Category Archives: Black Lives Matter

The organization Black Lives Matter has removed from its website a page that included language condemning Americas "Western-prescribed nuclear family structure."

The page, titled "What We Believe," included various public policy positions unrelated to police brutality and police reform. The Washington Examiner discovered on Monday the page had been removed.

"Page Not Found. Sorry, but the page you were trying to view does not exist," the page now reads.

The Wayback Machine archived the page, however, and it contains a lengthy description of the organizations tenets and objectives. Among the views expressed is a desire to disrupt the traditional family structure.

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and villages that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

According to the Examiner, BLM did not respond to the papers request for comment, so its unclear if the page was deliberately removed.

Whatever the case, BLMs endorsement of this language should come as little surprise. As Brad Polumbo has shown, there are effectively two Black Lives Matter phenomena: the Black Lives Matter organization and black lives matter as an informal movement.

The latter involves people fighting in good faith for police reform who believe African Americans suffer disproportionately from police violence. The former, Black Lives Matter, is an organization co-founded by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi that has roots in Marxism.

We actually do have an ideological frame[work], Cullors said of her organization in 2015. We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories.

As I pointed out in a 2017 article, Karl Marx was interested in abolishing much more than just private property. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and his associate Frederick Engels defend attempts by Communists to abolish the traditional family.

Abolition [Aufhebung] of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists, Marx wrote. On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie.

Marx and Engels proceeded to compare the nuclear family to public prostitution, before explaining why it was natural and desirable for the institution to vanish.

The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes, and both will vanish with the vanishing of capital, Marx and Engels wrote. The bourgeois clap-trap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parents and child, becomes all the more disgusting, the more, by the action of Modern Industry, all the family ties among the proletarians are torn asunder, and their children transformed into simple articles of commerce and instruments of labour.

From where does this hostility to the family stem? Marx and Engels offered clues.

The modern family contains in germ not only slavery (servitus), but also serfdom, since from the beginning it is related to agricultural services, Engels wrote in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, quoting Marx. It contains in miniature all the contradictions which later extend throughout society and its state.

The hostility to the traditional family did not die with Marx and Engels, however. One of the first steps the Bolsheviks took after seizing power was to begin a decades-long struggle to abolish marriage and weaken the traditional family.

The issue was so central to the revolutionary program that the Bolsheviks published decrees establishing civil marriage and divorce soon after the October Revolution, in December 1917, writes Harvard historian Lauren Kaminsky. These first steps were intended to replace Russias family laws with a new legal framework that would encourage more egalitarian sexual and social relations.

A 1926 article from The Atlantic, written by a woman living in Russia at the time, describes these efforts in detail. The term illegitimate children was abolished, and a law was passed that allowed couples to divorce in a matter of a few minutes. Legislation was introduced to eliminate distinctions between legal wives and mistresses, including granting property rights to the unmarried consorts.

Chaos was the result, the Russian woman wrote. Men took to changing wives with the same zest which they displayed in the consumption of the recently restored forty-per-cent vodka.

About a half century later, the Chinese Communist Party introduced a different version of state-enforced family orchestration. Its one-child policy (19792015), the most extreme population planning policy in world history, placed limits on the number of children Chinese families could have.

Decades before the policy went into effect, Party Chairman Mao Zedong (18931976) famously explained why it was necessary for the state to manage family procreation and the labor stock.

(Re)production needs to be planned. In my view, humankind is completely incapable of managing itself, Mao said. It has plans for production in factories, for producing cloth, tables and chairs, and steel, but there is no plan for producing humans. This is anarchismno governing, no organization and no rules.

Even today the aversion to the traditional family remains strong in socialists. A 2019 article in The Nation titled Want to Dismantle Capitalism? Abolish the Family offers a glimpse of the modern socialist critique of the institution.

We know that the nuclear private household is where the overwhelming majority of abuse can happen, author Sophie Lewis explains. And then theres the whole question of what it is for: training us up to be workers, training us to be inhabitants of a binary-gendered and racially stratified system, training us not to be queer.

For true believers of collectivism, theres little question that private family matters are also state matters. Socialism requires collective control of resources, and humans are the ultimate resource. This is why the traditional nuclear family, which places authority in the hands of parents rather than the community, is an affront to so many socialists.

The scholar Robert Nisbet has explained that the family is one of the three pillars of authority outside the state, along with the church and civic organizations. All three of these institutions offer humans something essential to the human experience: community.

Nisbet believed all three pillars served as important checks on centralized political power, which is why Nisbet saw the decline of the family, church, and civic organizations in America as an ill omen for liberty.

...the quest for community is an impulse that stems from human nature. All yearn for participation and for a sense of belonging within a cause or body greater than the single person, Nisbet wrote in The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics and Order of Freedom (1953). If the desire for community cannot be filled in church, in family, in neighborhood, or in locality, then it will be filled instead by the central State.

Its unclear why Black Lives Matter scrubbed the anti-nuclear family language from its website. Whats clear, however, is that its previously stated goal to disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure fits the Marxist paradigm that stretches back a century and half.

Perhaps the removed page reflects a change of heart. On the other hand, it could simply be a tactic to conceal its Marxist roots. As Dan Sanchez and I wrote in a recent FEE article, in recent decades purveyors of socialism have shown a tendency to shun the Marxist label even while embracing its ideals.

''There are a lot of people who don't want to call themselves Marxist, Eugene D. Genovese, an eminent Marxist academic, told The New York Times in a 1989 article on the mainstreaming of Marxism in US universities.

We dont know for certain why many individuals and groups advocating doctrines rooted in Marxism tend to reject the Marxist labelCullorss 2015 confession that she and Garza are trained Marxists appears to be a mistake of candorbut it seems likely adherents have gleaned a basic truth once observed by the writer Upton Sinclair.

