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Aug. 3, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
38:08
The Demands of #BlackLivesMatter
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So recently the mainstream media has been reporting on a website called the Movement for Black Lives, which is an organisation that's made up of 28 regional member Black Lives Matter groups and endorsed by dozens of other activist organisations.
They say that the Movement for Black Lives policy table has engaged in a year-long process of convening local and national groups to create a united front.
The result of our collective efforts is this platform.
In addition to the groups in the United Front, we have also engaged our people.
We have received feedback from hundreds of people through surveys, national calls, organisational membership, engaged dozens of other organisations, researchers and individuals for their insights and expertise to begin developing a framework for shared policy priorities.
It does not include every policy black people should be working on, but elevates those for which there is shared energy and action in this political moment.
The Movement for Black Lives website hosts a list of demands that I think are going to be the closest we can get from Black Lives Matter to an official list of demands.
It seems to be widely endorsed and the product of many hands, and it is written in a reasonably credible sounding way.
Most of the demands don't make an appeal to pathos, but actually give a logical and fact-based reason for why the demand is being made.
However, there are times when the arguments are weakest and less clinical and more emotive language is used to make the point.
They say that their hope is that this is both an articulation of our collective aspirations, as well as a document that provides tangible resources for groups and individuals doing the work.
We recognise that some of the demands in this document will not happen today, but we also recognise that they are necessary for our liberation.
I find the term liberation very interesting here, as if they are talking from a position of bondage.
And of course, this attitude pervades the entire document.
And I wouldn't normally point this out, except this will become an important thing to remember when dealing with some of the demands, because some of them go directly against this principle.
So they describe the website as a platform, and they describe it like this.
Black humanity and dignity requires black political will and power.
Despite constant exploitation and perpetual oppression, black people have bravely and brilliantly been the driving force pushing the US towards the ideals it articulates but has never achieved.
In recent years we have taken to the streets, launched massive campaigns and impacted elections, but our elected leaders have failed to address the legitimate demands of our movement.
We can no longer wait.
The capitalization on black denotes the reference to the social construction of blackness, dichosmus with whiteness.
It's that these concepts are social constructs that allows a black president to become the face of a white supremacy and guilt-ridden whites to support Black Lives Matter.
The conflict is not racial in nature, it's entirely ideological, and the sides are old enemies under new names.
Blackness and whiteness essentially mean communism and liberalism, at their most fundamental.
This is a conflict of principles that has been racialized by academics and filtered down to black communities through various social justice courses in community colleges and universities.
They say, in response to the sustained and increasingly visible violence against black communities in the US and globally, a collective of more than 50 organizations representing thousands of black people from across the country have come together with renewed energy and purpose to articulate a common vision and agenda.
We are a collective that centers and is rooted in black communities, but we recognize we have a shared struggle with all oppressed people.
Collective liberation will be a product of all our work.
And this of course is the root of the schism between the two ideologies.
One is individualist and the other is collectivist.
And of course, this is fully intersectional.
They say, we believe in elevating the experiences and leadership of the most marginalised black people, including but not limited to those who are women, queer, trans, femmes, gender non-conforming, Muslim, formerly and currently incarcerated, cash poor and working class, differently abled, undocumented, and immigrant.
We are intentional about amplifying the particular experience of state and gendered violence that black, queer, trans, gender non-conforming women and intersex people face.
There can be no liberation for all black people if we do not center and fight for those who have been marginalised.
It is our hope that by working together to create an amplifier shared agenda, we can continue to move towards a world in which the full humanity and dignity of all people is recognised.
This paragraph is very carefully constructed and is actually a tour de force in how to ensure there is very little to no blowback from what you're saying from your fellow progressives who carefully police each other's speech looking for evidence of marginalization of themselves with which to attack the speaker.
It's very difficult to use their rules to attack the people who have written this paragraph.
They continue to say, We have created this platform to articulate and support the ambitions and work of black people.
Note the capitalisation.
