The jury remains out in the trial of Jussie Smollet, which means that he is innocent and will remain innocent until a verdict is returned that removes the presumption of innocence. What that means isn’t that he is a hero or a victim, but innocent. When the allegations were first made that Smollet was the target of a racist attack, everybody jumped on the Smollet train. It was a ride too sweet to miss.
Vice President Kamala Harris, then a U.S. senator, denounced what happened as an “attempted modern-day lynching.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said it was a “homophobic attack and an affront to our humanity.” In a fawning interview, ABC’s Robin Roberts described Smollett as “bruised but not broken” and breathlessly concluded the segment with “Beautiful, thank you, Jussie.”
Even when evidence mounted that this was a hoax, some media figures lashed out at Smollett’s doubters. ABC’s “The Talk” host Sara Gilbert was irate: “I find so personally offensive that a gay Black man is targeted and then suddenly he becomes the victim of people’s disbelief.”
While ripe for ridicule, it’s not surprising. Who hasn’t leapt on the confirmation bias train? It’s nothing to be proud of, but it’s hardly uncommon, and this was certainly the sort of act designed to get this sort of rise out of the usual suspects.
But there have since been charges. There has since been a trial. And the jury is out. At this point, his fate is in the hands of a jury based upon the facts and law. Well, that’s how one might expect it to be, except the organization Black Lives Matter doesn’t see it that way.
The below is a statement from Dr. Melina Abdullah, Director of BLM Grassroots and Co-Founder of BLM Los Angeles, regarding the ongoing trial of Jussie Smollett:
As abolitionists, we approach situations of injustice with love and align ourselves with our community. Because we got us. So let’s be clear: we love everybody in our community. It’s not about a trial or a verdict decided in a white supremacist charade, it’s about how we treat our community when corrupt systems are working to devalue their lives. In an abolitionist society, this trial would not be taking place, and our communities would not have to fight and suffer to prove our worth. Instead, we find ourselves, once again, being forced to put our lives and our value in the hands of judges and juries operating in a system that is designed to oppress us, while continuing to face a corrupt and violent police department, which has proven time and again to have no respect for our lives.
In our commitment to abolition, we can never believe police, especially the Chicago Police Department (CPD) over Jussie Smollett, a Black man who has been courageously present, visible, and vocal in the struggle for Black freedom. While policing at-large is an irredeemable institution, CPD is notorious for its long and deep history of corruption, racism, and brutality. From the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, to the Burge tortures, to the murder of Laquan McDonald and subsequent cover-up, to the hundreds of others killed by Chicago police over the years and the thousands who survived abuse, Chicago police consistently demonstrate that they are among the worst of the worst. Police lie and Chicago police lie especially.
Black Lives Matter will continue to work towards the abolition of police and every unjust system. We will continue to love and protect one another, and wrap our arms around those who do the work to usher in Black freedom and, by extension, freedom for everyone else.
To the extent one can discern an argument here, it’s that the Chicago cops suck (not a huge stretch), the legal system is a white supremacist charade (a bit more of a stretch), abolition means abolition (even if other black lives that also matter aren’t on board) and that black people like Jussie Smollett can’t be guilty because…he’s “courageously present, visible and vocal”?
This isn’t the first time we’ve been down this road, the one where very real concerns about racism ends with Laquan McDonald being murdered like a dog in the street by police officer Jason Van Dyke. And it’s not as if the legal system doesn’t warrant harsh criticism when it fails to respect due process and constitutional rights.
But BLM has taken a turn to the left here, veered off the main line of real and rational problems toward a position that few, regardless of race, are willing to tread. It’s not entirely clear why the organization is taking this position, as the “explanation” is largely about bad things that have nothing to do with the crime charged, and good things that similarly have nothing to do with the crime charged. To the extent it reflects a comprehensible stance, it’s that Jussie Smollett’s guilt or innocence is irrelevant, that the verdict of the jury is irrelevant and that no matter what the outcome of the trial. Jussie Smollett is innocent because he’s black, regardless of what he did or didn’t do.
