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July 15, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
21:22
Apologists for Black Lives Matter
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Scrolling through your Facebook feed, you'll probably see articles and arguments about Black Lives Matter.
A lot of people are mad or just confused about this movement.
So here are responses to four questions you might hear when talking about Black Lives Matter.
Oh, this is amazing.
I cannot wait for you to tell me how much Black Lives Matter is a religion of peace.
Before we start, I just want to say that I haven't watched this video through to the end.
I've only watched about the first minute or so.
So this is all going to be new to me.
Oh, so you care about black lives?
Then why aren't you talking about black on black crime?
Well, I mean, it does seem to follow that if black lives actually do matter to Black Lives Matter, then they might care about the single greatest source of black people being murdered, wouldn't it?
First off, this assumes that the black community isn't worried about gun violence.
Seems like you've fallen at the first hurdle, Francesca.
We're not talking about the black community.
We're talking about the social movement Black Lives Matter.
Ceasefire in Chicago is an organization that actually intervenes in local street and gang fights.
There's even a documentary about them called The Interrupters.
That's wonderful, Francesca, but is that a Black Lives Matter issue?
Black Lives Matter isn't just about the loss of life, which is always terrible.
It's about the lack of consequences when black lives are taken at the hands of the police.
So the Black Lives Matter movement is not even vaguely concerned when black people murder other black people.
When a civilian has committed a violent crime, they're generally arrested, tried, and then convicted.
Conversely, there's a lot of evidence that it's very rare to secure an indictment against a police officer for excessive force, and an indictment is just a trial.
It's not even a conviction.
This is actually a really fair point.
And the American police, honestly, from an outsider perspective, in a lot of ways do seem to act as their own kind of gang in and of themselves.
But this isn't an issue that just affects black people, is it, Francesca?
Also, black on black crime isn't a thing.
Yes, it is.
Yes, it is very much a thing, and it happens disproportionately.
A ridiculous amount, in fact, Francesca.
This is why, and I'm sure you're going to say this, this is why people don't say white on white crime, because per capita, it's not actually very high.
84% of white murder victims were killed by another white person.
Yes, but the actual number of white people killing each other is proportionally far lower than the number of black people killing each other.
But we don't call it white on white crime.
Yes, we do, because that's what it is.
But it's not really the most pressing issue in the United States at the moment, so it's not something you hear spoken about regularly.
That's because our communities are still very segregated.
So if you have the misfortune of being the victim of a crime, the perpetrator will most likely look like you.
Wait, what?
But we don't call it white on white crime.
That's because our communities are still very segregated.
So if you have the misfortune of being the victim of a crime, the perpetrator will most likely look like you.
That's why it's called white on white or black on black crime.
If the race of the person happens to be the lens we're looking through, and in your case, Francesca, it seems like you've got that welded over your eyes, then yes, you would exactly describe it like this.
So why do people always bring up black on black crime?
University of Toledo criminologist Dr. Richard R. Johnson examined the latest crime data from the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports and Census for Disease Control and found that an average of 4,472 black men were killed by other black men annually between 2009 and 2012.
And his research further concluded that 112 black men died from both justified and unjustified police-involved killings annually during this same period.
That's fucking why, Francesca!
Because it's a diversion.
They're trying to prove black citizens don't have the right to be outraged about police violence because their communities have a crime problem.
Honestly, I'm amazed that you can admit these communities have a problem, Francesca.
But I think what they're really trying to say is, stop looking at the splint in someone else's eye when there is a plank in your own.
If these communities didn't have such a high rate of crime, there would be a lot less police interaction with them.
There would be a lot less justified and unjustified shootings.
And don't get me wrong, I am no fan of the American method of policing.
I think there are many, many flaws with it.
But there are much bigger flaws in the black community.
And they are the ones who have to fix it.
But the truth is, black people are not more violent or more likely to commit crimes than anyone else.
Except they are you liar.
Statistically, we know they are, Francesca.
The point I think you're trying to make, and I agree with you, it's not because they are black.
