Written in response to Melinda Kornblum’s letter and grandstanding about Black Lives Matter:

Black lives matter: phrase, truism and unarguable fact. If you don’t agree, you are racist. Plain and simple. 

Black Lives Matter: a decentralized affinity group and hashtag. Black Lives Matter does not play an outsized role in organizing demonstrations. This movement is not a highly organized protest on a national scale. Certainly, Black Lives Matter has co-existed with the current movement and allowed like-minded people to connect with one another, but people are filling the streets organically and of their own volition. Much more common than calls to loot and burn are calls to organize and vote. Protests occasionally become destructive, but Black Lives Matter does not encourage this. Local protests have all been peaceful.

Using political scapegoats (anti-fascist groups in this case) to justify violence against people of color is an old and dangerous tactic. White supremacist uprisings during the “Red Summer” of 1919 occurred partially because the civil rights movement of that day was dubiously connected to communism. To repel communism and save America became synonymous with terrorizing Black protestors. Black veterans returning from World War I were falsely accused of being surrogates for communism seeking to overthrow the U.S. government. Just imagine demonizing veterans and predicating violence (hundreds lynched, thousands arrested) against a civil rights movement on false narratives of political intrigue. 

According to Kornblum, “Black Lives Matter … is working in concert with antifa street thugs to bring down our country.” Not far off from 1919. 

Look, I get that some are angry about Frisco’s mural. It happened fast. Some feel like they were ignored. It will be gone soon, and that beautiful asphalt will return to glorious nakedness. Demands for racial justice, however, will continue to resound throughout the country.