Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book…
© Mahabodhi Burton
15 minute read
This excerpt is taken from the chapter ‘The Woke Mind Virus‘ and follows on from The Woke Mind Virus post.
The origin story of Black Lives Matter (BLM)
The term ‘Woke’ came into common usage around the middle of President Obama’s second term, circa 2014. Within the black community it originally signalled, ‘to stay alive to sensitive social issues, including racism.’ However, after the shooting of Michael Brown,[1] an African American teenager by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri that year, the term came to be popularized by BLM activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African-Americans.[2]
Since that date, similar incidents have continued to occur, in what Michael Mascarenhas, speaking in 2022, puts down to ‘environmental racism:’
‘The fatal encounters of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Trevyon Martin, to mention only three of the thousands of deaths of people of colour at the hands of White people each year is a form of environmental racism. Their crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The death of Treyvon Martin was in part normalized because a Black teenage boy was walking in a White gated neighbourhood. Before fatally shooting the Black teenager, White neighbourhood watch captain George Zimmerman called 911 and reported a suspicious person in the neighbourhood. Similarly, Eric Garner was simply standing in front of a beauty supply store on Bay Street in Tompkinsville, Staten Island, when he was approached by New York Police Department police officers and strangled to death. Similarly, the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina; Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland; and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, represent just a few more tragic examples of over policing in Black and Brown communities. When found in White spaces, the colour of one’s skin is a key determinant of their experience. The Amy Cooper incident, where a White woman who called the police on Christian Cooper, a Black man, in Central Park, New York, after he asked her to leash her dog is one of the most recent striking examples of this form of environmental racism. Moreover, in most of these fatal cases–the coroner ruled Eric Garner’s death a homicide– predominantly White juries failed to bring charges against the White offenders. In fact, one of the potential jurors in the Treyvon Martin case said: “This could have been prevented had he not been up here,” had this Black youth not been in this White neighbourhood.’[3]
After the Ferguson shooting BLM transitioned from social media activism to widespread demonstrations in major cities,[4] some of which descended into wilful damage and looting:
‘Some were there to loudly but peacefully protest just how common policing for profit, presumed guilt and aggressive, sometimes dangerous and deadly police tactics in black communities had become. Some saw it as a moment to pour out their long-fomenting anger about economic and social conditions. And some subset of the latter set things on fire, broke windows and looted in Ferguson and Baltimore. Several Black Lives Matter activists have condemned that activity and described looters as individuals unaffiliated with the movement.’[5]
#BlackLivesMatter
The Washington Post: ‘On July 13, 2013, in the hours after a nearly all-white jury acquitted George Zimmerman of all charges in connection with the shooting death of an unarmed black teen named Trayvon Martin, a trio of friends tried to convey their disappointment, disgust and fear in conversations with the people around them—and online.’[6]
‘One of those women, Alicia Garza, posted a note on Facebook that ended with an idea: It was time to organize and ensure “that black lives matter.” The hashtag her friend, Patrisse Cullors, attached (#BlackLivesMatter) and the effort launched by both women and a third friend, Opal Tometi, caught fire. The women, professional organizers working for various groups by day, began by night to construct the scaffolding of what the New York Times magazine would in May call the 21st Century’s first civil rights movement.’ [7]
Garcia outlines the BLM vision:
‘Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.’[8]
BLM lacked a centralized organizing body, its leadership’s role being to support the national network of 26 chapters, ‘What we do is we support the chapters. We support their local demands and goals. They tell us what they need us to build support around,’[9] Garcia said.
Disruption of Presidential campaign events
From 2015 onwards, one tactic BLM activists used was they would disrupt Democratic and Republican party presidential campaign events: in 2015 Politico shared a memo from BLM to 2016 candidates:
‘VINEYARD HAVEN, Mass. – Memo to 2016 candidates from Black Lives Matter: We will continue to disrupt your events no matter what you do or say, and we won’t stop anytime soon.