It's because they have all manner of other social ills that none of them seem to want to take any responsibility for.
You can't fix any of these problems until these people decide to stop acting in these ways.
The reality is, because of a history of institutional racism, black communities have higher poverty rates, suffer from poorly funded schools, and are more likely to be targeted by police.
Oh, that's right.
Keep making excuses.
I love the poverty one the most.
That's actually my favourite.
10% of married black families are in poverty.
46% of single black mothers are in poverty.
Of course, this isn't these people's fault for making these choices.
This is the fault of white people because 100 years before these people were born, something bad happened.
So are you saying blue lives don't matter?
Of course the lives of cops matter.
That's why if you kill a police officer, you are rightly arrested and prosecuted.
Are you sure that's the Black Lives Matter perspective on the police?
And remember that a Black Lives Matter supporter provided five dead cops, Francesca.
You can say, well, Black Lives Matter doesn't mean that blue lives don't matter, but they seem to think it does.
But saying Blue Lives Matter effectively lumps a profession into the same category as a marginalized group of people.
Becoming a police officer is an occupation.
It's a choice.
It's not something you're born into.
Ironically, it's not going to be much of a choice if Black Lives Matter get their way.
We need to abolish the police, period.
And most importantly, advocating for citizens is not anti-cop.
The job of police officers is to protect and serve all communities.
If that's not happening, we need to reassess and find a solution.
See if you can wrap your little apologist noodle around this.
Most police shootings of black people are justified, Francesca.
Most police shootings of black people happen when that black person is either committing or has recently committed a crime and is brandishing a deadly weapon.
Black Lives Matter activists don't care that most of these are justified.
And they're justified because, as you said earlier, Other communities have a crime problem.
So you're saying only Black Lives Matter?
That's racist.
We've talked about this before, but this movement is not saying black lives matter more than anyone else is.
Yeah, you might not all be saying that, but a large number of Black Lives Matter supporters are saying that, aren't they?
Saying black lives should matter, but the way that our justice system, our media, and our police have been operating suggests that they do not.
I don't really think that's true, Francesca.
I'm sure that there are plenty of racists in the American police force, and there are definitely plenty of sort of insular forces that refuse to punish their own when someone does something wrong.
You know, they just put them on administrative leave.
But the sheer volume of crime committed by black people is almost more than enough to explain why there are so many black people shot by the police, why there are so many black people in jails, why there are so many black people who have trouble getting a job due to their history of crime.
It's totally okay for our movement to focus on issues specific to one marginalized group.
Gay bars aren't unfair to street people.
A breast cancer walk isn't unfair to other forms of cancer.
And Save the Rainforest isn't saying you hate all other trees.
But what do you say when a bunch of these trees get together and then go on a march chanting that they want the other trees dead?
I mean, what do you say then in your ridiculous analogy, Francesca?
To quote one law professor's letter, the subtext of Black Lives Matter is, because of the brutalizing and killing of black people at the hands of the police and the indifference of society in general and the criminal justice system in particular, it is important that we say black lives matter.
I have yet to hear one single person debate this.
I mean, it's not hard to find black people who think white lives don't matter.
They kill a white baby.
The less white babies on this planet, the less of you we got, boo.
Blood is ours.
I hope they kill all the white babies.
Kill them all right now.
Kill them.
Kill your grandkids.
Kill yourself.
Coughing, bitch.
Go lay in the coffin.
Kill yourself.
Agri-bit thieves message you ain't got to be awful.
But I've yet to hear just one person say that black lives do not matter.
But what about the white victims of police violence?
There's way more of them.
Yes, there are more white people killed by police officers than black people.
But when you look proportionately within the populations, black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers.
And what were they doing when they got killed, Francesca?
Don't tell me.
They were sat around making daisy chains.
Because black people in America are basically beatniks, right?
I mean, it's not that their communities have a crime problem or anything.
Their communities have a crime problem.
Oh wait, that's exactly what it is, and you fucking know it.
Black men make up just 6% of the nation's population, but of all the unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015, 40% of them were black men.