The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label, Sinclair observed in a private 1951 correspondence with fellow socialist Norman Thomas.

Many people and organizations of good faith support the black lives matter movement because they believe all people deserve equal treatment and due process before the law.

But Americans should be careful to not confuse the broader black lives matter movement with Black Lives Matter, an organization whose goals may be antithetical to freedom and familyeven if they no longer say so.

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Black Lives Matters Goal to Disrupt the Nuclear Family ...

The official website of Black Lives Matter (BLM) has dropped its controversial call to "disrupt" the "nuclear family structure."

RedState reported on Monday that the organization"quietly deleted" its "What We Believe" page, which laid out a list of its objectives.

BLACK LIVES MATTER SUPPORT SLIDES 12% THIS SUMMER, POLL SHOWS

One of those objectives, which many critics of BLM highlighted, read: "We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and 'villages'that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable."

Fox News verified that the "What We Believe" page was inactive. BLMdid not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.

BLM has seen a sharp drop in its favorability ratingin recent weeks amid ongoing riots and violence in cities across the country.One surveyconducted by the Pew Research Center showed that just over half of American adults (55%) support BLM, down from a high of 67% in June. The percentage of people who say they strongly support the movement stands at around 29%, a nearly 10% decrease from three months ago.

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The movement enjoyed broad supportfollowing the deathofGeorge FloydinMinneapolispolice custodyMay 25. Floyds death sparked nationwide protests thatquickly descended into riots, destruction of property and violent confrontations with police.

The Pew survey found that around 16% of Republicans currently view BLM favorably, compared to37% in June. The organization has the support of 88% ofDemocrats, down slightly from 92% support in June.

Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

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Black Lives Matter removes 'What We Believe' website page ...

Many brands are speaking out against racial injustice -- but not all of them are donating to the cause.

The killing of George Floyd last month while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers has set off a wave of protests and dialogue on racial injustice that has continued unabated for weeks. And many corporations, big and small, have joined the conversation, issuing statements vowing to stand with the Black Lives Matter movement. Some tech behemoths -- like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and others -- have followed up on their supportive words with major donation pledges, too. Other companies have yet to put their money where their mouth is.

Below, we've rounded up major companies, from big box retailers to clothing stores, game publishers, fast food chains and more, that are giving substantial donations in the fight against racial injustice and systemic oppression. They're giving to organizations that include the American Civil Liberties Union, NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Equal Justice Initiative, among others helping to create change.

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In addition to joining local protests, signing petitions anddonating time and money, the ability to "vote with your wallet" -- to patronize companies that are making substantive donations -- is another way to support the cause of equal justice.

Please note, however, that this list doesn't address any accusations of discrimination by various companies that have cropped up in media reports and social media in recent days as well. CNET encourages you to spend some time researching the companies you buy from to ensure they align with your values and ethics.

Many of the large tech companies in the US have donated substantial sums to the cause. Google has committed $12 million, while both Facebook and Amazon are donating $10 million to various groups that fight against racial injustice. Apple is pledging a whopping $100 million for a new Racial Equity and Justice Initiative that will "challenge the systemic barriers to opportunity and dignity that exist for communities of color, and particularly for the black community," according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Check out CNET's guide to learn more about how tech companies are supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

Walmart announced that it will contribute $100 million over five years to create a new center for racial equity. In an email to Walmart employees, CEO Doug McMillan said the center "will seek to advance economic opportunity and healthier living, including issues surrounding the social determinants of health, strengthening workforce development and related educational systems, and support criminal justice reform with an emphasis on examining barriers to opportunity faced by those exiting the system."

Target announced a $10 million commitment in an effort to advance social justice through supporting partners like the National Urban League and the African American Leadership Forum. The brand also committed 10,000 hours of pro-bono consulting for small business in the Twin Cities that are black-owned or owned by people of color.

Home Depot CEO Craig Menear announced a $1 million donation to the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in a statement released on the company website. In the letter, Menear also said the company will work for change internally, "I have begun working with our associate resource groups to facilitate internal town halls to share experiences and create better understanding among us all," he said. "We are dedicated to supporting you and our communities during this time with the goal of emerging more united than ever."

EA announced a $1 million donation to improve racial equality, starting with donations to the Equal Justice Initiative and the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund. The brand says it will donate to more partners in the future.

In a tweet earlier this month, Square Enix announced a $250,000 donation in addition to matching employee donations to the Black Lives Matter organization and other charities.

Gaming companyUbisoft tweeted that the company will donate $100,000 to the NAACP and Black Lives Matter organization and encouraged others to donate.

Etsy announced a total contribution of $1 million in an Instagram post. The company is donating $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative and $500,000 to the Borealis Philanthropy's Black-Led Movement Fund and will be matching employee donations.

Clothing retailer H&M is pledging $500,000 across three different organizations, according to an Instagram post by the brand. The groups are the NAACP, ACLU and Color of Change.

San Francisco-based clothing company Everlane announced two $75,000 donations to the Equal Justice Initiative and the ACLU in a recent Instagram post. Everlane employees also compiled a shared document with educational resources on how to take action and support the Black Lives Matter movement.

Toms Shoes announced a pledge to donate $100,000 over the next several months to organizations that support the movement.

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(1/2) #GeorgeFloyd, #BreonnaTaylor, #AhmaudArbery, #TonyMcDade and countless others. We will not forget them, and we know that we need to be part of the change. Over the next three months, we are donating $100,000 to organizations that are working to combat racial injustice, starting with a donation to Black Lives Matter (@blklivesmatter). We will also continue to listen, learn, and act. Join us.

