No doubt, the organization itself was quite radical from the very beginning. Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors described herself and fellow co-founder Alicia Garza as “trained Marxists” in a
recently resurfaced video from 2015.
“We actually do have an ideological frame[work],” Cullors
said of her organization. “We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories.”
Meanwhile, the national organization’s
official platform, published in 2015, contained a specific call to “[disrupt] the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.”
At the local level, official Black Lives Matter chapters are essentially far-left front groups that use racial justice as a Trojan horse for leftist policy and ideology. For example, the official organization Black Lives Matter DC openly
dedicates itself to “creating the conditions for Black Liberation through the abolition of systems and institutions of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy and colonialism.”.........
These kinds of conservative criticisms of Black Lives Matter are widespread. And on one hand, they’re right: The official Black Lives Matter organization is Marxist, is anti-American in its values, and its views are rightfully alarming to anyone who believes in the Constitution, capitalism, and civil society as we know it..........
It may well be true that in particular conservative circles, everyone is well aware of the obscure history of the Black Lives Matter founders’ Marxist roots. But the average person on the street and the average person who shares the hashtag are most certainly not. And the movement itself has become something much bigger, broader, and more benevolent than the original organization.
However, it’s by no means just conservatives who err in their approach to Black Lives Matter. For one, many on the Left fail to acknowledge at all the Marxist roots of the official Black Lives Matter organization, and thus, paint anyone who objects to the organization as racist, unthinkingly inveighing: “How could anyone not support black lives?” This kind of clever naming of a controversial movement, similar to “Antifa” supposedly standing for “anti-fascist,” makes it easy to baselessly paint critics as extreme and immoral. Yet this is a reductive oversimplification that serves only to divide.
So, too, much of the blame for the Black Lives Matter perception gap lies with liberals, Democrats, and others who support the movement for failing to adequately distance themselves from the radical organization......
Many a mainstream liberal has signaled support for the generic “black lives matter” cause by sharing fundraisers that, if you look closely, go to official Black Lives Matter organizations that do not actually represent their views. Meanwhile, liberal-leaning media outlets such as MSNBC regularly platform official members of the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement and pass the radical activists off as within the mainstream....
From corporations to politicians to random Facebook users, Black Lives Matter supporters need to do a much better job distancing themselves from the radical organization at the root of their slogan. (Or, alternatively, they should come up with a new and different slogan that doesn’t have such malign associations.)
This lack of due diligence is lazy and irresponsible, but more importantly, it’s dangerous.