‘There’s more. The movement, whose angry exchange with Hillary Clinton was revealed this week following an earlier shout-down of Bernie Sanders, has a potential new target: Barack Obama. He may be the first black president, but he won’t be immune, said #Blacklivesmatter network co-founder Patrisse Cullors in an interview with POLITICO on Martha’s Vineyard, the president’s vacation spot, where she is participating this week in racial-justice panels.’[10]
These tactics differed markedly from former protest movements,
‘The group has veered sharply away from other civil-rights organizations with its Occupy-like rhetoric and disruptive tactics. The persistent chanting and stage-crashing have successfully thrown off candidates from Republican Jeb Bush to Sanders, the Socialist running for the Democratic nod.’[11]
Occupy
The prime concerns of the international Occupy movement included,
‘how large corporations (and the global financial system) control the world in a way that disproportionately benefits a minority, undermines democracy and causes instability.’[12]
Taking inspiration in part from the Arab Spring,[13] the 2009 Iranian Green and the Spanish Indignados Movements, as well as from the global wave of anti-austerity protests of 2010 and beyond, the first Occupy protest to receive widespread attention was Occupy Wall Street, which took place in Zuccotti Park, Lower Manhattan from 17 September 2012.[14]
The impetus behind Occupy Wall Street largely came from public distrust in the private sector after the 2008 financial crash, in which taxpayer funds were used to bail out failing banks under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP.) An 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts on independent political expenditures without government regulation.[15]
‘This angered many populist and left-wing groups that viewed the ruling as a way for moneyed interests to corrupt public institutions and legislative bodies, such as the United States Congress. … The main issues raised by Occupy Wall Street were social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the undue influence of corporations on government—particularly from the financial services sector. The OWS slogan, “We are the 99%”, refers to income and wealth inequality in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population. To achieve their goals, protesters acted on consensus-based decisions made in general assemblies which emphasized redress through direct action over the petitioning to authorities.’[16]
The protest persisted for a span of two months, proliferating across the United States to encompass occupations of banks, corporate headquarters, board meetings, foreclosed homes, college and university campuses, as well as social media platforms. Within a mere month, it had extended to over 951 cities across 82 countries, with ongoing demonstrations in over 600 communities within the United States.[17]
David Graeber outlines Occupy’s anarchist roots, which he distinguishes from Marxist ones:[18]
‘Anarchists wish to see human relations that would not have to be backed up by armies, prisons and police. Anarchism envisions a society based on equality and solidarity, which could exist solely on the free consent of participants.
‘Anarchism versus Marxism
Traditional Marxism, of course, aspired to the same ultimate goal but there was a key difference. Most Marxists insisted that it was necessary first to seize state power, and all the mechanisms of bureaucratic violence that come with it, and use them to transform society – to the point where, they argued such mechanisms would, ultimately, become redundant and fade away. Even back in the 19th century, anarchists argued that this was a pipe dream. One cannot, they argued, create peace by training for war, equality by creating top-down chains of command, or, for that matter, human happiness by becoming grim joyless revolutionaries who sacrifice all personal self-realisation or self-fulfillment to the cause.
‘It’s not just that the ends do not justify the means (though they don’t), you will never achieve the ends at all unless the means are themselves a model for the world you wish to create. Hence the famous anarchist call to begin “building the new society in the shell of the old” with egalitarian experiments ranging from free schools to radical labour unions to rural communes. (My emphasis)’[19]
Graeber charts how ‘during the first heyday of revolutionary anarchism between roughly 1875 and 1914, many took the fight directly to heads of state and capitalists, with bombings and assassinations. Hence the popular image of the anarchist bomb-thrower,’[20] however:
‘It’s worthy of note that anarchists were perhaps the first political movement to realise that terrorism, even if not directed at innocents, doesn’t work. For nearly a century now, in fact, anarchism has been one of the very few political philosophies whose exponents never blow anyone up (indeed, the 20th-century political leader who drew most from the anarchist tradition was Mohandas K Gandhi.)
