Black Lives Matter is a very effective slogan that elicits sympathy and empathy. It suggests many people outside the black community don’t believe black lives matter. While I agree with that assumption, I have a very different opinion about who the uncaring culprits might be.
BLM’s vision statement says:
“Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation imagines a world where Black people across the diaspora thrive, experience joy, and are not defined by their struggles. By achieving liberation, we envision a future that is fully divested from police, prisons, and all punishment paradigms to be replaced with investment into justice, joy, and culture.”
Sounds like a noble mission. But that mission becomes confusing when you recall the violent protests we all watched leading up to the 2020 election. In some cases they were looting and rioting while calling for the murder of police officers.
It becomes even more confusing when you read the organization’s list of demands on the same website:
- Convict and ban Trump from future political office
- Expel Republican members of Congress who attempted to overturn the election and incited a white supremacist attack
- Launch a full investigation into the ties between white supremacy and the Capitol Police, law enforcement, and the military
- Permanently ban Trump from all digital media platforms
- Defund the police
- Don’t let the coup be used as an excuse to crack down on our movement
- Pass the BREATHE Act
So, BLM has identified Donald Trump, the racist police, and other ‘white supremacists’ as the imminent threat to black lives in our country. Those villains line up nicely and not by accident with President Biden’s April, 2021, proclamation that white supremacy “is the most lethal threat to the homeland today.”
It’s not climate change, the threat of nuclear war, not the thousands of unvetted, unvaccinated people illegally pouring into our country, or the Mexican drug cartels funneling deadly amounts of fentanyl and other drugs over our open border — killing over 100,000 Americans a year.
It’s also not the mentally ill and violent criminals living in tents on your streets, or the rising tide of violent crime and failing education.
It’s not even out-of-control inflation, the 31 trillion in national debt, or reckless government spending.
No, it’s none of that. It’s ‘white supremacy’ that threatens our lives, but most especially black lives.
During my police career with the NYPD, I was involved in the investigation of hundreds of homicide cases. The majority of those cases involved the tragic death of a young black or Hispanic man murdered by another young black or Hispanic man. That is a fact. Not one of them involved a white supremacist.
I worked with and for hundreds of police officers of all different ethnicities. I’ve never met a white supremacist. I don’t know anyone who is a white supremacist. I don’t even know someone who knows someone who’s a white supremacist.
In 2018, the leading cause of death among black males from age 1-44 was homicide. In line with my own experience, the suspects in the majority of those cases were other young black men. That is a sad and tragic statistic and a national disgrace.
The data is readily available for those who choose to see it, though it might not comport with the white supremacist narrative our woeful president and dishonest BLM leaders are trying to feed you.
Every week the headlines scream at us:
“38 shot, 6 killed during weekend in Mayor Lightfoot’s Chicago.”
“New York City weekend bloodshed leaves 31 people shot, 6 killed…”
Why is this allowed to go on? Why do the people who support BLM ignore what is clearly the biggest threat to black lives in this moment — a threat happening right before our eyes, every single day?
Last night, tonight, and tomorrow night, as sure as the sun rises and sets, dozens more young black and brown men will be slaughtered on the streets of our cities by other young black and brown men. It’s no mystery where, why or how these killings are happening.
For the most part it’s in the same economically challenged, minority populated areas, where liberal democrat politicians have been in control for decades making empty promises and delivering nothing.
Where is the outrage about this daily massacre? Perhaps these political hacks are too busy screaming for bail reform, defunding the police or emptying our prisons — which inevitably leads to the loss of many more black lives.
To me, and the people I served with, every homicide victim’s life mattered. Regardless of the circumstances, every one of them was someone’s son or daughter, brother or sister, mother or father. The hearts of those families break like any other hearts.
Why isn’t this being treated like the national emergency it is? Why do the corrupt media, politicians and celebrities across the entertainment and sports world want you to believe the real threat is systemic racism inside police forces? Why do they say police officers are running amok, murdering unarmed young black men and women everyday when, with very few exceptions, there is no evidence to support it?
The CDC reports there were 24,576 homicides in America in 2020. Roughly 10,000 of those victims were African American or black. On average, police fatally shoot about 1,000 people per year. That number includes people who were using deadly force against the police or someone else when they were killed. About 6% of those police shootings involve an unarmed suspect. A very small fraction of those involved some accusation of misconduct by the police officer.
In a country with a general population of over 333,000,000, that doesn’t seem like an epidemic. But it is among these few cases that the race hustlers and their partners in the propaganda media find their ammunition to create and peddle this dangerous false narrative of white supremacy.
The New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles police departments are the three largest departments in the country. They each serve a very significant minority population.
According to 2021 Census figures, of the 36,000 plus members of the NYPD, 43% are White, 31% Hispanic, 16% Black, 10% Asian.
In Chicago’s 11,000 plus member department, 45% of the officers are White, 31% Hispanic, 20% Black and 3% Asian.
And of the roughly 10,000 officers serving in the LAPD, 50% are Hispanic, 30% White, 9% Black, 8% Asian, 2% Filipino and .3% Native American — hardly a bastion of white supremacy.
Having done the job for over 2 decades in New York City, in a very violent era, I can’t think of a worse job for a white supremacist. Not only are you likely to be working side by side with or for a minority colleague, the vast majority of your duties are risking your life in dangerous neighborhoods while serving, protecting and coming to the aid of mostly minority residents.
In 1994, when Republican NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani came into office, the city would suffer more than 2,000 homicides that year. He implemented smart, sensible strategies that helped the men and women of the NYPD save tens of thousands of mostly black lives over the next two decades, in many cases risking and sometimes giving their own lives to do so.
After giving their blood sweat and tears to make the city a safe place, I can think of no greater insult than to be labeled a racist or white supremacist.
If BLM, the clueless social justice warriors like LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick, and the lemmings who blindly support them truly believed black lives matter, their fight for justice and equity would be away from the cameras. They would be on the violent, inner city street corners standing side-by-side with the police calling out the real problems, imploring these young people to stop killing each other, uniting not dividing. They would demand the crony politicians fix the failing schools and make the streets safe for the good people who live there. But don’t hold your breath.
BLM was founded by self proclaimed Marxists who have long ago forgotten the spirit of their optimistic mission statement. And as long as these phonies continue to peddle the false narrative that police departments are full of white supremacists and not well intentioned, honest, hard working police officers, many more black lives will be lost and that should matter to everyone.
John Dove is a retired NYPD Detective Lieutenant and the former co-executive producer of CSI-NY.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.