We also seek to intervene in the current political climate and assert a clear vision, particularly for those who claim to be our allies, of the world we want them to help us create.
We reject false solutions and believe we can achieve a complete transformation of the current systems.
So this is an entirely radical movement.
It seeks to completely overthrow the system and replace it with a new and completely different system.
And this is justified using rhetoric.
They say, which place profit over people and make it impossible for many of us to breathe.
This is what I meant when I said emotive language does creep in.
For much of it, it is quite specific, and then you get these kind of rhetorical generalities that are meant to make you feel sorry for them.
They demonstrate my point in the next paragraph.
Together we demand an end to the wars against black people.
We demand that the government repair the harms that have been done to black communities in the form of reparations and targeted long-term investments.
We also demand a defunding of the systems and institutions that criminalize and cage us.
This document articulates our vision of a fundamentally different world.
However, we recognise the need to include policies that address the immediate suffering of black people.
These policies, while less transformational, are necessary to address the current material conditions of our people and will better equip us to win the world we demand and deserve.
The demands come in six categories that can be divided into two types, social and economic.
They don't seem to be in any particular order of importance, so I'm just going to arrange them by group and then address them one at a time.
So the first is, end the war on black people, which is of course purely rhetorical.
They say, we demand an end to the war against black people.
Since this country's inception, there have been named and unnamed wars on our communities.
We demand an end to the criminalization, incarceration, and killing of our people.
This is another sentence that demonstrates how we know they're talking about an ideological group, rather than the people involved.
Because if you were to ask them, in person, do you agree that murderers should be let free if they are black, I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they will say no to that.
Obviously, you don't think a murderer should be let go to murder again.
However, when they say black in this context, they are, I think, using it to mean political prisoner.
So when they say this includes an immediate end to the criminalization and dehumanization of black youth, all across areas of society including but not limited to, our nation's justice and education systems, social service agencies and media and pop culture, I can only assume that they're thinking of this in political terms.
They're clearly not thinking of this in terms of individuals violating laws with which they themselves agree.
Of course, I could be wrong, and they could mean that literally black people simply shouldn't be punished for their own actions.
But either way, this is going to be the result of this demand.
There will be people who commit various offences, and the punishment for these offences will be determined by the colour of that person's skin, with people who are white being sent to jail as usual, presumably, and people who are black having the privilege of not.
They link to an explanation that is loaded with weasel words.
Across the country, black children attend under-resourced schools where they are often pushed off of an academic track and onto the track to prison.
Zero-tolerance policies, a combination of exclusionary disciplinary policies and school-based arrests, are often the first stop along a school-to-prison pipeline, and play a key role in pushing students out of the school system and funneling them into jails and prisons.
Which I'm sure is true, but it ignores the context of the event.
They aren't complaining that these students are being unjustly arrested.
Therefore, it's perfectly reasonable for me to conclude that these people are being arrested because they have committed a crime.
Each year more than 3 million students are suspended from school, often for vague and subjective infractions, such as willful defiance and disrespect.
But these are actually not vague terms at all.
Willful defiance is a very specific term, and disrespect also speaks to a specific code of conduct that these students were not respecting.
I would expect that if we look into each individual case where a student has been suspended from school, it's been done with good reason.
And they say this amounts to countless hours of lost instructional time.
As a result, black students are denied an opportunity to learn and punished for routine child and adolescent behaviours that their white peers are all too often not disciplined for at all.
Again, nothing but weasel words and no specifics.
For black youth, the impact of exclusionary school discipline is far-reaching, disengaging them from academic and developmental opportunities and increasing the likelihood that they will be incarcerated later on in life.
Yes, this is true, these things will be the case, but who is responsible for ensuring these students not only go to school but act respectfully in the school?
The answer is of course, the parents.
And with over half of black families not having a father in the house, the answer is increasingly, the mother.
They say tens of thousands of youth under the age of 21 are currently incarcerated for offences ranging from truancy to more serious charges.