A post shared by TOMS (@toms) on Jun 1, 2020 at 6:41pm PDT

Women's lingerie brand Spanx announced a $200,000 commitment on Instagram. In the post, Spanx said, "We are donating $100,000 across national organizations focused on combating racial injustice: Black Lives Matter, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and The Minnesota Freedom Fund. In addition, we are committed to donating an additional $100,000 to organizations in our own home of Atlanta."

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"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. Desmond Tutu At Spanx, we always aim to be a source of bright light and positivity in this world. Today, we cannot ignore the injustices and darkness of our outside world. We are overwhelmed with sadness, frustration, heartbreak and anger over recent events. We want you to know that though you see us as a brand, we are made up of real people who care deeply about the justice and equality of everyone. We share your outrage and sorrow over the injustices that led to the tragic loss of the life of George Floyd, along with Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and so many more. Its time to not only stand up for what's right and speak out against racism, but to take action. We know that its in all of our hands to create a better world. Today, were using our social platforms to reiterate that we are committed to being a better ally to fight systemic racism. We will actively practice anti-racism through awareness and education, self-introspection and action. We are calling leaders, we are signing petitions, we are spreading ways to take action but there is so much more that can still be done. We are donating $100,000 across national organizations focused on combating racial injustice: Black Lives Matter, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and The Minnesota Freedom Fund. In addition, we are committed to donating an additional $100,000 to organizations in our own home of Atlanta. To be an ally is to speak out against injustice and to be ears to listen to the POC experience. To be an ally to us means having a heart for empathy for the oppressed and a hand to make change. The time for silence is over. Its time to learn, to grow, to change. #BlackLivesMatter #JusticeforGeorgeFloyd #AntiRacism Art/Image Credit: @quotesbychristie

A post shared by SPANX by @SaraBlakely (@spanx) on May 31, 2020 at 5:00pm PDT

Levis is donating $200,000 to the movement; $100,000 to the ACLU and $100,000 in grants to Live Free USA, an organization working to end mass incarceration.

Gap brands pledged a total of $250,000 in donations to the NAACP andEmbrace Raceon behalf of the brand that includes Athleta, Old Navy and Gap.

Eyewear manufacturer Warby Parker committed $1 million to fight systemic racism, although the brand didn't disclose which organizations it will give to.

Athletic wear brand Lululemon originally announced a $100,000donation to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, but due to an abundance of donations, "we have been asked to channel our resources into other foundations standing for change. We contributed a total of $250,000 to local Minneapolis organizations Rebuild Lake Street and Friends of Hennepin County Library (East Lake Library), as well as national organizations NAACP, Black Lives Matter and Reclaim the Block."

Nike promisesto donate $40 million over the course of four years to social justice organizations that support the Black Lives Matter movement.

Fast-food giant McDonalds is committing $1 million to the NAACP and the National Urban League, according to Business Insider.

Wendy's pledged a $500,000 donation "to support social justice, the youth and education in the black community starting with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund."

Coca-Cola released a statement titled "Where we stand on social justice," and committed $2.5 million in grants from Coca Cola foundation to the NAACP, Equal Justice Initiative, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.

Honest Beauty, the beauty brand founded by Jessica Alba, pledged $100,000 in donations to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Equal Justice Initiative.

Anastasia Beauty is pledging $1 million to various organizations, writing in anInstagram post, "This weekend, we began with a donation of $100,000 across the following organizations: Black Lives Matter, The Innocence Project, The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Black Visions Collective, and The Marshall Project."

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Anastasia Beverly Hills stands in solidarity with the Black community. We are pledging 1 million dollars towards the fight against systematic racism, oppression, and injustice. This weekend, we began with a donation of $100,000 across the following organizations: Black Lives Matter, The Innocence Project, The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Black Visions Collective, and The Marshall Project. We are taking the time internally to discuss new initiatives that will financially support Black owned businesses and artists in the beauty industry. When the details have been finalized, we will announce the process for submission or nomination, and we will update you monthly on recipients. We vow to remain constant and vocal supporters of equality. We vow to use our platform and our privilege to amplify the voices of marginalized groups that deserve to be heard. Thank you to our community for being a continued source of inspiration and accountability. #BlackLivesMatter

A post shared by Anastasia Beverly Hills (@anastasiabeverlyhills) on Jun 1, 2020 at 12:45pm PDT

Beauty brand Glossier plans to donate $500,000 to organizations that are "focused on combating racial injustice," and will donate an additional $500,000 in grants to black-owned beauty brands.

Health care giant, UnitedHealth Group announced a $10 million commitment to support George Floyd's children, and Minnesota businesses impacted by civil unrest. UnitedHealth is giving $5 million to the YMCA Equity Innovation Center of Excellence. UnitedHealth employs 20,000 people in Minnesota and is headquartered outside of Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed.

Whoop announced a $20,000 donation to the Equal Justice Initiative in an announcement by CEO Will Ahmed on Instagram that outlined other ways the fitness tracker company will work to improve diversity and promote racial justice.

Peloton announced a $500,000 donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in a social media post that encouraged others to donate and contribute to the Black Lives Matter cause.

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These are the major brands donating to the Black Lives Matter ...

You may have heard lots of people using the phrase 'Black Lives Matter' in recent times.

It's a statement which has become an important way for people to show their support for members of the black community who have experienced discrimination simply because of the colour of their skin.

How did 'Black Lives Matter' start?

'Black Lives Matter' has become an important statement phrase for many following the death of an African-American man called George Floyd, But it was first used widely back in 2013 after a teenage boy called Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighbourhood watch volunteer who did not face any punishment.

Nobody involved in the Black Lives Matter movement is saying that only black lives matter, or that all lives don't matter, or that white lives don't matter.

