Assault on Capitol is not about Black Lives Matter

Assault on Capitol is not about Black Lives Matter

David Kramer at the 5/31/20 Black Lives Matter rally in Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park [Photo: Zoc Johnson] From A Black Lives Matter solidarity rally with commentary from Kholaa and a walk down Joseph Avenue

by George Cassidy Payne

In the bloody wake of an insurrection on the Capitol by hordes of armed white supremacists and naive Trump supporters, the President-elect issued the following statement on Twitter. “No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protestors yesterday that they wouldn’t have been treated very differently than the mob that stormed the Capitol…We all know that’s true — and it’s unacceptable.”

Although Mr. Biden has every right to condemn how law enforcement responded to the seditious ransacking of the Capitol, these type of comparisons are not altogether fair or accurate. Without noticing he is doing it, Biden posited that Black Lives Matter would want to commit such an act of treason in the first place. He did not say that with his words, but the hypothetical served to make the possibility more plausible than it should be.

As a movement, BLM is founded on the principles of nonviolence and social justice. They have never advocated armed insurrection against the government, nor have they indicated that they would do so if given the opportunity. It is not the overwhelming presence of police that prevent BLM from committing domestic terrorism. It is their values as an organization and the staunch commitment to strategic nonviolence exemplified by their leadership.

Portland and other cities where revolts have taken place are not counterexamples. For starters, the violence in these places is primarily attributable to the anarchic group Antifa and the militarized tactics of police and other law enforcement agencies. Have individuals committed acts of violence while claiming to represent Black Lives Matter? Absolutely. But does that make BLM violent even when they denounce those acts and do everything in their power to prevent them?

The reality is that African Americans have never attempted to overthrow the government, create massive social upheaval through political violence, or lay siege to a federal institution such as the Capitol. In fact, acts of violent sedition have, by and large, been perpetrated by white Americans-often with racist motivations. The origins of the Civil War is of course the most famous and dramatic example.¹

Here’s the bottom line. What happened at the Capitol is not about Black Lives Matter or how badly BLM would be treated if they acted the same way the rioters did. They did not behave that way, and there is no reason to suspect that they would if presented with a way to do so. Even to insinuate that there is a comparison is to engage in moral false equivalency.

I do not believe Mr. Biden meant to suggest a connection between political violence and black power. But that is what he did. The implicit bias at work here is the undergirding assumption that BLM is essentially seditious but held in check by an overwhelming show of force by the establishment. Why not ask what the police would do to a large group of disability activists storming the Capitol walls? Or climate activists, or Parkland teenagers protesting guns? Is it because they would never do such a thing or because these groups are primarily white? Or both? More to the point, considering that 90% of BLM activities are peaceful and nonviolent, why are they viewed by the power structure as extremists, inherently violent, and potentially seditious? President-elect Biden, in this situation — as with many other well-intentioned commentators and allies of BLM — has given credence to that propaganda.

Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park in Manhattan Square [Photo: David Kramer 4/23/20] From Finding MLK at Manhattan Square

Without putting words in Biden’s mouth, what the conversation is missing is the acknowledgment that not only have African Americans never perpetrated the crime of sedition as the world witnessed on 1/6, but they have done more to protect American democracy than any other group in our nation’s history. Black Lives Matter has inherited a rich and powerful legacy of social progress and nonviolent resistance to injustice. They would not storm the gates of the Capitol and commit murder against their fellow citizens because that is not what they believe in and fight for. Let’s talk about the real problem and stop deflecting blame — a tactic that white liberals and supporters of Trump are all too familiar with.

GCP

¹Source

“6 Violent Uprisings in the United States,” History.com, 2018

SEE ALSO 

A Black Lives Matter solidarity rally with commentary from Kholaa and a walk down Joseph Avenue

Finding MLK at Manhattan Square

About The Author

dkramer3@naz.edu

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle  blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C  ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones.  So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.

Donate

Like what you see on our site? We’d appreciate your support. Please donate today.

Featured Posts

Loading