Every crime bill passed by Congress throughout the 1980s and 1990s included new federal laws against juvenile crimes and increased penalties against children.
Similar trends can be seen throughout state legislation.
I think there was probably a very good reason for this, and it looks like these laws may have been working.
Broadly speaking, in 1980 on onwards, the rates of black marriage began to fall, large numbers of them never marrying at all.
However, this doesn't mean they weren't still having children, and about a decade later there's a dramatic spike in violent crimes, most notably homicides, specifically for black males.
Whereas for black men over 25 who had enjoyed a higher rate of marriage between their parents than white people had, the rate at which they murder is on the decline along with the rest of society.
And I say these laws might be necessary because after the huge increase in the 80s and 90s, there was a dramatic drop in black crime in the late 90s, early 2000s, which may well be the result of these laws.
I understand that correlation doesn't necessarily imply causation, but in this case I think what we are seeing is a causal effect of the breakdown of the nuclear family in black communities.
I think this is a case of cause and effect because I was a young man once.
I remember what it was like not having my father around when he went to Iraq to serve for six months or to the Falkland Islands.
I remember getting out of control and then that behaviour instantly correcting itself the moment he returned.
I think young men need their fathers around to control their behaviour.
And if I'm right, then Black Lives Matter themselves agree with me as they say in the next sentence.
There is mounting research that children under the age of 23 do not have fully developed brains.
Now, I don't know whether that's true, but I've never considered a 22-year-old a child.
I find it very telling that this is an argument that they would go with, because if you've seen any of the videos of Black Lives Matter and the amount of college activity that they have, there are so many people under the age of 23 supporting this.
And by making this demand, they are willingly infantilizing themselves.
And if these people are lacking the security of a father figure in their life, then unfortunately, these laws will probably need to remain.
Otherwise, we're just surely going to see a return to the problems of the 80s and 90s, which is why these laws were brought in in the first place.
None of this addresses the root of the problem, which appears to be the breakdown of the black family.
I'll leave a link in the description to a video I've done with more information about this.
And they know this is the problem as well, because they say the most humane, cheapest, and cost-effective way to respond to juvenile crime is not incarceration, but programs and investments that strengthen families, increase stability, and provide access to education and employment opportunities.
They ignore that these punishments are also clearly a deterrent to others to prevent crime from being committed in the first place.
But more importantly, they want to create dependency through programmes and investments.
Honestly, I don't think relaxing the laws on juvenile crime and then incentivising people to not marry is the solution to the problem of violence in the black community.
Especially when, as they say, violence becomes the source of future poverty.
When they say it permanently disadvantages them with a criminal record, making finding a job difficult.
The second point is an end to capital punishment, which I agree with.
The third point is an end to money bail, mandatory fines, fees, court surcharges, and defendant-funded court proceedings.
Which I suppose is what one would expect to find in a list of demands from an impoverished, crime-racked community.
Honestly, I don't know enough about monetary bail to make a comment on it, but it doesn't surprise me that it's here.
Point number four is an end to the use of past criminal history to determine eligibility for housing, education, licenses, voting, loans, employment, and other services and needs.
There is an ongoing theme of abdication of responsibility in this document, and I think we may have hit a high watermark quite early.
This is absurd.
Suggesting that a person's past behaviour shouldn't be held against them when attempting to determine future behaviour, for example, in the case of buying gun licenses, getting loans, or employing someone, is just ridiculous.
And again, trying to abdicate from the consequences of one's own actions.
Number five is an end to the war on black immigrants, but I don't know anything about this, so I'm going to skip past it.
Number six is an end to the war on black, trans, queer, and gender non-conforming people, including their addition to anti-discrimination civil rights protections to ensure they have full access to employment, health, housing, and education.
I don't see what's wrong with the default liberal position on this issue.
Why doesn't every single individual simply have exactly the same rights, so then these people will have the same rights as straight white males.
Number seven is an end to mass surveillance of black communities, and the end to the use of technologies that criminalize and target our communities, including, and this is the interesting bit, IMSI catchers, drones, body cameras, and predictive policing software.
