The widespread anger and outrage this week incited by Donald Trump’s comments on the NFL protests has once again shown how hypocritical and racist so many Americans are. Americans, Republicans in particular, are all for free speech but when black people exercise it, it sends some of them into a violent frenzy. It doesn’t matter who is doing the protesting, whether it’s black athletes or ordinary black citizens—they find any excuse to paint black protest as a danger to safety and democracy.
This is especially true if violence occurs at a protest. Recently, a police officer in Baton Rouge tried to sue Black Lives Matter for injuries he sustained during a protest against police brutality in July 2016. Along with suing DeRay Mckesson, an activist who attended the rally, the officer claimed that Black Lives Matter and Mckesson were responsible for inciting the violence that caused him harm. On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the officer cannot sue Black Lives Matter and threw the case out.
A federal judge ruled Thursday that Black Lives Matter was not an organization but a social movement akin to the tea party or the civil rights movement, and cannot be sued by a Louisiana police officer who was injured at a protest against police brutality last year. [...]
“Although many entities have utilized the phrase ‘black lives matter’ in their titles or business designations,” the judge wrote, “’black lives matter’ itself is not an entity of any sort.”
As such, Jackson said, Black Lives Matter cannot be sued “in a similar way that a person cannot plausibly sue other social movements such as the Civil Rights movement, the LGBT rights movement, or the Tea Party movement.”
The rally was in response to the police shooting of Alton Sterling, an unarmed black man, who was killed by a white police officer. Mckesson, of course, was not the person who injured the officer (someone threw a rock at his head). But that didn’t stop the officer from arguing that “Black Lives Matter was a ‘national unincorporated association’ and called Mckesson its leader and co-founder.” For the record, Mckesson is not a co-founder of the movement nor its leader. However, the judge ruled that the officer had not proven his case and that Mckesson was merely exercising his right to assembly and free speech—both of which are constitutionally protected.
As you can imagine, Fox News is having a field day with this. The lynch mob (no pun intended) led by Judge Jeanine Pirro, not only thinks Mckesson should be locked up, they also think the judge’s entire participation in the case is suspect.
Judge Jeanine thinks she’s doing the audience a favor by skillfully pointing out that this black man who is a federal judge also happened to be appointed by the black man who used to be president. Calling him an “activist judge,” she makes it sound like Black Lives Matter is some widespread conspiracy taking over our legal system and oppressing police. Guess what? Judge Jeanine is a racist. Her and the entire crowd at Fox. Forget dog whistles—they can’t even be bothered to hide it.
Incidentally, Mckesson and Black Lives Matter are being sued in a separate case in which an officer was injured after being shot by a gunman who targeted officers in Baton Rouge last year. It seems as if this is a new thing—officers suing black people who protest police violence for injuries sustained on the job. Welcome to the black experience in America—where you can be a peaceful protester, not injure or shoot someone but literally get sued for it anyway.