dawning that no immediate responsibility would be assigned, that none of the shooting officer's higher-ups — from his police chief to his governor — would feel the need to reprimand or hold him wholly responsible. http://stacialbrown.com/2014/08/18/patience-appalled/
(sort of against) America's criminal-justice problems are deep and systemic, and there is indeed troubling evidence of racism. But it is inaccurate to present these problems as the result of an organised conspiracy by all white people to hold down blacks. That is something that Barack Obama, whose speeches on race this year have been thoughtful and brilliantly articulated, appears to understand. Those who wish to succeed him ought to bear this in mind. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/08/race-and-criminal-justice
According to numbers from Officer Down Memorial Page, an independent nonprofit that tracks cop killings, 24 officers were shot and killed in the line of duty so far this year, but 29 were killed during the same time period in 2014. And while those 24 deaths are obviously tragic, 2015 has actually seen fewer year-to-date shooting deaths of police officers than nearly every other year in the past two decades. The lone exception was 2013, when the FBI says killings of police overall hit a 50-year low. And to those who say the race of the officer matters in these targeted killings, half of the police shot and killed this year were black. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-lives-matter-violence-cops_us_55e77d82e4b0c818f61a9de8
As a cop, it shouldn't surprise you that people will curse at you, or be disappointed by your arrival. That's part of the job. But too many times, officers saw young black and brown men as targets. They would respond with force to even minor offenses. And because cops are rarely held accountable for their actions, they didn't think too hard about the consequences. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/12/06/i-was-a-st-louis-cop-my-peers-were-racist-and-violent-and-theres-only-one-fix/?tid=a_inl
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, roughly half of federal prisoners are incarcerated for drug offenses. Blacks make up 50 percent of inmates in state and local prisons for drug offenses, even though Blacks comprise 13 percent of the US population and whites are more likely to use drugs. Black youth are ten times more likely than white youth to be arrested for drug crimes. These figures betray an array of tools that the state has utilized at every level—from policing to court practices to legislation—to target Black people. It involves a patchwork of legislation state-by-state that comprises a multifaceted racist criminal justice system that disproportionately targets African Americans. http://isreview.org/issue/96/black-lives-matter
As the movement began to branch out from purely honoring the victims of police brutality to raising awareness about perceived injustice in all sorts of social systems, the name attracted new groups of allies. "A single understanding of the movement," says St. Louis University law professor Justin Hansford, another of its local leaders, "would ultimately exclude so many people." http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-runner-up-black-lives-matter/
(Against) According to a U.S. Department of Justice analysis, most murders are intraracial and "93 percent of black victims were killed by blacks" between 1980 and 2008. Yet Attorney General Holder, President Obama and Reverend Sharpton haven't wanted a national conversation about this shocking figure. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21NVGreenBlackLivesMatter90115.html
Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks' contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression. http://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/
Roof, a high school dropout not known for violence, was captured the day after the shootings in North Carolina. He confessed in interviews with the Charleston police and FBI, two law enforcement officials told CNN. He also told investigators he wanted to start a race war, one of those officials said. He is also charged with 33 federal offenses, including hate crime charges for allegedly targeting his victims on the basis of their race and religion. http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/03/us/dylann-roof/
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. http://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/
Black Lives Matter activists have proposed at least 10 policies that aim to hold law enforcement accountable without putting them in harm's way, ranging from ending aggressive low-level policing and instituting better police training to limiting standards for use of force and equipping cops with body cameras. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-lives-matter-violence-cops_us_55e77d82e4b0c818f61a9de8
If #BlackLivesMatter is interested in solutions that begin to reduce the mistreatment of African American citizens by police — from leaders who've demonstrated that they have a genuine interest in the issue along with the ability to put reforms in place — they should consider a serious discussion with some of the leaders of the conservative movement. The dialogue they're having now isn't likely to produce results much different from what Democrats have delivered in the past. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/19/blacklivesmatter-is-wasting-its-time-with-democrats/?tid=a_inl
Movement activists are consciously challenging the ideological consensus that poor Blacks are "responsible" for their conditions. The New York Times quoted activist Daniel Camacho, who explained, "We don't need people shifting the blame to poor black and brown communities for these tragedies. I've heard enough people complain about sagging pants, gangster music, fatherlessness, black-on-black crime. http://isreview.org/issue/96/black-lives-matter
Nearly 60% of respondents in a September PBS/Marist poll said race relations had gotten worse, not better, over the past year. http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-runner-up-black-lives-matter/
Police officers are heavily protected by the legal system: they are authorized to use force in ways civilians are not; their excessive force cases are often investigated by members of their own department; and most people are reluctant to second-guess an officer's decision to use force -- even in courtroom settings. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-lives-matter-violence-cops_us_55e77d82e4b0c818f61a9de8