I mean, maybe I can understand the rest of them, but body cameras on police seems like an awfully beneficial thing to have if you're a member of the black community, or anyone really, and you're interested in keeping police accountable for their actions.
Personally, I think every police officer should have a body camera on him.
Number eight and nine are the demilitarisation of law enforcement and the end to the privatisation of police, prisons, jails, probation, parole, food and phone.
And I agree, I think the privatisation of these institutions creates a perverse set of incentives.
As you can see, these examples are using reasonably grounded terminology, and are at least making an actual argument within a logical framework.
Then we hit number 10.
Until we achieve a world where cages are no longer used against our people, we demand an immediate change in conditions and an end to public jails, detention centers, youth facilities and prisons as we know them.
This includes the end of solitary confinement, the end of shackling pregnant people, access to quality healthcare, effective measures to address the needs of our youth, queer, gender, non-conforming, and trans families.
This demand is couched in a rhetorical, emotive, and utopian idea that we will end up being able to end public jails at some point, and not even talking about the rest.
This is simply never going to happen, especially not with the rates of criminality we see in the communities where they're asking for it to happen.
The next and thankfully far shorter subject is community control.
Three demands are direct democratic community control of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, ensuring that communities most harmed by destructive policing have the power to hire and fire officers, determine disciplinary action, control budgets and policies, and subpoena relevant agency information.
I agree with more transparency, but I don't think direct community control over these institutions is a good idea.
Transparency would create accountability, so being able to subpoena relevant information, I think, is important.
But being able to control budgets and policies, and then determine disciplinary action, it strikes me as mob justice.
I think I would much prefer a trial by jury or a tribunal that is officially sanctioned with a code of laws and ethics.
Honestly, I think this is totally unworkable in reality, and you wouldn't end up with a functioning police force.
Number two is an end to the privatisation of education and real community control by parents, students and community members of schools, including democratic school boards and community control of curriculum, hiring and firing and discipline policies.
Again, same problem.
And again, the same problem with participatory budgeting at the local, state and federal level.
I agree with transparency because you can use transparency to hold these institutions to their own standards, but I don't agree that Joe Public should be one running them.
We then come to political power.
Now you may think that's an odd thing to demand when you have a black president of head of state, but remember we are talking about blackness as an ideology, and Obama is not a follower of the ideology of blackness.
We demand independent black with a capital B political power and a black self-determination in all areas of society.
We envision a remaking of the current US political system in order to create a real democracy where black people and all marginalized people can effectively exercise full political power.
I can't say I'm surprised that ideologues would demand power for their ideology, but I don't think it should simply be given to them, especially given with what they're saying they're going to do with it.
They demand an end to the criminalization of black political activity, including the immediate release of all political prisoners and the end of repression of political parties.
Imagine if you asked, they give you examples like the arrest of D.Ray Mackensen and the arrest of Jonathan Butler.
But these people weren't arrested for their political views, they were arrested for their actions, which they did to gain awareness, raise awareness of their political views.
And honestly, it really looks like there's an awful lot of forbearance shown Black Lives Matter by the authorities.
Number two is the public financing of elections and the end of money controlling politics through ending super PACs and unchecked corporate donations.
Now, I think that's a fantastic idea.
I also think it's an insanely pie-in-the-sky idea that's not going to happen anytime soon.
And I think packaging it with the overthrow of Western liberalism makes it even less likely to happen.
I really do think this would help, but I don't think couching it in this movement is the way to make it happen.
Demand 3 is election protection, electoral expansion and the right to vote for all people, including full access guarantees and protections of the right to vote for all people through universal voter registration, automatic voter registration, pre-registration for 16-year-olds, same-day voter registration, voting day holidays, enfranchisement of formerly and presently incarcerated people, local and state resident voting for undocumented people, and a ban on any disenfranchisement laws.
Now, I do think that all citizens should have the right to vote, barring any extraneous circumstances that one would assume are quite stringent and difficult to meet, in order to minimize any kind of abuse of these categories.
