When was the last time we saw governments embrace the violent, racialist political agenda of a specific racist organization and make the citizenry obey it by force of law while exempting its adherents from the actual laws on the books? If you are conjuring up images of the KKK during the Jim Crow days in the South, you are not missing anything. So why is this suddenly OK when it comes to an organization that names itself Black Lives Matter?
We have never seen an individual political movement accorded this much accommodation and coerced adherence by society and government. It’s to the point where it has become a national religion that one would think might run afoul the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. BLM protesters are not arrested for violence, vandalism, arson, or blocking roadways. But if you defend yourself against them, you are the one who is treated like a criminal. If you don’t support this political organization – its anti-Semitism, violence, disruption, and all – you will lose your job and any position of prominence … and might even wind up in jail.
On Tuesday, the Contra Costa, California, district attorney charged a married couple for civil rights violations and vandalism after they filmed themselves painting over a large “Black Lives Matter” display on a main city street in Martinez.
“We must address the root and byproduct of systemic racism in our country. The Black Lives Matter movement is an important civil rights cause that deserves all of our attention,” stated Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton. “The mural completed last weekend was a peaceful and powerful way to communicate the importance of Black lives in Contra Costa County and the country. We must continue to elevate discussions and actually listen to one another in an effort to heal our community and country.”
Here we have a prosecutor elevating a violent, anti-Semitic group to the level of legal juggernaut, where anyone who opposes them gets charged with civil rights violations. Is this the equal treatment under the law that Dr. King dreamed of?
Obviously, defenders of the prosecution will suggest that the protesters got a permit from the city to paint this “mural,” thereby making this act of defacement a criminal violation of vandalism. But therein lies the problem. This is not some mural of a city image on the side of a wall. This is the name of a particular racial and political organization painted right on a city street. When has that ever been sanctioned by a city to a private organization, much less a political one, much less a violent racist one to boot?
Do you really think any city would allow such a painting of “All Lives Matter” or “Blue Lives Matter,” much less “White Lives Matter” on a city street? And if that were to happen, would citizens who paint over it be charged with vandalism, not to mention civil rights violations? How is this equal treatment?
What about Jewish Lives Matter?
The only response you will hear is that black people were oppressed many years ago and somehow everyone today is retroactively responsible to publicly endorse today’s movement in order to atone for the sin. But if that history justifies a need for obsessive coddling of an organization that names itself “black lives,” then by a factor of 1,000, state and local governments have an obligation to “address the root and byproduct of systemic racism” against Jews in this country. Hate crimes against Jews are much more widespread and are happening now and are on the rise, not simply a part of history. So, is Martinez, California, going to paint a mural of “Jewish Lives Matter”? Or is it only those who riot, threaten, and intimidate who get their grievances validated and indulged by government and law?
According to the Anti-Defamation League, in 2019, there were 2,107 anti-Semitic incidents throughout the country, a 12% increase from the 1,879 incidents recorded in 2018. Just how prominent are those numbers per capita? Jews are just 2% of the population, but were the victims in 56.9 percent of the anti-religious hate crimes in 2018, according to the FBI. The hate crime rate per 100,000 against Jews was 14.8, nearly three times that of anti-black hate crimes.
And guess what: Unfortunately, most of those attacks, especially in New York City, come from black assailants precisely because of the resurgence of pro-Lois Farrakhan sentiment that is promoted by groups like BLM. According to NYPD’s statistics on hate crimes, 58% of all hate crimes (not just anti-religious ones) in NYC were committed against Jews, even though they are just 12% of the city’s population. The number of anti-Semitic incidents increased by 30% over the previous year.
Earlier this year and last year, we were witnessing knockout attacks by black youth against Jews in New York almost on a daily basis. Even the New York Times admitted over a year ago that these attacks were not committed by white criminals. “During the past 22 months, not one person caught or identified as the aggressor in an anti-Semitic hate crime has been associated with a far right-wing group,” acknowledged the Times in an article titled, “Is it Safe to be Jewish in New York?”
In a shocking admission, the paper of record observed that the growing “anti-Semitism bypasses consideration as a serious problem in New York” because “it refuses to conform to an easy narrative with a single ideological enemy,” given “the varied backgrounds of people who commit hate crimes in the city that make combating and talking about anti-Semitism in New York much harder.”
Well, that is one way to explain it! Those “varied backgrounds” pose a big challenge to intellectual honesty.
Yet here we have Mayor Bill de Blasio painting a Black Lives Matter “mural” in Manhattan right in front of Trump tower. He did so together with noted Jew-hater, Al Sharpton. But under this standard, shouldn’t he paint a mural of Jewish Lives Matter in front of City Hall? And given that the statistics show that Jews are attacked much more often, and increasingly so, than black people, shouldn’t he be condemning the rabid anti-Semitism and racism of the very group he sanctifies as the paragon of civil rights?
Most of the anti-Semitism is coming from BLM-type organizations
Just who are these people now being celebrated with public property and by the most high-profile politicians? The head of the Black Lives Mater chapter in Toronto once wrote on Facebook that white people are “subhuman” and have “genetic defects.” How is that different from David Duke?
On May 30, during a Jewish holiday, BLM activists carried out an attack on Los Angeles’ oldest Jewish neighborhood in Fairfax, even though it was out of the way of the protests. They vandalized five synagogues and three Jewish schools and looted Jewish-owned businesses. Daniel Greenfield reported at Frontpage that Allyson Rowen Taylor, a co-founder of StandWithUs, shared an account of the riots in which they chanted, “F**k the police and kill the Jews.”
“It’s no coincidence that the riots here escalated in Fairfax, the icon of the Jewish community. I saw the Watts and the Rodney King riots. They never touched a synagogue or house of prayer. The graffiti showed blatant antisemitism. It’s Kristallnacht all over again,” said Rabbi Shimon Raichik, a Chabad Rabbi in Los Angeles, as reported by Greenfield.
There are numerous other accounts of how the BLM rioters directed their hatred towards Jews over and beyond the general violence they were committing. Isn’t it quite revealing how support for Palestinians seems to be the only foreign policy position BLM indulges?
How can we ever strive for true equality in this country if the political elites are going to elevate a racist organization as the beacon of racial justice and equality? What message does this send to the already growing Farrakhan movement attacking Jews?
White supremacists and neo-Nazis have been banished from society. True equality would require us to do the same to all racial supremacist and hateful organizations. And that begins with government treating every crime or interaction with a political movement on an equal footing. If opposing BLM is tantamount to anti-black racism, then supporting them is tantamount to anti-Semitism. If erasing BLM graffiti on our streets is racist, then politicians painting it on the streets is anti-Semitic.
In reality, the only lives that should be singled out in a color-coded message by the governments of this country are the lives represented by the red, white, and blue – which is all of us. E pluribus unum. (For more from the author of “The Black Lives Matter Agenda Is Racist and Anti-Semitic. Why Are Politicians Embracing It?” please click HERE)
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