Francesca, I know you're talking about the Washington Post database of people shot by the police in 2015.
Of all of the unarmed people, there were 93.
Of all of the people with a deadly weapon, there were 782.
Amazing.
782 shot probably justifiably, but there were 40 people who were shot unjustifiably.
But hang on, Francesca.
Hang on, let's just do a quick search.
Search for unarmed.
Let's see if we can discern, divine any possible reason that these unarmed black men may have been shot by the cops who were arresting them.
An armed 35-year-old black man, arrested for probation violation, struggled with the officer.
So he was shot fighting the officer.
An armed black man resisted as deputies attempted to cuff him.
So he was fighting with them.
An armed 29-year-old black man was physically attacking the sheriff deputy who was attempting to arrest him.
An armed 29-year-old black man shot after he attempted to grab the officer's gun.
Are you seeing a pattern here, Francesca?
Not all of these are justified.
Don't get me wrong, there are ones where the reports are that he was already in handcuffs when he shot and he's running away and things like this.
So the officer wasn't in danger, but there were also plenty where the officer was in danger.
Again, you can't just say this is racism.
Those numbers are tragic.
Oh, you care so much, don't you, about those 40 black people who were shot while unarmed, regardless of how many of them were presenting an imminent threat to the police officers who are trying to arrest them.
Again, I don't even want to defend the police.
I'm the most skeptical person of police power you can imagine.
But in some cases, it's not always unjustified.
For fuck's sake, and we can actually quantify that.
We can say, look, this is why it's not unjustified.
This is why we're not angry at these cops.
If an unarmed citizen is killed by the police or an armed citizen is killed under suspicious circumstances, people should be upset no matter what the victim's race.
This isn't the competition.
So the total antithesis of the very message of Black Lives Matter.
It's in the name Black Lives.
For them, they don't care.
All Lives Matter is apparently a racist statement, Francesca.
You fucking racist.
Sadly, police violence is a problem in many communities, but bringing up other victims to discredit the Black Lives Matter movement is pretty disingenuous.
Oh, don't worry.
People only need play clips of Black Lives Matter supporters to discredit Black Lives Matter.
Is there a single credible person who supports this movement?
You've either got insane black people who come from the fucking ghettos, you've got violent criminals, or you have progressive apologists who lie through their fucking teeth.
I don't know who to approach to talk to about this movement because you all seem like such terrible people.
I want to find the one good person in Black Lives Matter and talk to them about the situation.
But goddamn, that's impossible.
You're also afraid of any kind of challenge to your narrative that you block everyone religiously, just like every SJW on the planet.
And then you have the gall to say, hey, hey, hey, this is actually all copacetic.
Stop worrying so much.
You know, don't worry that we're saying that cops should be killed and that someone supporting Black Lives Matter actually went and killed a bunch of cops.
Don't worry about it.
We're just, look, we're not saying that all lives don't matter, even though if you say that you're a racist.
We're just saying we're talking about Black Lives Mattering because cops are killing black people for some reason.
And we have no idea why.
Their communities have a crime problem.
Francesca, you racist.
How could you say that?
I think my favorite apologetics for the Black Lives Matter movement has come from the buffalo himself, Chank Yu-Gi-Oh.
Now, this is just the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life.
And of course, no retraction has been posted.
Just prepare your sides.
They're not protesters.
You know, these are thugs.
They're rioters.
And I, yeah, I'm calling out the media saying, quit claiming that these rioters are peaceful.
They're stomping on a flag, figuratively and literally, shouting death to cops, celebrating violence.
It's sick.
And I think that the media is perpetuating a message that really evil people are thriving on right now as they try to intimidate and, you know, as I put in my piece, warp malleable minds that would believe that one race matters more than another.
Now, I wouldn't normally defend Sarah Palin, but I don't disagree with anything they've said there.
These demonstrators are not peaceful.
They are certainly thugs, many of them anyway.
And it's absurd, and I think it is sick that they are running around shouting death to cops and screaming that some people's lives matter more than others.
