The Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) reinvigorated by the death of George Floyd on May 15, in Minneapolis, MN. Since the first days of the social movement reawakening, the rioters led the protest with violence and vandalism. Their acts were in retaliation to Floyd’s death, breaking, smashing doors and windows, covering with graffiti hundreds of boarded-up businesses, and setting fire to nearly 150 buildings. According to the Minnesota local’s newspaper Star Tribune, the riots caused “millions in property damage to more than 1,500 locations”. The damage in city buildings it claims, and it affirms the cities restaurants and retail stores were hit the hardest during the rioting.
Over the last two months, the BLM morphed into the political atmosphere, developing debates over the validity of looting and rioting and finding support in the democrat wing, which justifies the violence as a natural consequence of years of “oppression.”
With the nationwide acceptance of the way the protests were taking place, it facilized BLM to gain ground among states and gave them a free path to scale to another level. Consequently, they’ve been feeling more powerful to put on the table new demands such as the tearing down of historical statues, interfering the course of history, the slavery reparations, or the idea of defunding the police.
Hence, this “decentralized movement,” who advokes for “non-violent civil disobedience” is shaping its political path, which ultimately is looking for black privileges and destroying the American Experiment. To achieve this aim, they are changing the narrative of the ongoing reality, manipulating by the media, bending the facts that White America and the police as a whole are racist. This way, they fit their narrative, assuring that the only way this could change is creating a new community policing, formed by the general population.
Indeed, if this idea materializes into a real amendment, first steps starting at Seattle, where it passed a new budget to reduce the size and scope of the Police Department and to allocate in black community centers, we would witness the chaos this idea brings with it. As Candace Owens, an American conservative author, explained, if we abolish the police, “somebody pops up to fill in that space, and it’s usually a gang. Then gangbangers start running the streets, and they become the people you run to get protection”.
A real example will be back in 2003, with the Iraq occupation by the United States. The US ambassador, Paul Bremer, took the flawed decision of abolishing the Iraqi Security Forces, who were closer to Saddam Hussein, in an attempt to change the State. The straightforward consequences were a large pool of employers who had no alternative plans. Desperate and humiliated, most of them joined the insurgency against the US forces. In contrast, others, such as ex-generals and spies, picked the Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which is the predecessor of ISIS. This action provoked the lengthening of the war and high cost in American lives.
Nonetheless, this is an extreme reaction in a country that already faced a significant period of hunger, poorness, and two wars. But it serves as an example of what could happen when you fire the people who have the knowledge and experience to kept neighborhoods, towns, cities, and states safe. Right now, the shootings and deaths in black America have escalated further. The data that the Chicago police released on August 1 reported 105 murders in July 2020, marking a spike of 139% from the 44% reported in 2019; murders are up 51%, and the shooting victims of July came in at 573, 58 among them were minors, according to the data of the Sun-Times. Therefore, the problem won’t solve with this measure in the long-term. It will be worse, and it will be a more significant danger to black lives.
Hence, what we are seeing that is happening in Black America is a cultural problem, besides the term “racist war,” which has spread swiftly on the internet and media. Indeed, the reality is the 95% of the homicide victims of black people are at the hands of black people, but the media don’t cover these cases. At this point, we must remark that part of the BLM mission statement declares they work “vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people”. But their actions display the opposite, caring only for those Black lives who died at the hands of white police officers than those at the hands of black male.
The problem is black people live in impoverished communities, where it accumulates a higher rate of kids raising by a single mother 22%, according to the economist Thomas Sowell. In fact, BLM supports the disruption of “Western-prescribed nuclear family structured” based on the support of “each other as an extended family.“
Besides, these communities underpin a fatal public educational system, a high standard of crime and drugs, weak police presence, who let free space for the gangs to act and to scare away business and their jobs, and high rent controls. What we should do isn’t give the money away, with zero-control of how they are spending it. We should invest in education, with charter schools who run by an independent organization; to promote and to develop the future expectations and options of those who believe in credits, effort, and talent- a meritocracy- regardless of the race and skin color, and a strong police department could keep the community safe.
Therefore, debates must take over the way police must and have to defend themselves from dangerous situations. Also, over the measures that are failing in black districts and what others could take in action. And over the way people are inquiring about any aspects, trying to guarantee access to reliable information. But mostly over the fact that riots and civil disobedience, soaring, are ironically causing more racism among the citizens, who have to see their business and towns shattered. Furthermore, we should bear in mind how BLM is spending the 1B of dollars that have been raised during the last two months and look for the progress that they are doing in the black communities. And lastly, what we all of us have to remind we need to protect the history, as the guarantee of progress and development of new societies, and to bolster the belief in equal rights for everyone, not special Black/Latino/Asian/Indian/African privileges.
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