But this is awfully authoritarian, in my opinion.
Forcing people to register to vote.
I mean, there should be the choice of not having to register to vote if you don't want to.
And I don't agree that undocumented people should be able to vote in your elections.
It undermines the very concept of citizenship, one which I actually think is a good idea.
Number four is full access to technology, including net neutrality and universal access to the internet without discrimination and full representation for all.
Honestly, I'm a bit unsure about this.
I mean, I agree with net neutrality, but universal access to the internet isn't something the government ensures.
It's a private service you purchase from private companies.
And full representation for all is particularly nebulous.
And notice that these demands are universal in nature.
Until point five, protection and increased funding for black institutions, including historically black colleges and universities, black media and cultural, political and social formations.
This is creating privilege.
When you want everyone to have the same except for a few people who get more, that is a privileged class.
We now move to the three economic categories of demands, beginning with the demand for communism under economic justice.
At least according to their opening preamble, we demand economic justice for all and the reconstruction of the economy to ensure black communities have collective ownership, not merely access.
Now this could be simply a rhetorical flourish, and it could be that they don't really understand what they're asking for with this, but it sounds as if they are arguing against individual ownership.
Although they don't frame this in explicitly Marxist terms, they seem to be advocating for essentially the same thing.
Number one, a progressive restructuring of tax codes at the local, state, and federal levels to ensure a radical and sustainable redistribution of wealth.
This I can agree with.
In the United States, the wealthiest are taxed at a lower rate than the poorest, which I think is absurd.
I do agree that those benefiting most from society should pay back more into it.
And two, federal and state job programs that specifically target the most economically marginalised black people, not just people, black people.
And compensation for those involved with the care economy, job programs must provide a living wage and encourage support for local workers, centers, unions, and black-owned businesses which are accountable to the community.
So it seems that they're asking the government to create jobs for poor black people to provide them with a living wage.
This is obviously going to create a direct dependency on the government, which seems completely out of line with their desire for liberation.
Not only that, can you imagine the bullshit jobs the government is going to make up for the poorest black people to do, to get this living wage?
You will find these poor black people doing the worst and lowest paid jobs and being expected to thank the government for the privilege.
Number three, a right to restored land, clean air, clean water and housing, and the end to exploitative privatization of natural resources, including land and water.
As I said, this is where it becomes communistic.
The end to privatization and the exploitment of private property by corporations or people is what the very crux of communism is about.
They say we seek democratic control over how resources are preserved, used and distributed, and do so while honouring and respecting the rights of our indigenous family.
But I don't want these people having control over the resources of other people.
Each individual should have control over their own resources, and ownership of land and private property is how we do that.
At least, in a liberal society.
Number four is the right for workers to organise in public and private sectors, especially in on-demand economy jobs.
And I agree, I think workers should be able to unionize to preserve their rights.
Number five is Restore the Glast-Steag Act, to break up the large banks and call for National Credit Union Administration and the US Departments of Treasury to change policies and practices around regulation, reporting consolidation to allow for the continuation and creation of black banks, small and community development credit unions, insurance companies and other financial institutions.
So to create a separate black economy.
And six, an end to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a renegotiation of all trade agreements to prioritize the interests of workers and communities.
And again, while I think that's actually quite a good idea, or probably is, at least conceptually, I don't think it's ever going to happen in a framework like this.
Number seven, through tax incentives, loans and other government-directed resources, support the development of cooperative or social economy networks to help facilitate trade across and in black communities globally.
All aid in the form of grants, loans or contracts to help facilitate this must go to black-led or black-supported networks and organizations as defined by the communities.
And number eight, financial support of black alternative institutions, including policy that subsidizes and offers low-interest, interest-free, or federally guaranteed low-interest loans to promote the development of cooperatives, food, residential, etc., land trusts, and culturally responsive health infrastructures that serve the collective needs of our communities.
