People are blaming the Chicago Facebook Live assault on Black Lives Matter — and it’s bullshit
On Tuesday, footage surfaced online of four black teenagers beating and berating a white male teenager who had been bound and gagged. The 30-minute-long video was streamed live via the Facebook account of one of the assailants. Voices can be heard throughout yelling, “Fuck white people!” and “Fuck Donald Trump!”
It should go without saying that this crime was horrific. Reports describing the young white man — who attended school with one of his attackers and suffers from “mental health challenges,” according to police — as he wandered the streets of Chicago after being set free are agonizing to read.
But it’s also clear that countless white Americans will draw the wrong conclusion from this incident. Many will see the boy’s kidnapping as justification for the view that black people are inherently criminal and black protest is an existential threat to society.
On Wednesday evening, the day after the Facebook Live video went public, #BLMKidnapping started trending on Twitter among mostly white commentators. There was no evidence that activists involved with the Movement for Black Lives — a coalition of black civil rights organizations that includes Black Lives Matter — were involved in the incident, nor did the assailants mention BLM or indicate they were affiliated with the movement in any way.
White opponents and their allies have been calling Black Lives Matter terrorists since the group’s inception, but the speed with which this incident has been used to dismiss the concerns of civil rights activists follows a familiar pattern. Historically, whites have justified racism by pointing to unrelated violence and misbehavior committed by black people. The underlying logic is clear: In order to deserve equality in the eyes of whites, black people must be perfect. Read more
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