How did we get to the point, after all, when a Hillary Clinton would have to tell the people who say they speak for black America that they must translate their grievances into a plan for political action? The contrast between the efforts of Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership conference and that scene a few weeks ago was chilling. The SCLC had to convince the white establishment to do things; Hillary Clinton had to remind BLM’s representatives that their job was to suggest some things to do, as the activist hectored her about what was or wasn’t in her “heart” about policies her husband supported before people now having sex were even born.
It was good to see BLM actually releasing a platform after that. But I was waiting for the other shoe to drop—and right on time, they disavowed support from or allegiance to the Democratic Party despite its active adoption of the gist of their agenda. Again, is this about getting things done or acting out? As so often, people can forget that the two aren’t the same thing. Expressing your disgust with America’s political order and wishing nobody had an ounce of racism in their “hearts” is fine. But when doing that takes priority over using the levers of power—the only ones that will ever exist—to addressing black suffering, something is terribly wrong.
At a certain point, a Black Lives Matter movement for the future needs to turn its lens to black-on-black homicide rates as well. Testily objecting that “nobody said we don’t think black-on-black crime matters” isn’t enough. Episodes like Ferguson gangbangers wrangling during the one-year commemoration of Michael Brown’s murder make the basic imbalance in attention too obvious these days to all of the nation watching. One strategy could be that if the police were finally restrained from needless killing of black men, BLM could help forge new relationships between the cops and black communities, such that those communities would feel comfortable assisting cops in finding murderers. That is understandably often not the case under current conditions, and is surely as much a problem for a black person living in such a city than what white cops might pull. A Civil Rights movement for today rather than yesterday can’t focus only on racism. The issues have become too complex.
Black Lives Matter’s mantra means, lip service notwithstanding, Black Lives Matter When Taken by White People. That will always seem, to a great many, performative.The reason for that will not be that this “many” are racists, not even “on some level and to some degree.” The reason will be that they are correct. We must also base our activism on the pure and simple truth that “state violence” notwithstanding, “Black Lives Matter When Taken by Other Black People, Too.”
Imagine if in 1965 when the Selma marchers walked across the Pettus bridge, black boys had been killing each other by the dozens over on the other side all summer, with that considered regrettable but ultimately “beside the point.” Black Lives Matter, I’m afraid, is on the path to making that scenario a reality. It doesn’t have to be that way.