Lots of people took part in protests following Trayvon's death and many turned to social media to speak out against what had happened.

They felt upset about the injustice that was taking place in America and wanted to express their anger that that the lives of black people did not have the same value as other people's lives. This led to the birth of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter.

Since then, as well as a phrase of support, Black Lives Matter has grown into a campaigning organisation too.

Ged Grebby is the chief executive of the charity Show Racism The Red Card, he told Newsround that the Black Lives Matter movement was established in reaction to black people in the US being over three times more likely than white people to be killed by a police officer, according to figures published by the American Journal of Public Health.

"It is a movement for equality and against racism" he said.

The police brutality that was happening made black people feel "their lives simply did not matter" says ex-footballer and honorary president of Show Racism The Red Card, Shaka Hislop.

Since the events of 2013, more incidents have taken place across America and other parts of the world which have led to increasing calls for the protection of black lives.

The discrimination black people face dates all the way back to slavery and colonialism and many charities and campaign groups have been challenging racial inequality for years. However, racism still affects many black people today.

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What about the phrase 'All Lives Matter'?

Some people have been using the phrase 'All Lives Matter' in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

On the surface, it seems to suggest that people should be united. However, it's still viewed by many campaigners as a problematic statement. This is because it's seen to take away from the important issues that are affecting black lives in a bad way, and which need to be addressed.

"Nobody involved in the Black Lives Matter movement is saying that only black lives matter, or that all lives don't matter, or that white lives don't matter. The issue is that is white lives have always seemed to matter more," Shaka Hislop explained.

"What Black Lives Matter as a movement is saying is that all those lives matter equally. Black lives have to matter just as much as everybody else's."

This is a belief held by many other organisations working to hard to tackle racial discrimination including the charity Stand Up To Racism.

"The reason Stand Up To Racism and so many people are saying 'Black Lives Matter' right now is because for a very long time, black people in America, Britain and many other places have been treated so badly by people with power, we have to speak up and say that black people do not deserve to be treated this way," said Sabby Dhalu from the organisation.

"Saying black people deserve to be treated better isn't saying anyone else should be treated worse. But sadly, for many reasons, some people are happy for this injustice to continue, so they say things like 'white lives matter' or 'all lives matter' to take our attention away."

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A gathering at Greater St. Marks Family Church in St. Louis on August 12, 2012, to discuss Michael Browns death. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images

This aint your grandparents civil-rights movement! Rapper Tef Poe yelled from the stage of the Chaifetz Arena in St. Louis on October 12, 2014. Several of us stood in solidarity and turned our backs on the religious leaders who organized the rally in the wake of Michael Browns killing at the hands of white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. The Black church, once the moral compass of African American politics, would not lead this new generation of protest.

But the exodus from church is not a flight from faith. It is an escape from the bondage of patriarchy, queer-antagonism, and respectability politics that have long plagued the religious terrain. Activists are embracing other pathways through the wilderness of racial oppression. We are leaving in search of a practice[s] that is overtly inclusive of our sexuality, ancestral practices, and race, Meagan Jordan wrote for the Black Youth Project. While we may not be going to church in the traditional sense, we are gathering together in unique spaces.

Jordan invites us to question the question: Where is the church in Black Lives Matter? What if, in our search for the church, we miss the spirit erupting beyond its walls?

On August 9, 2014, just hours after Mike Browns killing in Ferguson, Missouri, local residents adorned the stretch of Canfield Drive where the teenagers lifeless body lay face down for over four hours. Many brought flowers, candles, teddy bears, balloons, cards, and photographs. Some poured out liquor and placed the empty bottles between bouquets and baseball caps. Others paid their respects with prayer or a moment of silence.

As protests exploded across the country, the makeshift memorial blossomed into a beloved community. Activists planted signs that read Hands Up Dont Shoot and End Police Brutality! Vigils around the shrine sparked actions across the city. Mourners stood silently for four and a half minutes to symbolize the four and a half hours that the police left Mikes bleeding body on the street, baking in the summer sun. Mothers wept. Healers burned sage. Protesters formed circles, joined hands, and chanted Black lives matter and Mike Brown means we got to fight back!

The street memorial was a sacred place of political struggle. And it embodied the spiritual life of contemporary activism.

Black Lives Matter is spiritually promiscuous. It embraces a range of rituals: ancestral worship, call-and-response, chanting, libation, prayer, mysticism, the lighting of incense. Each does its own work. Chanting releases rage. Prayer offers comfort. Magic possesses the dispossessed with faith in the miraculous. Call-and-response turns a Lil Boosie song into a movement anthem. Libation transforms Hennessy into holy water. And all articulate a refusal to give death the last word. It is a makeshift spiritual practice rooted in a love of justice and a reverence for the sanctity of Black lives.

In Toni Morrisons novel Beloved, a stunning scene unfolds when a community of freedmen and former slaves assembles in the woods. After a moment of prayer, Baby Suggs slams her stick on the ground and beckons everyone to let loose. A frenzy ensues. Children laugh. Men dance. Women wail. And, before long, their twisting hips and roaring laughter and salty tears melt into an ecstatic choreography of praise and protest. After the earth settles, Baby Suggs the 70-year-old unchurched preacher addresses the multitude who, every Saturday afternoon, carry their scarred backs and calloused hands into the clearing. Here, she said, in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard.

The sermon is short and the message is clear: Only love can save us.

The ring shout, as Morrison masterfully depicts it, is among the earliest forms of African American resistance. A remix of African religions and Black Christianity, the shout! was a spiritual triumph where enslaved and free Blacks stole away in back woods and danced counterclockwise, as the ring leaders voice thundered into the night and the groups collective voice hollered back. Facing the evil of chattel slavery, without redress from the courts or access to the classroom, Black folk created religious rituals to seek solace, honor ancestors, assert a sense of self-regard, and dream of better days.

