The editorial board of the
New York Times fought back against racialized fear-mongering from the right on Friday, criticizing the way Republicans have characterized the Black Lives Matter movement. According to the
Times:
The Republican Party and its acolytes in the news media are trying to demonize the protest movement that has sprung up in response to the all-too-common police killings of unarmed African-Americans across the country.
The intent of the campaign—evident in comments by politicians like Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky—is to cast the phrase "Black Lives Matter" as an inflammatory or even hateful anti-white expression that has no legitimate place in a civil rights campaign.
The editorial is a response to the attacks in recent weeks, in which Haley, Walker, and Paul, along with fellow Republican politicians Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, and Mike Huckabee, have spoken out against Black Lives Matter, essentially blaming the movement for racism in America. I've written about
Paul,
Cruz, and
Haley, and the others are unfortunately employing the same painful narratives.
On Wednesday Scott Walker posted an article on conservative blog Hot Air, blaming Black Lives Matter and President Obama for racial tension.
"In the last six years under President Obama, we’ve seen a rise in anti-police rhetoric. Instead of hope and change, we’ve seen racial tensions worsen and a tendency to use law enforcement as a scapegoat. This kind of attitude has created a culture in which we all too often see demonstrations and chants where people describe police as 'pigs' and call for them to be 'fried like bacon.'"
This inflammatory and disgusting rhetoric has real consequences for the safety of officers who put their lives on the line for us […]
We need to change the tone in America from chants and rallies that fixate on racial division."
Christie also
alluded to Obama and Black Lives Matter on Wednesday, associating the two with the (completely unrelated) recent death of a sheriff's deputy in Texas. Christie stated that Obama "needs to be standing up and saying to everyone in society . . . no matter your background or ethnicity, no matter what, that people in law enforcement deserve to be treated with respect." And Mike Huckabee recently stated that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. would be "appalled" by the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Times editorial takes particular issue with Huckabee's assertion, as you can read below.
The Times wrote that Huckabee's "argument betrays a disturbing indifference to or at best a profound ignorance of history in general and of the civil rights movement in particular."
The Times then reminded readers and politicians of exactly what happened during the civil rights movement.
The civil rights movement was intended to make Congress and Americans confront the fact that African-Americans were being killed with impunity for offenses like trying to vote, and had the right to life and to equal protection under the law... [A]t every step of the way [the movement] used expressly racial terms to describe the death and destruction that was visited upon black people because they were black.[…]
[F]reedom riders and voting rights activists led by the young John Lewis offered themselves up to be beaten nearly to death, week after week, day after day, in the South so that the country would witness Jim Crow brutality and meaningfully respond to it.[...]
Along the way, there was never a doubt as to what the struggle was about: securing citizenship rights for black people who had long been denied them.
The
Times editorial is a critical response to the racial division that the right is trying to create by framing Black Lives Matter as a hateful organization. Republican politicians and candidates have been sheep in this fight—sitting on the sidelines, not only accepting but supporting the status quo of racial inequity. They promote these lies and this inflammatory rhetoric in order to appeal to the worst of their base—the explicitly and the vaguely racist, those benefitting from the continued inequality that exists in America. The
Times pushes back in this editorial, offering much-needed clarification on both the objectives of the Black Lives Matter movement and the truth of the civil rights movement, which has been repeatedly watered down by the right.
The "Black Lives Matter" movement focuses on the fact that black citizens have long been far more likely than whites to die at the hands of the police, and is of a piece with this history. Demonstrators who chant the phrase are making the same declaration that voting rights and civil rights activists made a half-century ago[....]
They are underlining an indisputable fact—that the lives of black citizens in this country historically have not mattered, and have been discounted and devalued. People who are unacquainted with this history are understandably uncomfortable with the language of the movement. But politicians who know better and seek to strip this issue of its racial content and context are acting in bad faith. They are trying to cover up an unpleasant truth and asking the country to collude with them.
I would only disagree with the
Times on a small point—that the lack of comfort of those unacquainted with the history of the civil rights movement is understandable. I disagree. The numbers show that a predatory police and criminal justice system has degraded black people and disproportionately ruined black lives. Understanding the civil rights movement helps, but it does not excuse one's lack of support. You don't have to even know about
then to recognize injustice
now.
As a general matter, this is an important op-ed, one that should beread by those across the political spectrum. But while this editorial is necessary, it is not sufficient. The calls for justice and for equality must come from every person who values the truth. All must take part in the fight against the characterization of Black Lives Matter as anything hateful.
By asserting the humanity of black people—the right of black people to live without fear of murder by the state—the right says we're creating racial tension. Can you imagine anything more racist than that?