A white man with a mental handicap this week was kidnapped and tortured by four young African-Americans who used Facebook’s live broadcast technology to share widely their misdeeds with the public.
The group of blacks – two men and two women – who since the incident have been arrested and charged with a hate crime, aren’t known to be affiliated with any (radical) organization or violent gang, but that hasn’t stopped irresponsible individuals, those whom find facts repulsive and unnecessary for debate, for assigning blame for the evil act at the feet of Black Lives Matter, a decentralized network of activists working to fight against anti-black racism and deconstruct systems of white supremacy.
Maybe the most high-profile of the misinformed, and the guy who appeared to have given the rumor its biggest breath of life, is conservative political commentator Mr. Glenn Beck, who just months ago expressed empathy for Black Lives Matter and said the activists he met were “decent, hardworking, patriotic Americans,” and that he would refuse to define each of them based on the worst among them. Appearing to understand why Black Lives Matter exist in the space it does, Mr. Beck’s false assertion this week, a dangerous one to boot, is perplexing yet not all that surprising, particularly because the criminalization of the group is a popular sport – and one that’s good for business – among the political Right, of which Mr. Beck is intimately connected, and due to his longstanding reputation as a provocateur.
I must now digress, though, as the issue is less about Mr. Beck being two-faced, and has more to do with the proliferation of fake news and how easily it’s accepted as truth in our society.
For sure, fake news – particularly when it’s used as a political weapon against African-Americans: propaganda post-slavery depicting Blacks as brutes and uncouth ne’er-do-wells who would be crushed under the weight of their own freedom was widespread and consumed regularly – isn’t a new phenomenon in America. Nonetheless, recently a spotlight has been placed on it, yet solutions to the problem remain minimal.
The most obvious solution, however, is also the hardest: increasing the critical thinking and media literacy skills among Americans so that deciphering fact from fiction isn’t such heavy lifting. But, also is the case that there are those who, despite knowing information to be false, value the lies because they empower their political agenda. In this moment, the political agenda is to discredit and demonize Black Lives Matter so that their goals – accountability for police who break the law to enforce it, for example – never materialize in the real world.
Fighting against an evil intention to smear may be just as hard as sprucing up the unsophisticated citizens who relish in fake news, yet the work must be done, and the labor should be executed by all whom, no matter their race or political affiliation, value truth over falsehoods.
For this context, the truth – that four blacks acted on their most egregious of impulses and harmed an innocent man because of his race and perceived political affiliation – is damning enough and doesn’t need to be sensationalized to sell. Futhermore, the truth is that those vile individuals have no established connection to the movement for black lives – in fact, their heinous attacks implies they don’t value their own black life and freedom, let alone another’s.
The idea that anyone associated with the well-intentioned social justice movement would act so off-brand, and in way that would endanger the success of the collective, is a false narrative, and the headlines that suggest Black Lives Matter was involved in the Chicago kidnapping is fake news!
Thanks for reading. Until next time, I’m Flood the Drummer® & I’m Drumming for JUSTICE!™
So your entire article is just one big no true Scotsman fallacy. Basically arguing that because these guys didn’t represent what your interpretation of BLM is, then they aren’t truly representative of it. You even say it yourself, they are a “decentralized network of activists”, which means you don’t get to define who is and who isn’t affiliated.
F you and your disgusting disrespect to the victim. You’re a piece of trash and deserve nothing but the hell you put people like him through.
This is fake news
It is not a BLM associated crime, it is just a racist ableist crime. But then again it can be seen as a BLM associated crime in a sense, a person was motivated philosophically through BLM albeit through an extreme that is not a popular consensus. Much like in Burma it is pro buddhist sentiments that result in attacks on muslims though Most Buddhists and their consensus makes them non implicit.
Kinda sucks when people are blaming you for the actions of people you have nothing to do with
….doesn’t it?
Yeah its almost like the writer is saying that sharing a characteristic with people who do bad things doesn’t inherently make you responsible for their actions.
Can you please stop giving voice to Glenn beck
And yes, BLM has nothing to do with this current incident as the evidence suggests.
The movements “fry em like bacon” contingent, however? “White people can’t suffer racism”? No way at all those ideas could reinforce a culture where violence by blacks to whites is downplayed, or even seen as ok?
I mean, if a “microaggression” like saying America is the land of opportunity is problematic, I’ve no idea how the above aren’t more problematic.
“And yes, BLM has nothing to do with this current incident as the evidence suggests.”
Isn’t there just as much evidence to suggest that the crime was motivated by disability, which it seems the CPD is desperate to try and push? It’s like we know it’s a hate crime and will punish it as a hate crime as long as we can pretend that the hate was something other than racial (or political). Why has that not been attacked as being false?
Why has that not been attacked as being false?
Because like others have commented on the fake news articles here. The people complaining about fake news are only concerned about it because it gets the way of their own biases and prejudices. Simply put hardly anyone cared about fake news until Trump’s run for president. Now that he has won all of a sudden fake new is leading to the downfall of modern society.
That’s exactly right. These savages all lump cops into one group, judging them off the the actions of a few. But a group of people commit a crime quite clearly motivated by black lives matter (more than whites) and it’s an outrage to draw connections between the two.
“The idea that anyone associated with the well-intentioned social justice movement would act so off-brand, and in way that would endanger the success of the collective, is a false narrative,”
What, it’s impossible for anyone in socjus to be a hypocrite, or just an asshole? Come off it.
The reason people are so keen to point out that BLM has its bad apples is BLM activists regularly use the actions of a few cops / white people to generalise cops / white people.
But heaven forfend BLM be treated the same way! That’s equality, dontcha know!
It’s probably a stretch at least at this point to suggest that BLM had something to do with it, but I understand why some people believe it. The Chicago Police department either hasn’t done a good job communicating with the public on this case or their statements on it were “Freudian slips” showing a political motivation in attempting to portray this as a non-racila / non-racist act. “police said they must determine whether the racial statements were “sincere or just stupid ranting and raving.”” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/four-teens-held-after-facebook-live-torture-video-airs/ar-BBxUAVu Would police go out of their way to suggest that whites doing this to a… Read more »
When I found out about the incident, BLM NEVER came to my mind. I work with minority kids and never clump their behavior with any group. But that’s not what the left often does. If a Christian does such an act, the medial goes after the Christian right and has no problem collectively blaming them.
Look at how many articles and their respective authors use negative behaviors as those associated with “men.”
GLen Beck .. I don’t watch or listen to him.