The ring shout was a circle of life drawn from the shadows of death.

The ritual faded as Black religion in America formalized. But its essential elements echo throughout African American music, dance, religion, and activism. Just spin the records of Sarah Vaughan, John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Billie Holiday, Lauryn Hill, Kendrick Lamar, and Young Thug, and youll hear the rhapsodic sorrow of the blues, the improvisational genius of jazz, the supreme virtuosity of hip-hop, and a trap rapper mumbling his way through the tradition. Or attend Sunday service at a Black church and glimpse the Holy Ghost enchanting the feet of elders as the preacher cries out for a witness. Or join a protest against racial violence and let the shout ring through your body.

This is my testimony. In the middle of Canfield Drive, standing at Mikes memorial, I got lost in the ring. As protesters chanted and loved ones lit candles and strangers became comrades and a community gathered to mourn and rebel, I was possessed with the spirit of freedom and the truth that another world is possible. And, as Baby Suggs demanded, I loved it. I loved it hard.

Ferguson exploded two months after I graduated from seminary, and I felt called to do something. Following the legacy of the 1961 Freedom Rides to challenge racial segregation, activists Darnell Moore, Patrisse Cullors, and others organized Black Life Matters Freedom Rides from over 12 cities to help turn a local rebellion into a national movement. Eager to turn up, I got on a bus from New York City to St. Louis. Twenty-one hours later, 42 of us arrived at St. Johns United Church of Christ.

We used the sanctuary to conduct teach-ins, strategize campaigns, and prepare for acts of civil disobedience. Several of us slept in the basement where we shared stories of what brought us to Ferguson. Perhaps owing to the setting, some protesters talked about their experiences in church. Many of us had been harmed by pastors and parishioners that professed to love all of Gods children. We knew that a place of refuge for some could be a site of repression for others. And that Black liberation not only requires protesting police violence in the streets and systemic racism throughout society. It means confronting the violence of policing women, queer people, and Black youth in the church and throughout our communities.

For decades, Black preachers have sought to redeem the soul of the country. A new generation of activists is reckoning with the soul of the church. And herein lies the spiritual force of the movement. It calls us to confront the ways we have sinned against each other as we protest the ways others have sinned against us. The need for actions, campaigns, and policy changes while vital for the success of social movements can eclipse the need for what the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called a revolution of values. As important as politics may be: An ethic of love guides us to our North Star.

This is what connects Baby Suggs to Black Lives Matter. Beyond calls to transform a loveless society, both demand that we embody a love that will transform each other. The two make a road we can all travel. To change the world we must remake ourselves and to change ourselves we must remake the world. This is hard work. Most of us will fall short. But if we journey together, we can reach heights even in the valley of death.

I stopped by the memorial before we left Ferguson. The heat was merciless. I imagined Big Mikes body sprawled in the street, blood dripping from his head, as neighbors watched in horror. I thought about Lezley McSpadden, who will spend her holidays grieving her most precious gift. I mourned the days Mike will not see and the secrets he will never have the chance to share.

And as the sun rose and my heart sank into my chest, a small crowd began to assemble. A few people lit candles. Some replaced soiled teddy bears and handed out water, while others stood in silence. Many of us wept. And after a few moments, we all joined hands and formed a circle around the shrine. Children, elders, parents, protesters, clergy, residents, out-of-towners, queer organizers, white activists, Black kids from the neighborhood. It felt like an altar call. Except salvation was not about joining a church or having faith in a higher power. It was about believing that every life is holy and joining a movement that protects the living while mourning the dead.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the January 31, 2022, issue of New YorkMagazine.

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The Religion of Protest: Finding Spirituality in BLM - The Cut

DEKALB COUNTY, GAThe second annual Black Lives Matter at DeKalb Schools Week of Action kicked off today, Jan. 31, and will be held virtually through Feb. 4, in the DeKalb County School District (DCSD). The week-long event features daily Black Lives Matter school-based instructional activities, including a social media celebration of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and a celebration of Black-owned businesses in DeKalb County.

An array of dynamic speakers and topics has been curated around this years theme, Celebrating Black Contributions to America. The virtual symposium will include speakers and topics for individuals to engage in and learn more about African Americans impact in America. Some of those sessions include African American History & Heritage, Black People and STE(A)M, Mental Wellness in Black Communities, Wealth Equity in the Black Community, and Unbalanced Judicial and Legislative Systems.

After our success in 2020, were excited to host once again a week that celebrates the beautiful diversity in DeKalb County School District, Superintendent Cheryl Watson-Harris said. Black Lives Matter at DeKalb Schools Week of Action 2022 gives our scholars and staff an opportunity to recognize racial and social injustices in our communities, but also a platform to celebrate our wonderful achievements.

Black Lives Matter began as a social media hashtag in 2013 in response to the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch coordinator in Sanford, Fla. The social media movement transformed into a global organization with the goal to build power to bring justice, healing, and freedom to Black people across the globe. The Board of Education adopted the resolution for Black Lives Matter at DeKalb Schools Week of Action on July 13, 2020.

I am proud to be a part of a district that encourages courageous conversations concerning systemic racism, racial injustice, ethnic bias, and so much more. The DCSD Black Lives Matter Week of Action showcases great discussions and equips our students to be the voice of change. Im excited that we are equipping our scholars with the tools they need to address stereotypes and stigmas so that they can reach their fullest potential, DeKalb County Board of Education Vice Chair Diijon DaCosta said.

For more information on Black Lives Matter At DeKalb Schools Week of Action 2022, visithttps://www.dekalbschoolsga.org/news/black-lives-matter-at-dekalb-schools/.