‘Yet for the period of roughly 1914 to 1989, a period during which the world was continually either fighting or preparing for world wars, anarchism went into something of an eclipse for precisely that reason: To seem “realistic”, in such violent times, a political movement had to be capable of organising armies, navies and ballistic missile systems, and that was one thing at which Marxists could often excel. But everyone recognised that anarchists – rather to their credit – would never be able to pull it off.’[21]
A transition to Marxist methods
It seems like there has been a change of tone from the Occupy era to the BLM / Woke era, in transitioning from an anarchist perspective respectful of individual sovereignty to a more “realistic” / Marxist perspective employing coercive methods against individuals.
The Politico article continues:
‘Cullors insists that her network … won’t back off, even as candidates plea for a chance to be heard. That’s because the protests aren’t aimed only at the candidates, but more so at the predominantly white crowds that come out to see them.’
‘“This is a public display of the agony and anguish black people feel on a daily basis, and many of you don’t have to see it or deal with it or go home to it, so we’re going to bring it to you,” Cullors said.’
‘It’s a message likely to frustrate the campaigns that have rushed to placate the activists, who’ve quickly proven effective at hijacking events and messages. But the movement is fundamentally sceptical of the political process, with only limited interest in specific policy changes on the national level. It remains unclear how it will use the attention – and power – its activists have accumulated.
“They’re taking it very personally,” Cullors said of the campaigns. But the disruptions are not really about the individual candidates, who provide “a stage and an audience for the disruptors,” she said. “So, no candidate’s going to avoid that.”’[22]
For instance, in July 2015, Tia Oso, the National Coordinator for the Black Immigration Network, led dozens of vocal protesters onto the stage, causing disruption to Democratic presidential candidate and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley during the Netroots Nation town hall meeting in Phoenix. Similar incidents of harassment were encountered by other candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, with some noticeable effects:
‘In the months since Black Lives Matter protesters began showing up and sometimes taking over campaign events, holding private and private-but-on-tape meetings with candidates, Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley have made some adjustments in the way they talk about policing, race and criminal justice reforms.
‘O’Malley and Sanders have released relatively detailed policy proposals to deal with disparities in the criminal justice system and the way that police and prosecutors do their work.
‘Sanders has added a campaign staffer whose resume happens to include Black Lives Matter activism. But he has also balked at suggestions that his campaign has apologized to Black Lives Matter Activists for, well, anything.
‘And Clinton—who dedicated one of her earliest campaign speeches to ending mass incarceration without acknowledging it was a policy for which she lobbied that rapidly expanded the prison population—has hinted that she has her own policy proposal in the works.
‘For now, Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, has conceded at least this. When Black Lives Matter protesters show up, she cannot simply walk away.’[23] (My emphasis)
When I was at Manchester University Students Union in the 1970s I was surrounded by posturing left-leaning ‘politicos’. As with anyone of an extreme political persuasion, we don’t need to take every one of their utterances literally: some might just be flirting with anarchy or socialism, with no hope of ever truly achieving their aim; as seems to be the case with the founders of BLM. Or is it?:
‘None of this should be seen as obscure or controversial, since the founders of BLM—Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi—typically have been candid about their anti-democratic agenda, even before the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag first appeared in 2013.
‘Cullors, who is also a prison abolitionist and LGBT activist, has publicly stated that she and Garza were “trained Marxists,” and their rhetoric is regularly shot through with explicitly socialist ideas and phraseology (though, in keeping with the general tenor of BLM coverage, the Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact site ran a “fact-check” purporting to show that these Marxist themes are not relevant to the larger BLM movement).’[24]
That is the same Poynter Institute that labelled the Twitter Files a ‘nothingburger,’
‘In 2015, Garza appeared at a gathering of Left Forum, which holds events with titles such as “Lenin: His Work’s Pertinence Here and Now.” Garza’s own panel was dedicated to the theme of “No Justice, No Peace: Confronting the Crises of Capitalism and Democracy.” She told her audience that “it’s not possible for a world to emerge where black lives matter if it’s under capitalism, and it’s not possible to abolish capitalism without a struggle against national oppression.” This was no one-off. It’s part of her consistent message. “Black lives can’t matter under capitalism,” she told the San Francisco Weekly. “They’re like oil and water.”
