Dear Social Justice Warriors:
Even though you probably have the best of intentions, you are responsible for hundreds, if not thousands, of black deaths. If you believe in acknowledging past sins, then it’s time for you to own up to this one.
This note is intended for non-black SJWs who support the Black Lives Matter movement. For a note to black BLM supporters, scroll down.
The Black Lives Matter movement has tragically mischaracterized the police, and has tragically mischaracterized the deaths within their own community. As a result, black homicide is up by 2700 deaths in a 2-year period (by 900 in the first year, and 1800 in the second year, compared to 2014 levels.) As always, the vast majority were killed by other blacks.
During this two-year period, about 600 blacks were killed by police. We could argue whether some of these deaths were unnecessary. The evidence strongly supports a position that racism was NOT a significant factor in these deaths. However, that whole discussion is dwarfed by the 2700 increase in black homicide victims during this period.
It could be argued that some of this increase in black homicide deaths could be due to other factors, even though black homicide deaths had previously been on a downward trend. However, an increase of 900 per year had not been seen in nearly 50 years—until the year after the Ferguson riots, the riots that launched the BLM movement. And then again the following year.
To say that the BLM movement is responsible for at least most of this increase, if not all of it, is consistent with the facts. It has been established that police have backed off in their policing of high-crime black neighborhoods since Ferguson, due to the climate of hostility toward police that has been created.
And you, dear SJW, are responsible for this, along with your SJW colleagues. How, you may ask?
First, you have created an atmosphere in which it is taboo to disagree with a “person of color”, particularly when said person of color is claiming oppression. In the absence of this taboo, the claims of the BLM movement would have been debunked within a week. It has been clear from the start, from statistics on police shootings, that a race’s share of victims of these shootings is roughly proportional to that race’s share of violent crime. It has been clear from the start that racism has very little, if anything, to do with black victims of police shootings.
Agreeing with people of color, even when they are wrong, is not a brave position. It is cowardice. You get to signal your virtue—“look at me, I care about black people”—even as you are condemning hundreds if not thousands of blacks to tragic death.
If it is really “caring” to agree with people of color when they are wrong, and if it is “mean-spirited” to look instead at the facts, then blacks would be much better off with fewer caring people and more mean-spirited ones.
But in fact, it’s the people who are willing to look at the facts who care more, in the way that counts. These are the ones who will risk being labeled a “racist” for speaking out for truth against untruth. You risk nothing.
By agreeing with people of color even when they are wrong, you get social approval in academia and the media, and all the other liberal institutions of society. You might even be getting paid for your racial pandering, if you work in one of the many institutions that rewards politically correct views and punishes political incorrectness. Plus you get to have all that lazy self-righteousness to bask in, without putting in an ounce of real intellectual effort.
In this way, you have selfishly benefited from the demise of hundreds or thousands of black homicide victims. Despite all your good intentions.
Now, do you want to do something about it? Something that takes actual courage? Then it is time to add your voice to all the voices that speak up for truth, rather than political correctness. It is time to remove the taboo against disagreeing with people of color. It is time to support efforts to speak honestly about painful problems within the black community, rather than reflexively blaming racism.
It is time to give up some of that lazy self-righteousness and trade it in for intellectual effort. It is time to follow the facts where they lead, rather than assuming that problems in the black community are the fault of racism and working backwards from that conclusion.
If you really want true justice, it’s time to give up Social Justice.
It won’t be easy. You’ll find out what it’s like to be on the receiving end of the mindless SJWs’ auto-labeling those who disagree with them as bigots.
But it will be honest. There’s something to be said for that.
If inner city blacks are ever to have their dreams come true, honesty is what is needed most.
Note to black BLM supporters: I have a somewhat different message for you, distinct from non-black BLM supporters, because of your presumably different experience and different motivations.
The facts are still the same, of course.
However, if you personally know someone who has been killed by the police, or if you have had the personal experience of being stopped by police more often than non-black people are (as best you can determine), and especially if some of these police have been rude, then it is much more understandable that you may have concluded that black deaths at the hands of police must be due to racism. I hope that you now take the time to look into the facts about this, and to re-evaluate.
And I hope that you also take a good look at the facts in this post, regarding black lives that have been lost due to the BLM movement.
However, you might view your responsibility for these deaths somewhat differently than a non-black BLM supporter. According to professor Walter E. Williams, blacks have been used as pawns by powerful special interests.
The very people who call themselves your friends and allies, the very people who claim to care oh-so-much about you, didn’t care enough to show you the facts. Instead, they have played on your emotions to advance their agendas. And as a predictable result, hundreds if not thousands of black lives have already been lost.
So, if you want to preserve as many black lives as possible, my suggestion is to free yourself of influence from those special interests.
Be well.