She's not wrong.
She's right on the money.
And it's not a controversial position.
But look at his face.
Holy shit, Sarah.
What does he think you said?
But let's note there that she said these protesters, they're not people.
Oh, Chenk, you fucking idiot.
Do you think any politician ever is going to get up in public and say, you know, black people aren't people, are they?
They're just kind of subhumans, aren't they?
And so casually, I don't shake you fucking idiots.
I first found this through Dev and Tracy.
He isn't unstoppable.
And honestly, I left a comment on his video saying that Chenk is going to kill me by making me laugh myself to death.
And I left that comment before I saw this.
She says, media, quit claiming the riders are peaceful as they stomp on our flag, shout death to cops.
No evidence for any of this.
Chenk, you fucking moron, you're reading what she just said, and you just read that she said peaceful and not people.
You fucking...
Oh, Cenk, God.
Oh, Chenk, God.
I don't even know what to say to you, Cenk.
What you're saying isn't true.
We've already seen the footage of them chanting, what do we want, dead cops, in this video.
We know it exists, Chenk.
For fuck's- and you owe Sarah Palin an apology.
She isn't just a giant racist.
In fact, she seems to be a bit of an anti-racist from what you've shown us.
She wants all lives to be counted as if they are the same, not as if there are fundamental differences based on race.
Is that...
That's not a controversial position.
You fucked up, you idiot.
And celebrate violence.
It is sick.
You perpetuate a perverted message.
Evil men thrive on to intimidate and warp valuable minds that would believe one race matters more than another.
Blood is on your complicit hands when you naively or purposely refuse to tell of this movement's truth.
Okay, so now all of the Black Lives Matter movement has blood on their hands and the media has blood on their hands for reporting on it.
Chenk, they're chanting, we want dead cops, and then one of their number shoots a bunch of cops dead.
Then people like you and MTV go, hey, Black Lives Matter is a religion of peace.
Oh, this is nothing to do with Black Lives Matter.
God, Black Lives Matter doesn't say that one life matters more than another, even though it's in the fucking name.
Chenk, I think you might actually be responsible, or in part, for the climate that is fostering these kind of actions.
If people get it into their head that this is the right thing to do, and they keep telling each other and escalating this to the point where they're marching through the streets chanting for dead cops, I don't think it's a great stretch to say that one of them is eventually going to do it.
And I think that, because one of them fucking did, Chenk.
One of them actually did.
When Bill O'Reilly shouts Dr. Tiller, the baby killer, Tiller, the baby killer, he says a dozen times on air.
He's murdering babies.
Isn't somebody going to do something about it?
He doesn't have blood on his hands.
And look at that.
Somebody shot and killed Dr. Tiller.
Oops.
I agree with you, Chenk.
Think he is also responsible for creating a climate where people think it's acceptable to do this sort of thing and, like you see, it happened with the right-wing guy.
It's happened with the left-wing guy.
It's not a partisan problem.
You hack the media reports on a movement that is significant throughout the country.
Hundreds of thousands of people have protested uh throughout uh, these last couple of years.
Throughout all these different cities, the media reports a blood on your hands.
How dare you give black people a voice?
That is not what you do in this country.
I hear you, Sarah.
I hear you loud and clear.
Oh Chenk you, moron.
All you hear are the echoes of your own voice from your hermetically sealed echo chamber.
It's just you going right right, right.
I mean, i'm right, right.
And what makes it so deliciously ironic Chenk, is you are so fucking wrong, so consistently so you're not right Chenges.
So stop asking, like you do all the time with your rhetorical question of right right, like your big goofy way of saying.
You know what i'm saying is right right right, right.
Am I right?
Right.
Wrong.
Right.
No, wrong.
Right.
Wrong.
Right.
Wrong.
Right.
No.
Wrong.
Right.
Wrong, dude.
Right.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Right?
No, it's wrong.
You are wrong.
Right.
You're dead wrong.
Jim, you're wrong.
Wrong.
Stop.
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