Obama then pointed out that saying "black lives matter" is not about reducing the importance of other groups. "I think everybody understands all lives matter. Everybody wants strong, effective law enforcement. Everybody wants their kids to be safe when they're walking to school. Nobody wants to see police officers, who are doing their jobs fairly, hurt," he continued. Today, black lives matter is not just a rallying cry. Due to activists' efforts to elevate the conversation about police brutality against black communities, the conversation has become a main talking point in the 2015-2016 election cycle. During the first Democratic debate, candidates were asked, "do black lives matter or do all lives matter?" http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/10/22/3715332/obama-explains-the-problem-with-all-lives-matter/
"To charge an officer in a fatal shooting, it takes something so egregious, so over the top that it cannot be explained in any rational way," said Philip M. Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green who studies arrests of police. "It also has to be a case that prosecutors are willing to hang their reputation on." http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/thousands-dead-few-prosecuted/
Racial bias is so deeply ingrained in people that it can manifest itself in surprising places, says Charles Gallagher, a sociologist at La Salle University in Philadelphia. He gave a hypothetical example: "A white police officer in Ferguson may be married to a black woman and have black and Latino friends, but that doesn't mean the officer is above racial profiling," Gallagher says. These old and new ways of talking about racism can be seen in how some whites and blacks perceive the events in Ferguson. http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/26/us/ferguson-racism-or-racial-bias/
Race was also a factor in court when federal prosecutors stepped in and filed charges against officers for allegedly violating the victims' civil rights. Six officers, all white, faced federal civil rights charges for killing blacks. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/thousands-dead-few-prosecuted/
Since Ferguson, the movement has broadened its causes, sweeping in lingering issues in black America: minimum wage demands, and crackdowns on police misconduct in communities of color, as well as decades-old disparities between blacks and whites on subjects ranging from access to quality education to rates of prison incarceration. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/08/24/what-does-the-black-lives-matter-movement-really-want
The state's racism and that of the news media in coverage of the protests, which involved both institutions disparaging Black marchers as "looters" and "gang members," gave a green light to far-right terrorists. The Ku Klux Klan openly rallied in St. Louis in support of Darren Wilson, the Ferguson officer who murdered Michael Brown, and threatened "lethal force" against Black protesters. Arsonists burned Michael Brown's makeshift street memorial. In anticipation of the St. Louis grand jury's decision not to indict Wilson, Missouri governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency and mobilized the National Guard again. http://isreview.org/issue/96/black-lives-matter
The Black Lives Matter crowd should be looking into their own neighborhoods and culture versus the faux persecution by cops. They portray the NYPD as the worst out there, but did you know that the boys and girls in blue on the NYPD only killed eight people last year and just four of them were black? https://anongalactic.com/exposing-black-lives-matter-the-real-facts/
During a November rally in Birmingham, Alabama, Trump supporters physically assaulted a black protester who'd reportedly been chanting "Black lives matter." "At least a half-dozen attendees shoved and tackled the protester, a black man, to the ground as he refused to leave the event," CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond said. "At least one man punched the protester and a woman kicked him while he was on the ground." The following day, Trump implied that the attackers were justified. "Maybe [the protester] should have been roughed up," he mused. "It was absolutely disgusting what he was doing." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/list-racist-things-trump-rallies_us_56d7019ae4b0871f60ed519f
The Black Lives Matter movement is making a concerted effort not to encourage violence. It responds fiercely when accused of committing violent acts during protests. But this comes with the territory with a loosely formed group. When you organize or encourage protests and encourage all to get involved, then the group itself and the movement bear the brunt of the blame if some become violent or destructive, as was the case in Ferguson and Baltimore. http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/28/us/black-lives-matter-evolution/
A mass challenge to rampant police killing of Black people emerged in New York City in the late 1990s. The case of Amadou Diallo, a West African immigrant who was gunned down by four NYPD cops in front of his apartment building in 1999, became a lightning rod for resistance to the NYPD. This coincided with the growth of the struggle demanding justice for Mumia Abu Jamal, the former Black Panther who was accused of, and sentenced to death for, killing a Philadelphia police officer. In 2001, the Cincinnati police killing of Timothy Thomas, an unarmed Black teenager, sparked a days-long rebellion in the city's Black community. These protests made an impact. In 1999, 59 percent of Americans said they believed that police used racial profiling, and 81 percent thought that the practice was wrong. http://isreview.org/issue/96/black-lives-matter
The Democratic National Committee, which passed a resolution declaring its support for the movement, has invited activists to organize a presidential town hall as the race ramps up next year. http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2015-runner-up-black-lives-matter/
But 61% think the media instead overhype incidents in which blacks are shot by white police officers. Twenty-eight percent (28%) disagree, while 11% are undecided. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/march_2015/most_voters_think_media_wrong_on_race_shootings_put_police_at_risk
The challenge, for the movement, is to stem the tide of violence against black men and women while working to fix what activists believe is a fragmented and broken society. It's an ambition that won't be easily achieved. But as the movement evolves and expands, it has forced change. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/black-lives-matter/421839/