At this moment in time, Jussie Smollett is innocent. Not because of his race or skin color. Not because of the evidence proffered against him. Not because of the defense evidence, including Smollett’s denial of guilt when he took the stand in his own defense. Jussie Smollett is innocent for the same reason every defendant is innocent, because the jury has not found him guilty. But the position taken by BLM here, that it doesn’t matter what the evidence is or what the jury decides, isn’t going to get anyone on board. That train is going nowhere.
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BLM hasn’t changed in the slightest; this is who they’ve always been, and they haven’t exactly taken pains to hide it.
It’s one thing to propose overarching hyperbolic grievances and another to apply them to a specific instance where the position is to defy a very specific reality.
Maybe, but even their initial proposal of hyperbolic grievances was based on defying the lack of reality of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.” Gotta say, Dan is right here.
Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, et al., disagree. The grievance that there remains a strong racist culture in policing is very real, and when cops beat, shoot and kill black people based on the assumption that they’re more likely to be criminals or violent, BLM’s position is very much grounded in the reality of dead bodies.
We can be critical when it goes off the rails, but that doesn’t make them wrong about everything.
BLM’s position is only tangentially related to “the reality of dead bodies.” They have always, and only, been about the fundamental overthrow of western society; the dead bodies are just the “hook” they use (quite effectively) to make themselves more palatable and smuggle in their true goals.
But I’m just some nutty conspiracy theorist, right? But think for a moment–what do “gay-affirming”, “trans-affirming”, and the denigration of the nuclear family have to do with the very small (albeit still too high) number of black people unjustly killed by police? Nothing at all, of course, as you yourself observed some time back when those “core values” were still listed on BLM’s website. But if their aim were to destroy western society, the destruction of the nuclear family would be a great place to start.
The same is true with eliminating police (and the statement you quote is perfectly clear that that’s their goal; it leaves no room for the rationalization of late last year that they really only mean to redirect some funds from police officers to social workers). It’s obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together that this would work to the next detriment of black Americans, and if you think they’re sincerely trying to help black Americans, you might wonder why they’d adopt such an outlandish position, one that most black Americans don’t support. But it’s entirely consistent with my understanding of their objectives.
I don’t say, and don’t need to say, that they get everything wrong–stopped clocks, etc. But even when they get something right, it’s invariably for the wrong reason. Chauvin was wrong in his treatment of Floyd; they and I would agree here. But their reason is that police use of force against a black person is always wrong, which is why they were outraged about Ma’Khia Bryant, while you and I thought it was indisputably a good shoot.
Take a look at your original comment and then this one. Wouldn’t it have saved you from murdering all those words to just say, “you’re right, I was being grossly simplistic”?
So, uh, Dan went off the rails himself, so, yeah.
BUT, I think you’re off on two counts here. First, there’s not a strong racist culture in policing, unless we change the meaning of racism to be untethered from any cognizable or sane definition. There’s two separate problems at play. They combine to give bad results for black folks in the US, but only one of them is the true culprit for what BLM is ostensibly complaining about. The ancillary problem is that, yes, police treat black people with more fear and suspicion than they might treat a similarly situated white person. It’s crap, and it needs to change, but it’s not “systemic racism” or inherently unfixable. But the main (and real) problem is that police simply aren’t held accountable for damned near anything. They shoot and kill basically anyone with impunity. They lie on the witness stand about anyone. Race doesn’t play a part in it. They are above the law, and they know it. They’ve taken the Supreme Court’s adoption of the Reasonable Scared (and/or Stupid) Cop Rule and run with it, to the detriment of everyone. The interplay of this with the first problem of course is that police are roughing up black people disproportionately, but actually hold police accountable for their mistakes and this interplay largely goes away.