‘In that same interview, [Garza] also chided Bernie Sanders for being weak on socialism: “It sounds like he’s been talking a lot about being a social democrat, which is still left of where the Democratic Party is, but it’s not socialism. It’s democratic capitalism… There should be more voices saying, ‘This is not actually socialism, and socialism is actually possible.’” Again, this BLM founder could not have been more clear: Not only is black liberation incompatible with capitalism, but democracy is incompatible with real socialism.[25] (My emphasis)
It must have come as a shock to suddenly be given so much power and affirmation by the mainstream Left: to go from ‘Smash the System’ rhetoric to a genuine opportunity to ‘interrupt’ and ‘subvert’ the normal functioning of society:
‘Last year [2019,] Garza told Maine progressives, “We’re talking about changing how we’ve organized this country… I believe we all have work to do to keep dismantling the organizing principle of this society.” She also stated that “social movements all over the world have used Marx and Lenin as a foundation to interrupt these systems that are really negatively impacting the majority of people.” These are all messages that plainly echo Lenin’s own 1917-era admonitions to the Social Democrats who urged Bolsheviks to work within Russia’s legal framework rather than simply seize power.’[26]
Chinese army on the background of the Chinese flag
America’s ‘Red Guard’
The activist’s approach then seemed to centre upon making candidates uncomfortable until they embraced BLM policies. A liberal acquaintance hailing from a generation in which free speech was a cornerstone of liberal culture:
‘I think we’re looking at desperate, powerless people trying to address a fundamental moral issue and not knowing how to deal with it. I can allow a bit of excess in how they respond.
‘(I think this) is a secondary, tactical issue.’
I’m not so sure: ‘live by the sword, die by the sword.’ As a Buddhist I sympathize with the struggles of minority groups and I support First- and Second-wave Antiracism; however, even many thoughtful people of colour are alarmed by the increasingly coercive tactics employed by Third-wave Antiracists to achieve their goals. In China’s Cultural Revolution, state-backed mobs of Red Guards would harass individuals until they renounced their beliefs; today gender activists disrupt the lectures of university professors with whom they disagree, often resulting in the professor’s dismissal or departure. I don’t have a problem with the merits of the activist’s case, but with methods employing fear and intimidation. In Woke ideology, as Jordan Peterson observes, the individual holds no significance, only the group matters.
The Ferguson Effect
Winding forward to 2022, pressure by activists on politicians and the circumvention of inconvenient expert opinion has led to deteriorating crime statistics and social conditions in major US cities:
‘Progressive hostility to law enforcement is not new. After 20-some years of crime reduction attributable to policies that they deplore, left-wing anti-police activists were anxious to reenter the criminal-justice fight. They seized on two highly politicized police use-of-force incidents in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, in 2014 and 2015, respectively, to spark public hostility toward policing policies and methods. These incidents, and especially the media coverage of them, helped birth the modern anti-police movement. A police-as-enemy narrative took hold, poisoning police-community relations and reviving the discourse of racial essentialism and permanent conflict.
‘The resulting public and political hostility toward law enforcement left thousands of police officers across the country unwilling or unable to engage in the kind of proactive efforts proven to reduce crime and disorder. Instead, they retrenched, insulating themselves from becoming leading subjects in the next out-of-context viral video. This “Ferguson Effect,” as the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald dubbed it, resulted in fewer arrests and higher crime.’[27]
Image by MagnusGuenther on Pixabay.
