All Black Lives Matter

Does Natalie Wallace's life matter? (SUN-TIMES) 

I don’t know if Chicago is the murder capital of the world. But it sure seems like if you watch the nightly news here.

And yet if you don’t watch the news you wouldn’t know it. Most areas of the city and suburbs are as peaceful as any other city. Those murders take place on Chicago’s West and South Side. In Neighborhoods that are populated mostly by honorable black residents that wouldn’t hurt a fly.

But they also contain black gangs that are not so honorable. Violent gangs that deal drugs and are involved in a variety of other illegal activities. They compete with each other. As a consequence they have their own system of justice. They kill people that get in their way.

One might say, let them kill each other off. Let murderers die the way they live in a sort of poetic justice kind of way. 

There are a couple of ethical problems with that. First I believe that law enforcement and the justice system ought to be the principle parties in seeing that kind justice is done. Civilization depends on a system of law and order. Without it - we have chaos.  More importantly, however, innocent people all too often get in the way of gangland bullets. Some of them are very young children. Justice is far from served by allowing gangs to disseminate their own version of justice.

Last night was just another typical night in the black neighborhoods of Chicago. From NBC 5: 

A 7-year-old girl was shot and killed Saturday night while visiting family for the Fourth of July weekend in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, police confirmed… 

And later that evening - from WGN: 

A 14-year-old boy was among four victims killed in a shooting late Saturday night in Englewood.

Just after 11:30 p.m., Chicago police responded to the 6100 block of South Carpenter on the report of a shooting.

Police said four males fired into a large gathering in the street.

Eight total victims were shot. A 14-year-old boy was shot in the back and pronounced dead at Comer Children’s Hospital. Three other unidentified males were killed as a result of the shooting, CPD said. 

Residents and activists in those neighborhoods are outraged.  As would be any moral individual. How many more crying mothers - tortured by the death of a young son or daughter - do we need to see on the nightly news?

This is one of the problems I am having with the black lives matter protests . It is true that there is racism in society. And when the police are involved it can be deadly for innocent black people. I of course support these protests. But I am disappointed that the much more serious problem of black on black violence is practically being ignored. 

Why must it only be the residents of those neighborhoods making an issue of it? Where are the massive protests that are at least as outraged by black on black violence as they are about racist based violence? There are many more innocent black people being killed by the former than there are by the latter. And yet the focus in on racism.

Making matters worse is the increased call for dismantling police departments – to be replaced by some sort of social service presence sensitive to communities they serve. The need for sensitivity is a real need that must be addressed.Racism cannot be a part of any police force. 

But you do not dismantle law enforcement - the only real  barrier to violence those neighborhoods have. That will not stop black people from being killed. It will increase it! Instead of calling for dismantling the police, they should be calling for an increased presence. This is in fact what Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has done. Not that it made any difference last night. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a step in the right direction. Change cannot happen overnight.

Those gangs must be stopped. Whatever it takes. The police ought to be given the the authority to act aggressively in pursuit of that. Not hampered by the fear of being accused of racism when they  apprehend a gang member and subdue him. Not every case of a cop subduing a black man is a case of racism. Sometimes subduing a thug like that might be the only way to prevent yet another young black victim  from being killed.

Once in custody. Justice must be swift and have teeth. No more revolving door justice. Gang members ought to rot in jail for as long as the law allows. No more judges that allow their  sympathy for  the ‘poor misguided young blacks’ that became violent criminals – having gone astray because of 400 years of racism that kept them down. While there may be some truth to that, having sympathy on violent gang members is not the answer.  In expressing that kind of sympathy towards a violent criminal a judge is being cruel to the innocent victims of those criminals.  There are bad people in the world. They need to be treated that way.

I say this knowing full well that because of the anti police climate, this will surely not happen. Not unless there is a sea change in focus. Black live matter must be applied to all situations. Not just to racist police. I would love to see protests that include a call for stopping black on black violence as much as the call to stop the violence by racist police. 

All black lives matter. Even those killed by black criminals.  

The current protests have waned. But they should be reinvigorated with a goal that gives that at least equal prominence to protesting racist cops.  (At least in theory. I still worry about mass gatherings like that causing a spike in COVID cases.)

One more thing. My support for black lives matter does not extend to the movement of the same name. The people involved in ‘Black Lives Matter’  -  the movement are open Marxists and antisemites who do not hide those facts. They do not have the best interests of this country at heart. They want to destroy the American democracy as we know it and are using the moment to forward that agenda.

The problem is the blurring of lines between black lines matter (small b) with  ‘Black Lives Matter’  - the Movement. That creates an insidious relationship that allows the latter to infiltrate and influence the vast majority of black (and white) people using that phrase legitimately. The last thing a decent movement should devolve into is a movement that is antisemitic whose goal is to destroy the country as we we know it.

They should be protested too, in the strongest possible terms. Which I do very vigorously!