The second count is in what you are presuming BLM’s position to be. It’s not that there’s a strong racist culture in policing or that police are shooting black people too much. It’s that police are shooting black people *at all*. Tamir Rice shouldn’t have been shot *because he was black*. Breonna Taylor shouldn’t have been shot *because she was black*. It’s got nothing to do with anything the police reasonably could or should have done differently, such as the BS about no-knock warrants, or how absurd it is to pull up in a squad car within 3 feet of a supposedly dangerous individual. There’s an awful lot of white/Asian/Latino folks who have been shot and killed under similar absurd circumstances, but you don’t hear a peep out of BLM over them. Why? Because they weren’t black. You might miss it, as BLM certainly brings up any point possible when a black person is shot by police to masquerade their motives, but this latest missive about Jussie Smollett reveals the true underlying motive: Jussie shouldn’t be prosecuted *because he is black*. It’s got nothing to do with the merits of the case, it’s the color of his skin. It’s the same reason why, 7 years later, Michael Brown is still held out to be a saint by BLM and why they still chant “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot”: the fact that he had just finished beating a store owner five minutes earlier, nor did he ever say “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” doesn’t matter; All that matters is he was black, so he’s a saint, and he shouldn’t have been shot. At least they are finally being honest and open about it with Jussie.
Wait, how is that not “systemic racism?” To the extent the phrase has any coherent definition, I think a racially discriminatory attitude, widespread in the pointy end of the criminal justice system, would have to qualify.
Slow down there. buckaroos. Yes, Bryan’s argument is silly and glosses over the obvious “cops are bad and racist cops are worse” by using simplistic “the real problem” trope, but then you dive into “systemic racism,” which is just as meaningless and unhelpful to actual thought. Let’s not make this any stupider than it already is.
If you want nuance or semantic precision, you won’t find it in movement politics. See also: the use of “they” in your last sentence.
The first paragraph curiously argues against systemic racism while admitting the intersection of two types of systemic problems, the first of which is uncontroversially considered racism. Systemic doesn’t necessarily mean codified, and it’s generally more insidious if it isn’t.
Systemic doesn’t necessarily mean anything, which is one of the reasons it’s so useful.
“The first paragraph curiously argues against systemic racism while admitting the intersection of two types of systemic problems, the first of which is uncontroversially considered racism.”
I disagree, and I think that gets to a significant portion of BLM’s failings. If I may be allowed a little dive down a rabbit hole here, I hinted at what the definition of “racism” should be earlier, and it’s very clear that BLM and their thought-progenitors in the critical-theory fields are attempting to shift the meaning of racism, in the same way that “rape” and “sexual assault” have morphed from their societally-understood roots. In this case, racism has traditionally been understood as a derogatory term for intentional racial discrimination *motivated by superiority or animus*. At the risk of breaking rules here, Nazis were racists (they actually shifted how the American public thought about “racism”, actually). The guys who lynched Emmett Till were racists. James Earl Ray was a racist.
Elsewhere, critical theorists are rightly pointing out that unintentional racial discrimination is still quite harmful (think: Racism Without Racists). But others then went off the rails by arguing that this harm means we should consider any racial discrimination as equivalent to “racism,” wrapping them all in the same term. In effect, they wanted the invective inherent to racism without actually requiring what caused the invective to be attached to it in the first place.
But conflating the two is not helpful when trying to discuss the actual issues facing policing today. Putting aside the joys of using “systemic” to describe anything, “Systemic Discrimination” is a far more apt description for what we see in the overpolicing of minority communities, but it doesn’t pack the same rhetorical punch of “Systemic Racism.” Discrimination gives us normal, ordinary, fallible people; racism gives us evil, horrible people.
You get a clearer picture of why this distinction matters when you consider that black police officers fall victim to the same forces as their white colleagues, as happened in the Freddie Gray and George Floyd cases. Are we to believe that these officers hate black people? Do they think they are superior to their own race? Racism doesn’t explain that, but mere discrimination does.
And since it falls down to discrimination, the solution to that problem is similar to the overarching problem, namely the lack of accountability. If the problem is that police are disproportionately killing black people, then what is the solution? Kill more white people to even the score? However, if you reframe it to see the problem as police having utter disdain and disregard for the people they are supposed to serve, to the point where they have no qualms about recklessly killing anyone, then the accountability issue plainly comes to the fore. Solve that problem, and you reduce killings across the board. You’re also going to at least make a dent in the discrimination aspect, too. How to solve the accountability problem is no easy feat, but you certainly won’t do it if you let bomb-throwers distract you by forcing everything to be about race.