In 2015, Baltimore suffered from the Ferguson Effect: arrests dropped by 28 percent while murders rose by 55 percent on the previous year. Similarly, in Chicago, a lawsuit restricted proactive policing by the Chicago Police Department, leading to a significant uptick in violent crime; police-citizen stops decreased by 82 percent, coinciding with a 58 percent increase in murders.
Following George Floyd’s death on 25 May 25 2020, anti-police sentiment evolved into the progressive movement to “defund the police,” sparking the Black Lives Matter riots during the summer of 2020. Amidst this unrest, progressive activists gained prominence within law enforcement, advocating for social justice reforms.
These “progressive prosecutors,” assuming office in major cities, championed policies aimed at decriminalization and decarceration, resulting in the swift release of many offenders back onto the streets where they had committed crimes.
For instance, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s implementation of lenient policies on charging and sentencing since assuming office on January 1, 2022, led to a staggering 42.9 percent increase in violent crime in southern Manhattan alone during the first ten months of 2022. This trend, exacerbated by New York’s 2020 bail reform, has seen over 500 repeat offenders arrested three or more times for various offenses, further contributing to the city’s escalating crime rate.
Similarly, San Francisco’s progressive district attorney Chesa Boudin oversaw a 40 percent surge in home burglaries during his first year in office. His tenure was marked by a high rate of downgrading felony charges, leading to widespread criticism and ultimately a recall vote earlier this year.
‘From the sobering experience of recent years come two lessons. First, ideological progressives have no business leading law enforcement agencies. Law enforcement is simply not their calling. Their worldview compels them to shield criminals from accountability, which means, in practice, incarceration. When criminals are at liberty, they do what criminals do: commit crimes. This uncomplicated equation explains why crime rises where progressives govern.
Second, public hostility toward police causes police to stand down. Police officers are human beings, and human beings act on incentives. When use-of-force incidents are politicized, police officers get indicted, tried, and convicted in the court of liberal opinion, with consequences ranging from legal prosecution to termination of employment. As long as an anti-law enforcement mentality prevails in American cities, cops will err on the side of caution, confronting and arresting fewer criminals.
As the old saying goes, “city air is free air.” But when streets and public spaces are not safe, cities are not free. Progressive criminal-justice policies—and the magical thinking on which they are based—offer nothing but chaos.’[28]
Watch on YouTube.
A last word
Law Professor Randall Kennedy, who has taught at Harvard University for 40 years, has written hundreds of thousands of words on race politics and the legal system, is himself black and is a vocal defender of affirmative action, was asked in April 2024 by Freddie Sayers of UnHerd[29] whether BLM was a good or a bad thing. He replied:
‘[BLM] was good and it was bad. It was good in so far as it put its finger on another real problem in American life: which is the malfeasance of police authorities. That was its central focus. And it was a good focus, because in America take a look at the statistics: the degree to which Americans are victimized by criminality AND the extent to which Americans are victimized by malfeasance is ridiculous; it’s a scandal in America. And Black Lives Matter really put a high focus on the problem of police malfeasance. And that, as far as I was concerned, was a real achievement. And a good thing.
‘Was there bad? Yeah, there was bad. I think that … some of the people in Black Lives Matter made a mistake. … So, for instance, when people talk about abolishing the police. What do you mean, abolishing the police? Three hundred million people. Your big cities? You are going to abolish the police in Manhattan? What are you talking about? Any civilized society needs police: we need good policing. I need protection. I don’t feel secure with my property; with my liberty; my physical security. That’s miserable. We need good policing: so that idea of abolishing the police was a real digression.
‘Freddie: It also had real world consequences: because the lighter touch policing led to spikes in violence, which were mainly aimed at African-American communities.
