“Making a martyr out of every violent individual who is at least partially responsible for escalating the situation and equating them with legitimate victims and occasional abuses by officers cheapens and clouds the conversation.”
Black Lives Matter continues to protest what they see as police targeting and killing of black men. Objectively, far more blacks are killed by other blacks, with black on black crime in Chicago claiming more lives than the Iraq War. But more concerning is the tendency of activists to elevate every incident, regardless of the details, into an overarching pattern. In particular, they are dishonoring real civil rights heroes by lowering the bar for current civil rights activists who are often little more than lionized ruffians.
Emmett Till is probably the worst example of the violence that minorities faced. In 1955, Emmet reportedly cat-called and said inappropriate things to a white woman in a grocery store. She told some relatives, who then kidnapped Emmett, beat him, gouged out his eyes, killed him, and dumped his body in the river. Many years later, the lady recanted most of her statements about Emmet Till’s behavior, so it became an example of racial violence against a completely innocent young man who did no more than maybe look at a white woman the “wrong” way.
Of course, there are still examples of horrible racial violence. In 1998, James Byrd Jr. was dragged to death behind a pick-up truck in Jasper, Texas, and just a few days ago, officials in Texas charged a white officer with the murder of a black teenager. Yet at the same time, America lives in an age with a black president, black attorney general, black secretary of state, black justice on the Supreme Court, and far more tolerance for items like interracial marriage. The isolated actions of a handful of bad actors don’t condemn the whole country or mean the police are targeting black Americans. Modern examples used by the Black Lives movement are not always clear-cut injustices like the Emmett Till case.
By trying to make every case a part of an overall pattern of civil rights violations, agitators are elevating people whose unsavory actions often contributed to the tragedy. For example, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri was often called a “gentle giant” by his family and supporters, who told the media he did nothing but put his hands up and say don’t shoot.
His death was often compared with Emmett Till’s. But DNA evidence showed that Brown had contact with the officer’s gun and the inside of the police car. The autopsy reports also showed that the officer shot Brown at extremely close range, which naturally supports the officer’s contention that Brown fought for the officer’s gun.
This supposed gentle giant not only attacked an officer, but that officer arrived on the scene because Brown matched the description of an armed robbery suspect from a few minutes before. In short, a violent felon attacked an officer and was killed in self-defense, which makes his incident far different from Emmett Till’s brutal lynching.
The killing of Trayvon Martin was another catalyst for the Black Lives Matter movement and comparisons to Emmett Till. Though much like the Rodney King beating and the Jena Six, the story gained traction because of manipulated pictures where activists compared shooter George Zimmerman’s mugshot from a previous crime to a much younger and bright-faced picture of Trayvon Martin.
A more contemporary picture, such as Trayvon striking gangster poses and brandishing middle fingers on social media compared to Zimmerman’s professional head shot, would have made a less compelling story and was thus ignored by activists. It got so bad I remember jokes about the manipulation that depicted Zimmerman as the fictional alien from the movie Predator and Martin as a cute baby.
Instead of an Emmett Till-like innocence with just Skittles in his pocket before being shot, Martin had illegal drugs in his system, lock picks in his back pack, was suspended from school for stealing, and used racial slurs against Zimmerman before pounding him MMA-style and finally being shot. It’s tragic that Martin lost his life, except a more critical look at his behavior suggests he could have easily walked home with those Skittles if he avoided his violent and aggressive behavior.
These are just two examples from the many we could discuss. Activists do not help solve racial problems by forcing every example of white on black crime into an overarching pattern. (For example, even though Zimmerman was Latino, the media suddenly created the “white Hispanic” category to fit the white on black storyline.) That narrative is politically convenient and certainly helps the bottom line of professional agitators. But it also fails to take into account particular examples and the culpability that rests with many of the supposed victims.
The tragedy usually occurs when somebody at least verbally confronts a police officer after breaking the law to begin with, and it only gets worse from there. Making a martyr out of every violent individual who is at least partially responsible for escalating the situation and equating them with legitimate victims and occasional abuses by officers cheapens and clouds the conversation.
Most importantly, it disgraces the real civil rights heroes of the past. It produces a counterproductive narrative that makes blacks fearful and resistant to officers’ demands, which makes policing even tougher, creates a spike in violent crime in black communities, and makes violent encounters between blacks and police even more likely. Instead of lowering the bar by promoting false narratives, Americans need to better assess the role of law enforcement and how we interact with them.