So no big deal, they're just asking the government to give black communities an unspecified amount of money in the form of grants, low-interest or interest-free loans, and subsidies.
They haven't got any listed barriers to entry for this, other than be black.
The next section is invest-divest.
We demand investments in the education, health, and safety of black people, instead of investments in the criminalizing, caging, and harming of black people.
Sounds like they're repeating themselves here somewhat.
We want investments in black communities determined by black communities, and divestment from exploitative forces, including prisons, fossil fuels, police surveillance, and exploitative corporations.
Honestly, it sounds like they're trying to set up their own independent sovereign nation and have it funded by the United States.
1. Reallocation of funds at the federal, state, and local level, from policing and incarceration to long-term safety strategies such as education, local restorative justice services, and employment programs.
Which is amazing, this has reached the point where they're not even going to address the incidents of crime as they are happening.
I mean, how exactly is any kind of justice supposed to be delivered without the state having an enforcement arm to do it?
Who's going to stop the gang members shooting each other or the people holding a school hostage or whatever the situation is?
Who's going to diffuse that to bring the people perpetrating it to justice?
Number two is the retroactive decriminalization and immediate release and record expungement of all drug-related offences and prostitution and reparations for the devastating impact of the war on drugs and criminalization of prostitution, including a reinvestment of the resulting savings and revenue into restorative services, mental health services, job programs, and other programs supporting those impacted by the sex and drug trade.
I agree that prohibition doesn't work and the decriminalization of drugs and the release of offenders with drug-related offences is something that probably should be done.
And I agree that having a number of services available to help reduce recidivism is indeed a very vital thing in these communities.
However, I just can't see how removing the police from the equation is going to help this issue.
I don't see how you're going to get from criminal to restorative justice without a law enforcement mechanism.
Number three, real, meaningful and equitable universal healthcare that guarantees proximity to nearby comprehensive health centers, culturally competent services for all people, specific services for queer, gender non-conforming and trans people, full bodily autonomy, full reproductive services, mental health services, paid parental leave and comprehensive quality child and elder care.
Well, I agree that there should be universal healthcare.
And I don't really object to the rest, but I'm not sure what they mean by paid parental leave.
Do they mean maternity leave?
Because this is, again, one thing the United States is lacking that almost every other Western nation has.
Number four is a constitutional right at the state and federal level to a fully funded education, which includes a clear articulation of the rights to a free education for all, special protections for queer and trans students, wraparound services, social workers, free health services, a curriculum that acknowledges and addresses students' material and cultural needs, physical activity and recreation, high-quality food, free daycare, and freedom from unwarranted search and seizure or arrest.
I am of course in opposition to special protections for queer and trans students while they enjoy the same rights as everyone else.
But the only thing I really find objectional about all this is not that it's in some way illiberal or is going to cause problems down the road or anything like that.
It's more how molly-coddling it is, how condescending and parental this sounds.
And I suppose if you've defined a child as anyone under the age of 23, then it would.
Number five, a divestment from industrial multinational use of fossil fuels and investment in community-based sustainable energy solutions.
Yeah, good luck with that.
A cut in military expenditures and a reallocation of those funds to invest in domestic infrastructure and community well-being.
Again, good luck.
The sixth and final category of demands is reparations.
So, my view on the subject of reparations can be summed up as this.
If you have been enslaved or mistreated or some way oppressed by someone else, then yes, there's every chance that they do owe you some kind of financial compensation.
If this has not happened directly to you as an individual, you are entitled to nothing.
Especially if your quote-unquote oppression was self-inflicted by you, for example, committing a crime.
So they say we demand reparations for past and continuing harms.
The government, responsible corporations and other institutions who have profited off the harm they've inflicted on black people, from colonialism to slavery through food and housing redlining, mass incarceration and surveillance, must repair the harm done.
There are obviously no black people alive today who suffered from colonialism or slavery.
So frankly, in my opinion, those are off the table.
Mass incarceration and surveillance, well, what damage has surveillance done?