‘There is that! … I think it turned people off. … Let me put it like this: my first book was a book called Race, Crime and the Law.[30] I’m very attentive to the problems of racial injustice and the administration of the law in America. That’s a central concern of mine. Question: if you have a movement that to some extent alienates me! … isn’t that a sign of a problem? … I don’t want to be on the subway with someone who is a serial killer; a serial assaulter; a serial rapist. And unfortunately, there are … tens of thousands of such people in America. What are we to do? We had better do something! Now, I don’t want people mistreated; I don’t want people to be tortured. … If we can rehabilitate people, let’s by all means try to do that. But we must have safety. And I think that some of the people in Black Lives Matter were not attentive enough to that. And we are feeling that; there has been a real reaction against some of the reformist moves that were made, because people want to feel safe.[31]
The chapter goes on to explore related issues around Trump’s presidency.
[1] Shooting of Michael Brown. Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown
[2] ‘Black Lives Matter.’ Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter
[3] Michael Mascarenhas. ‘Tale of Two Pandemics.’ In Lawrence M. Eppard & Henry A. Giroux (eds.). (2022) On Inequality and Freedom. OUP USA. p90-1.
[4] Shannon Luibrand. ‘How a death in Ferguson sparked a movement in America.’ CBS News. 7 August 2015.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-black-lives-matter-movement-changed-america-one-year-later/
[5] Janell Ross. ‘Black Lives Matter: from hashtag to a political force.’ The Washington Post. 22 August 2015.
[6] ‘How Black Lives Matter moved from a hashtag to a real political force.’ Janell Ross. 19 August 2015. The Washington Post.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Alicia Garza. ‘A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement by Alicia Garza.’ The Feminist Wire. 7 October 2014.
https://thefeministwire.com/2014/10/blacklivesmatter-2/
[9] Ben Collins, Tim Mak. ‘Who Really Runs #BlackLivesMatter?’ Daily Beast. 15 August 2015. Updated 12 July 2017.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/who-really-runs-blacklivesmatter
[10] Sarah Wheaton. ‘Black Lives Matter isn’t stopping.’ Politico. 20 August 2015.
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/no-plans-to-stop-says-black-lives-matter-121538
[11] Sarah Wheaton. ‘Black Lives Matter isn’t stopping.’ Politico. 20 August 2015.
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/no-plans-to-stop-says-black-lives-matter-121538
[12] ‘Occupy movement.’ Wikipedia. Accessed 5 April 2024. Footnote 12.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_movement
[13] Ibid. Footnotes 22 and 23.
[14] See ‘Occupy movement.’
[15] Paraphrased from ‘Occupy Wall Street.’ Wikipedia. Accessed 5 April 2024.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street
[16] ‘Occupy Wall Street.’
[17] Ibid.
[18] David Graeber. ‘Occupy Wall Street’s anarchist roots: The ‘Occupy’ movement is one of several in American history to be based on anarchist principles.’ Al Jazeera. 30 November 2011.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2011/11/30/occupy-wall-streets-anarchist-roots/
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Sarah Wheaton. ‘Black Lives Matter isn’t stopping.’ Politico. 20 August 2015.
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/no-plans-to-stop-says-black-lives-matter-121538
[23] ‘How Black Lives Matter moved from a hashtag to a real political force.’ Janell Ross. August 19 2015. The Washington Post.
[24] Mike Gonzalez. ‘For Five Months, BLM Protestors Trashed America’s Cities. After the Election, Things May Only Get Worse.’ The Heritage Foundation. 6 November 2020.
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Scott G. Erickson, Craig Trainor. ‘The Urban Criminal-Justice Disaster: Ideological progressives have no business leading law enforcement agencies.’ City Journal. 15 December 2022. https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-urban-criminal-justice-disaster
[28] ‘The Urban Criminal-Justice Disaster: Ideological progressives have no business leading law enforcement agencies.’
[29] ‘Prof. Randall Kennedy: stop forcing academics to support DEI.’ UnHerd. YouTube. 5 April 2024. BLM section. From 39.33 mins.
https://youtu.be/f7EtKqIdbz8?si=WOFdxBVB6IiJhWQM
[30] Randall Kennedy. (1997) Race, Crime and the Law. Pantheon.
[31] ‘Prof. Randall Kennedy: stop forcing academics to support DEI.’
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