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DCSD hosts Black Lives Matter Week of Action 2022 - On Common Ground News

Arthur Ashe Monument in Richmond, Virginia, on June 17, 2020. Photo: Kris Graves c/o Sasha Wolf Projects

Between 7:06 and 7:11 p.m. on June 1, 2020, equipped only with a Bible and the long, muscular arm of history, Donald Trump became a hero.

As fumes from the chemical compound approved by his accomplices officials from the Secret Service; the U.S. Park Police; the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department; the D.C. National Guard; the Federal Bureau of Prisons; the U.S. Marshals Service; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; the attorney general of the United States; and the top two commanders of the mightiest military force on the planet began to irritate the eyes, throats, lungs, and skin of nonviolent protesters, the conquering hero posed in front of St. Johns Episcopal Church and hoisted a Bible to the heavens. The president of the United States had just tear-gassed his own peacefully protesting citizens for a photo op. But Trump treated this chaos as if it were the final panel of a historically accurate graphic novel.

For what is America if not an epic story? We have all absorbed, to varying degrees, the basic premise and plot of the great American tall tale. Once upon a time, an innocent group of freedoms-loving people were minding their own business enjoying their freedoms (freedoms is always with an s). Out of nowhere a dark force of freedoms-hating others arose, threatening to steal the peace, tranquillity, and stuff the spunky freedoms-lovers had built with nothing but hard work, ingenuity, and definitely no help from the others. There was only one choice: They had to eliminate the threat posed by the others.

In this myth, Black Lives Matter is simply the youngest descendant of a foe that has bedeviled America since before there was an America, and the Dylann Roofs of this world are the heirs of a long line of white people who have taken up the mantle of violent, deadly anti-Blackness in defense of this American myth.

Attaching oneself to Black peoples desire to be free, equal, or even human has always been seen as a seditious act worthy of violent retribution. At the beginning of the American experiment, it was literally unconstitutional: The Federal Constitution therefore, decides with great propriety on the case of our slaves, when it views them in the mixt character of persons and of property, wrote hero, Father of the Constitution, and human trafficker James Madison when debating the value of Black lives in Federalist Paper No. 54. This is in fact their true character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under which they live; and it will not be denied.

Even the idea of Black lives mattering was the enemy of this America. In the prequel to our current story, both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were communists bent on a violent overthrow of the American government. So were W.E.B. Du Bois, the Black Panthers, the Freedom Riders, and every Black person who organized a peaceful coalition. In our current chapter, kneeling silently before a football game begins is as much a riot as marching in the streets, and Trumps impromptu tear-gas photo op was simply a throwback to George Wallace sending state troopers to bar Black students from integrating the University of Alabama.

How can you render this tale so that the so-called villains perspective is understood or perhaps embraced? You cant. Not a single Black movement in the history of this country has been universally supported by lawmakers, law enforcers, and white people. You are free to believe that Black people are worthy of their humanity and liberty, but doing something about it means accepting the violent backlash and the collective scorn of a country whose Constitution calculated the value of a Black life at 60 percent of a white one.

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The Brooklyn Liberations Protect Trans Youth rally at the Brooklyn Museum on June 13, 2021. Photo: Michael M. Santiago / GettyImages/Getty Images

Let today be the last day that you ever doubt Black trans power, I cried into a microphone in the summer of 2020. I was addressing a crowd of nearly 15,000 people dressed in varying shades of white outside the Brooklyn Museum. Our uniform paid homage to a 1917 NAACP silent march for Black lynching victims. Now, more than a century later, we had gathered to honor the Black transgender people murdered during the coronavirus pandemic and before it. We chanted the often overlooked names of folks like Layleen Polanco, Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Dominique Remmie Fells, and Riah Milton. We imagined a world where Black trans people didnt have to fight so hard to exist.

The Black Trans Lives Matter rally sprang from the unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd, but the movement is anything but new. Since the emergence of BLM, trans organizers had been building a national network to combat discrimination and violence in our communities. A month after a verdict was reached in the George Zimmerman case, New York activists mobilized around the killing of a Black trans woman named Islan Nettles on the streets of Harlem. You can find work like this happening in every corner of the country groups like the New Orleansbased House of Tulip, a collective committed to finding long-term housing for those who need it, or Atlantas Solutions NOT Punishment Collaborative, which supports the political education of trans people. In the spirit of Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnsons historic STAR House, the Knights & Orchids Society in Selma, Alabama, takes a holistic approach, helping Black trans and queer people access food and gender-affirming health care, among other basic human needs.

The past few years have been complicated. Ive never felt more connected to the Black trans community and more disconnected from the wider population, which so often ignores our struggles. With each passing year, we reach record new highs of murders in our communities. But we continue to fight. And that day in the summer of 2020 will forever serve as a bridge between the rich history of the Black trans movement and a more liberated future.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the January 31, 2022, issue of New YorkMagazine.

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Black Trans Lives Matter and the Cry to Be Included - The Cut

Activist Ieshia Evans in July 2016, in Louisiana. Photo: Jonathan Bachman/REUTERS

In 1892, at the height of the lynching crisis, Ida B. Wells proclaimed that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life.

The critical point for me in Wellss manifesto for Black self-defense is not her overarching respect for the power of guns. It is her observation about where the aggression begins. Losing that thread of the argument, about who actually starts the fights, is the reason so much white aggression is seamlessly restyled as the right to stand ones ground, to protect and defend ones kith and kin. Conversely, Black self-defense is transposed into an act of unjustified aggression and met with fire and fury by both the state and self-deputized white citizens.

Do Black people have the right to defend themselves against acts of hostility and aggression, especially when the aggressors are white? When confronted with increasingly normalized acts of white aggression, do Black people have the right to stand our ground?