And mass incarceration, honestly, I think is something black people are doing to themselves.
So number one, reparations for the systemic denial of access to high-quality educational opportunities in the form of full and free access for all black people, including undocumented and currently informally incarcerated people, and of course, wealthy, well-educated black people, to lifetime education, including free access and open admissions to public community colleges and universities, technical education, educational support programs, retroactive forgiveness of student loans, and support for lifetime learning programs.
Personally, I would like to know how exactly they calculated that this is the appropriate amount of reparations for the circumstance, because how are they quantifying the amount of money required to provide all of this?
And this would indeed be a privilege.
No one else, not even white people in America, enjoy these kind of privileges.
Number two, reparations for the continued divestment from, discrimination toward, and exploitation of our communities in the form of a guaranteed minimum livable income for all black people with clearly articulated corporate regulations.
Are we talking about some kind of negative income tax here?
Because if it's for all black people, that would presumably include the unemployed ones as well.
So who is employing them?
Who is paying them?
It seems like you're just asking for money from the government.
Number three, reparations for the wealth extracted from our communities through environmental racism, slavery, food apartheid, housing discrimination, and racialized capitalism in the form of corporate and government reparations focused on healing ongoing physical and mental trauma and ensuring our access and control of food sources, housing and land.
That's just insane.
Just, look, give us everything we want, let us control all of it, you just foot the bill.
It's an absurd overreach to request this.
Not only do I think this is not going to solve the emotional problems that are the cause of the life circumstances of the black people we are talking about here, hashtag not all, but some, clearly, through bad parenting when they were growing up, but I think it's going to come with a whole host of new problems.
Honestly, I think anyone who is given these kind of privileges is going to turn into a spoiled brat.
Regardless of whether they're black or white or Mexican or whatever, the race is inconsequential.
Anyone who gets to live like a king with no responsibilities on someone else's money is going to turn into a massively entitled child, especially, and probably a violent and criminal one if there are no punishments or deterrents for committing a crime.
Number four, reparations for the cultural and educational exploitation, erasure and extraction of our communities in the form of mandated public school curriculums that critically examine the political, economic and social impacts of colonialism and slavery and funding to support, build, preserve and restore cultural assets and sacred sites to ensure the recognition and honouring of our collective struggles and triumphs.
So they effectively want to colonize the educational system so they can teach everyone to think like them.
Honestly, I can't say I'm particularly surprised by this demand either, because anyone who's interested in propagating an ideology is going to be most successful when they can indoctrinate children.
That's how it's going to be most deeply embedded and longest lasting, and most uncritically internalized.
Number five, legislation at the federal and state level that requires the United States to acknowledge the lasting impacts of slavery, establish and execute a plan to address those impacts.
This includes the immediate passage of H.R. 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals from African Americans Act, or subsequent versions which call for reparations remedies.
Well, after seeing the example of Germany and the terrible guilt they have from the Nazi regime, I really think this is a bad idea.
This is just going to institutionalize white guilt.
So they are what is effectively the official demands of Black Lives Matter.
Couched in this collection are some very reasonable and some very necessary ideas that would definitely help on a broader scale, not just the black community, but all of society in general.
However, the few reasonable ideas are packaged with dozens of absurd and illiberal ideas to radically reform society and, frankly, make it almost unrecognizable, and to create a specific privileged racial hierarchy to the deliberate exclusion of one specific racial group that is expected to pay for this.
I can't imagine a more blatant system of racial privilege, and I think that they've asked for this because this is what they think white people have in the United States.
Needless to say, not only do I think this is unworkable, and that it's going to create a worse situation than already exists, not only for black people, but for white people as well.
And it's informed by a deep neurosis caused by a victim complex.
Because I think it's very easy to other white people and just point the finger and say, they did it.
The white supremacist capitalist colonizers did this.
When in reality this isn't the result of systematic oppression, this is the result of many individual choices and the people who have to live with those choices.
And let's be honest and be fair here.
The people living with these choices are not always the people making them.
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