TL;dr
BLM is a shadowy thing or perhaps not a thing at all, and means widely different things even among its declared supporters. Many different people have latched onto the slogan to espouse their unique platforms. As to each such platform it can be a considerable chore to sort out how many real people are actually represented by the particular “BLM” promoting that platform.
There is BLM the movement and BLM the official organization. They are not necessarily the same thing.
SHG,
In fact, the BLM train has derailed.
All the best.
RGK
Isn’t it great when a theme comes together?
I would love to follow the money.
What the ever-loving hell does that have to do with this thread?
I’ll guess that it’s the history of people using vapid word salad around “the plight of ____” to stir people up and take in those sweet donations? Al Sharpton should be suing for trademark infringement…
In all seriousness, I wonder if this is more about the support money than supporting Smollet.
I understand raising the issue of money. Just not in reply in this thread.
Now that he’s been found guilty of 5 of the 6 charges, I’m sure we’ll see people use it as affirmation of their views of how the system was against him from the beginning.
Were they ever on the rails to begin with? It seems that they might have been heading somewhere good for the first week or so but I can’t remember seeing anything logical come out of them since.
This isn’t the sort of comment that contributes anything of use here.
On the plus side this is a helpful way to diversify their critics, and all it costs is their integrity.
In a perverse way, this sort of “justification” is a good thing, as it serves to underscore the intellectual dishonesty of many within the BLM movement in a way their critics, those outside the movement and insufficiently woke, cannot.
Had a cis, straight, white male (or even someone like McWhorter) said something like this it would be discredited as insensitive, and likely racist, satire and dismissed out of hand.
When it comes from the pen of one of the movement’s founders it can be seen for the sort of Orwellian “some animals are more equal than others” nonsense that it actually is.
In a perverse way, this sort of “comment” is a good thing, as it gives me a chance to learn to do better in a way that reading the post alone could not do. Had I said this, I would have been hand waved away for it and rightfully so, and maybe would have taken the criticism to heart. So, when you quote Orwell again and the most common of his works and the most commonly quoted part of that book, it can be seen that you have nothing whatsoever funny or illuminating to say.
The Animal Farm quote, banal observation, and something about how you wrote this annoyed me. Sorry. Don’t take it personally, I’ve misbehaved myself recently, am probably doing so now, and am likely projecting on you, but learning is a process, right?
As I responded when I heard that there’s going to be a remake of 1984 from a woman’s perspective, “it’s a brave new world.”
I’m sorry you don’t like Orwell, but why on earth do you expect anyone to care?
I love Orwell. I don’t expect you or anyone else to care at all. What’s trite is trite.
We all love Orwell, but there are only so many middle schools that can be named after Harrison Bergeron.
Betteridge’s law of headlines says no.
I’m aware of Betteridge’s Law. My “headlines” take it into account.
Jussie Smollett and Donald Trump are exactly the same. “Are you crazy? They’re opposites!”
Exactly! Opposites are 2 sides of the same thing. Both of them are talented actors. I’m not making it up. Empire was a mediocre show but Jussie Smollett was the best thing about it. He’s a very good actor. And now he’s not doing that show anymore. Why not? Because he’s doing the Jussie Smollett show. He’s playing the role of an outrageously bald-faced liar to one side, and a martyr to the other. It’s the greatest role of his life, and he is killing it! His job is to divide us and make us hate each other, the same as Donald Trump. 2 sides of the coin; two puppets on the same hand. Donald Trump may be the greatest entertainer of our generaton. Everyone either loves or hates him. He took Rush Limbaugh’s example and ran it to the stars. Nobody had ever been so divisive before, until now. Until Jussie Smollett came along. The only difference is which half of the population hates him. I can’t wait to seee what they come up with next.
Did they throw you out of reddit for this so you had to bring it here?