Philando Castile told the officer who pulled him over for a traffic stop that he had a firearm, which he had a permit for. The officer killed him anyway. In 2014, police killed John Crawford III inside an Ohio Walmart for aimlessly carrying an air rifle that was sold in the store, perhaps considering whether he wanted to buy it. And certainly, Tamir Rice is one of the youngest victims of our cultures excessive fear of Black men and boys with guns, even though his was a toy and he was only 12.

The answer to white aggression cannot, under these circumstances, be more guns. But the decade since Trayvon Martins death has been marked by exactly this: more guns. Firearm sales broke records in the Obama era and exceeded that pre-pandemic record last year. While African American gun ownership has increased, the vast majority of folks hyperexercising their Second Amendment rights are white people who use the language of self-defense, safety, and protection as the excuse to stockpile guns.

One wonders if they are not readying themselves for a war. Dylann Roof told officers that he wanted to start a race war when he slaughtered nine worshipping souls in a South Carolina church. One wonders if his singular attack, together with the collective attempt at insurrection on January 6, 2021, is a dress rehearsal. It seems Black people are considered the enemy. Unrest and disease are in the air. And the aggressors, the neighborhood warmongers, have restyled themselves as the ones under attack, as the ones needing protection.

And so, as has happened after every major moment of racial upheaval, African Americans have forged a politics of Black self-defense. Although the country loves to tout the nonviolent direct action of the King years, the Deacons for Defense and Justice, founded in Jonesboro, Louisiana, a small town about 20 minutes from where I grew up, rejected nonviolence as praxis. These World War II veterans carried guns and defended their homes and communities. So too did the Black Power eras most iconic group call itself the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. In Shreveport, Louisiana, in 2020, when a group of activists gathered to peacefully protest a persisting Confederate monument in town, they were intimidated by an armed biker militia group; in response, members of an area Black gun club showed up to protect the peaceful demonstrators. These local skirmishes, often in places with long and storied Confederate histories, are becoming increasingly volatile theaters in an increasingly tactical era of the U.S. gun-culture wars.

In the broader movement, however, the language has shifted from self-defense to public safety and protection, perhaps because this language is, in a word, safer. When the Black Panther Party defended its right to armed self-defense, the U.S. government responded by characterizing the group as a threat to democracy; killing its leaders, such as Fred Hampton; and imprisoning many of its members under dubious pretenses. Committed to learning the lessons of the 1960s and 70s, Black Lives Matter has chosen less muscular taglines.

But as that movement has matured, it has tried to learn the lessons of the Black Power era, pointing a watchful, anxious, dwindling white majority to the goals, rather than the tactics that have led to such fierce protests in the streets. The goal is safety; one tactic is self-defense. The goal is demonstrating that Black lives have value; the tactic is protest.

There is an earnestness to Black Lives Matter. A kind of barefaced removing of the gloves and the pugilism. Perhaps this is an homage to Trayvon Martin, who in his last moments was meandering through his fathers girlfriends neighborhood, chatting on the phone with his friend Rachel, unconcerned, as all young people should have the freedom to be, with the monster lurking in the bushes.

To this earnestness, the aggressors, who still are almost always white, have responded with cynicism, obfuscation, and gun sales. George Zimmerman added to the chorus by successfully auctioning for $250,000 the gun he had used to kill Martin.

What, then, does public safety actually look like if youre Black? To have that conversation means we are ready to think about the inherent unsafety and aggression of whiteness, about how those who are invested in the worst iterations of white identity politics frequently create the social conditions against which Black life needs defending. It is Roof being received warmly in a Charleston church while murder plots and plans teemed in his heart. It is Kyle Rittenhouse auditioning for a gunfight and then crying when the world obliged him.

Wells understood that the law would not protect Black life. For her, guns in every Black home were the ticket to respect. I remain ambivalent, vacillating between following the legacy of my grandmother, who always kept both a rifle and a pistol at the ready, and leaning into my own intimate knowledge of the devastation guns bring, as the daughter of parents who were both victims of gun violence, my father fatally so. I dont know that I believe guns are the guarantor of respect for Black life, given how much Black life they have taken. Im fairly sure the only places more guns can lead us to are war, death, and destruction. At the same time, Im a committed member of the Dont start none, wont be none and Dont pull the thang out unless you plan to bang generation.

What continues to elude us, despite recent rejections of white vigilantism and excessive police force, is respect for Afro-American life. Over the past ten years, social-justice movements have used the streets, the courts, the voting booth, and the bully pulpit to mount a full-scale defense of Black life. But until we are able to tell the cold, hard truth about the existential threat of white racial aggression, not only to people of color but to the country as a whole, speaking of self-defense will be mere obfuscation. And the tools, the weapons, of self-defense will remain the province of those who picked the fights in the first place.

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Standing Your Ground While Black - The Cut

The Wendys where Rayshard Brooks was killed, on June 13, 2020. Photo: Joshua Rashaad McFadden/The New York Times/REDUX

Two weeks after uprisings sparked by the murder of George Floyd left Atlanta littered with ashes, protesters flooded the citys streets once more. The police had killed again, and this time the victim was an Atlantan: 27-year-old father and music lover Rayshard Brooks, shot in the back twice by Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe. The Wendys where Rolfe killed Brooks the day before went up in flames, lighting up the night as protesters chanted and mourned, decrying a system that disproportionately takes the lives of Black people as a matter of course.

You are disgracing our city, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms had declared when the protests broke out two weeks earlier. Bottomss admonishment was celebrated by pundits and politicians, winning her a national profile. If you care about this city, then go home, she urged.

