They tell us we have two choices. One side tells us we have to embrace everything the Black Lives Matter/Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion/Social Justice movement represents, or we are racists. The other side says we have to reject everything the movement stands for, or we are socialists.
Both sides are wrong.
Do you know what BLM represents? Their own websites say not only restorative justice, empathy, loving engagement, and diversity, but also globalism, queer affirming, trans affirming, and disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure. BLM believes that all black Americans should receive a guaranteed minimum income and free healthcare, schooling, food, real estate, gender reassignment surgery, and abortion. They seek to bring “an end to all jails” as we know them and form a “global liberation movement” that will “overturn U.S. imperialism and capitalism.” For whatever reason, they thrown in legalizing prostitution and the “possession and sale of all drugs, no matter the quantity,” paying “reparations to all people who have been adversely impacted by the drug war and enforcement of prostitution laws.”
All but the most maniacal readers at this point have to recognize that’s just nuts. And the agenda has certainly strayed a fur piece from the alleged goal of valuing black lives.
But what about the other side? They say we can’t prove that the killings of Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, or Brianna Taylor had anything to do with race. They object to renaming the Washington Football Team or Cleveland Guardians, prioritizing the history of a game to being sensitive to a people group. As such, they are aligning themselves with the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists. It’s no wonder the other side thinks these people are racist.
Those put off by the Trojan Horse of BLM risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Many of my white friends who appreciate the economic engine that is American capitalism reject the neo-Marxist agenda of BLM, and with it reject its claims of discrimination.
That is just as equally patently false, and it is plain to see.
Google “discrimination statistics.” The list is endless. Blacks are twice as likely to be suspended from school or not to have enough food. Blacks are more likely to be arrested; once arrested, more likely to be convicted; once convicted, receive sentences about 20% longer for the same crimes. Whites and blacks use drugs at about the same rates, but blacks are six times more likely to be arrested for it. Whites get better healthcare, are more likely to be hired, and are paid more at the same level of education and experience.
Both sides are wrong. Discrimination clearly exists. But I don’t have to embrace an agenda of perverse socialist anarchy to believe in equal rights and in making special efforts to help those who historically have had the odds intentionally stacked against them.
I don’t know why the issue is presented in this way. I suspect it has something to do with the vitriol of today’s partisan politics. People who think the other side is evil write bigger checks to help save the world from them. I would think BLM would recognize that embracing these fringe issues discredits their completely valid core. Then again, I have long suspected that many of those whose power has come through fighting racism don’t really want it to end, lest their power do the same.
We simply have to resist being sucked into making race a binary choice. Both sides are wrong. The radical agenda of the BLM movement should be soundly rejected, but voicing a single word of denial is fast becoming not only politically incorrect, but socially unacceptable. Meanwhile, those who deny discrimination in our society are at best sticking their heads in the proverbial sand and associating themselves with those who do so malevolently.
I urge us to find a different path, one that recognizes the discrimination that clearly has and continues to happen in our society, joins hands not only to put it to an end, but to assist those who have been harmed by it, without rejecting the principles that have made this country the greatest nation and economic power on the face of the earth.
I stand in the middle, criticized by both sides. Please join me. It’s the only place to find a workable solution.
Race is not a binary choice.
Respectfully…
CAZ