But protesters filled the streets precisely because they cared so deeply. Six years after the first round of Black Lives Matter uprisings, it felt to many that the system had not fundamentally shifted. The 2020 protests popularized the demand to defund the police and invest instead in community-based safety and well-being a demand that many organizers in Atlanta had been working to make reality for the previous two decades.

Despite those efforts, the citys leadership responded to the 2020 uprisings with a mix of co-option, half-measures, and brutal police repression a pattern the city has long practiced. Indeed, the reaction to Rayshard Brookss killing was in some ways predictable the result of decades of sweeping police violence under the rug and disregarding organizers demands.

In 2006, 92-year-old grandmother Kathryn Johnston was murdered by Atlanta Police Department officers in her home after officers entered under a no knock warrant, the same type of warrant police had when they killed Breonna Taylor 14 years later. In response, civil-rights leaders, including Joseph E. Lowery, a onetime confidant of Martin Luther King Jr., led the charge to revive civilian oversight of police, in the hopes of exposing the pervasive violence that the department had historically kept quiet. At the same time, community members gathered at a local church to demand consequences for the officers and broader reforms.

Following the outcry, the city established the Atlanta Citizen Review Board in 2007. Many hoped this would begin a process of accountability, but two years later, the ACRB still had little authority to address police misconduct. It could not, for instance, force officers to testify or otherwise cooperate with investigations. City leadership had purported to concede a demand but refused to cede any power.

By the time Johnstons killers were convicted, the high-profile murder of a local bartender had fueled a narrative of rising crime and calls to increase policing. In response, a group of public defenders, local organizers, service providers, and those living in police-saturated neighborhoods formed Building Locally to Organize for Community Safety. (Tiffany Roberts, who co-wrote this story, is a co-founder.) BLOCS advocates knew that the criminal convictions of officers would not change the devastation that tough-on-crime tactics continued to have on their communities, and they began working for more substantive accountability.

In 2010, BLOCS won more power for the ACRB, and the next year, the organization pushed the city to dismantle the APDs paramilitary Red Dog Unit, the source of frequent complaints of excessive force. The year before, the unit had raided the Atlanta Eagle, a gay bar in midtown Atlanta, and assaulted patrons. Red Dog had also been accused of performing unconstitutional public strip searches of predominantly Black men. Community members cheered at the news of Red Dogs dissolution, but the city quickly replaced the unit with APEX a brand-new militarized APD squad that would come to perform many of the same functions as its predecessor, conducting raids in what it called high crime areas.

In 2014, when Officer Darren Wilson murdered Michael Brown in Ferguson Atlanta protested with the rest of the nation. A year later, Atlantas official Black Lives Matter chapter was founded. By the time hundreds of protesters blocked an Atlanta interstate in 2016 leading then-Mayor Reed to ahistorically opine that Dr. King would never take a freeway the citys response to demonstrations and policy advocacy had become increasingly hostile, with officials eagerly deploying law enforcement to combat the growing movement.

Despite opposition, organizers notched crucial wins, including the creation of what is now called the Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative, which would reduce police contact with those criminalized for poverty; significant reforms to the citys cash-bail system; the (still unfulfilled) promise to close the city jail; and the dissolution of federal contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

At the same time, police murders in Atlanta continued apace, taking the lives of Alexia Christian in 2015, Deravis Caine Rogers in 2016, Deaundre Phillips in 2017, and organizer Oscar Cain Jr. in 2019. And efforts by regressive councilmembers, municipal judges, and APD allies to roll back key reforms began almost as soon as they were passed.

In 2020, the citys response to the uprisings was marked by brutal police repression, even as the governor of Georgia deployed the National Guard. Police were deployed to quash protests, often trapping protesters in Atlantas famous Centennial Olympic Park before shipping them off to the closest jail. Using tear gas, rubber bullets, and sheer force, police injured and arrested protesters throughout the summer. During just two weeks of demonstrations, police arrested roughly 600 people, cycling hundreds through already overcrowded jails in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

The Bottoms administrations response to Brookss death a mix of superficial proposals and police repression was more evidence that the old ways were not working. After convening an advisory council to issue emergency recommendations on use-of-force policies for the Atlanta police, the mayor cherry-picked just under half of the suggestions, generally electing to investigate or study rather than substantively address the issues that led to Brookss death. Even as the call to defund the police reached the mainstream, Bottomss administration insisted instead on the need for additional training and protocols. But as protesters in the streets made clear, these reforms as envisioned and practiced by the city had failed to stem the violence.

Rolfe, Brookss killer, was himself evidence of tepid reforms inability to resolve the crisis. Indeed, on paper, he is the ideal modern, reformed officer. He had reportedly undergone 2,000 hours of training, including sessions on de-escalation tactics, cultural-awareness training, and instruction on use of deadly force. None of this preparation stopped him from killing Rayshard Brooks.

Most recently, in 2021, Mayor Bottomss administration worked closely with the Atlanta Police Foundation one of policings fiercest defenders in Atlanta to create plans for a police training facility, named Cop City by organizers who rose up to fight it. If built, Cop City would require the partial destruction of critical green space in Atlanta and far outstrip the training facilities of the much larger L.A. and New York police departments. As one of Bottomss last major projects before leaving office, Cop City would expand the footprint of policing in Atlanta just one year after mass protests calling to defund the police.

Even still, hope remains. Organizers continue to build support for alternatives to policing, pick up electoral wins, practice mutual aid, and form creative coalitions to meet the moment, while ongoing protests send a clear message: As long as political leadership relies on policing to resist, sidestep, and quash demands for transformation, police will continue to kill, and cities will continue to burn.

Thank you for subscribing and supporting our journalism. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the January 31, 2022, issue of New YorkMagazine.

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The Failure of Police Reform - New York Magazine