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Black America’s “gaslight” Nightmare: The Psychological Warfare Being Waged Against Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter has been demonized following the unrelated murder of a police officer. Here’s why

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Earlier this week, just before bed, an old high school debate team­mate, a white man that I once loved affec­tion­ate­ly as a younger broth­er, post­ed on my Facebook wall, “Do you have sym­pa­thy on police offi­cers who are killed on duty?” Though we have been Facebook friends for a num­ber of years, it has also been lit­er­al years since our last sig­nif­i­cant inter­ac­tion via the site. This was a curi­ous ques­tion that seemed forth­right­ly accusato­ry in its tone.

Driven, I sus­pect, by the killing of Texas Deputy Darren Goforth last Friday, my old friend’s ques­tion says much to me about the quo­tid­i­an ways that oth­er­wise well-mean­ing white peo­ple mis­un­der­stand racial dis­course in this coun­try. Like many Americans, I watched hor­ri­fied last week as news unfold­ed of Vester Lee Flanagan’s cold-blood­ed exe­cu­tion of a news­cast­er and a cam­era­man in Virginia. Then, just two short days lat­er, the news that Shannon J. Miles, a Black man with a pre­vi­ous­ly doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of men­tal ill­ness, had exe­cut­ed Deputy Goforth made my heart stop.

These killings of white peo­ple are trag­ic and inex­cus­able. That should be said with­out equiv­o­ca­tion. But after I affirmed this same fact to my old friend, I asked him, “What would make you think I think oth­er­wise?” That same night on CNN, I watched Dr. Marc Lamont Hill debate the Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, also an African American man. The chief was there to affirm remarks made by Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman about how “anti-cop” rhetoric from the Black Lives Matter Movement had led to the killing of Deputy Goforth. Sheriff Clarke point­ed to the killing of Officers Liu and Ramos in New York last year and the killing of Deputy Goforth, pro­claim­ing it a “pat­tern.”

How is it that two men­tal­ly ill Black men tar­get­ing police offi­cers con­sti­tutes a pat­tern, but the killing of Walter Scott, the killing of Samuel Dubose, and the killing ofJonathan Ferrell, all by police while they were clear­ly unarmed and com­mit­ting no crimes, add up to a col­lec­tion of unre­lat­ed, iso­lat­ed inci­dents? How is it that the ran­dom acts of two men­tal­ly unsta­ble Black men who had no for­mal or infor­mal rela­tion­ship with the Black Lives Matter move­ment con­sti­tute a trend, but the two dozen police killings of unarmed Black cit­i­zens again remain a col­lec­tion of unfor­tu­nate but iso­lat­ed incidents?

In the case of both Samuel Dubose and Walter Scott, we have police offi­cers on tape killing Black men in cold blood, and then we have evi­dence of those offi­cers and their col­leagues bla­tant­ly lying about what occurred. This is also true of Christian Taylor in Texas. This is also true in the recent case of two police offi­cers who were fired after video evi­dence proved they con­coct­ed an entire sto­ry about anti-cop rhetoric to get out of doing their jobs. If two points make a line, then how many inci­dents of police caught lying in cas­es that involve the lethal use of force do we need in order to acknowl­edge that there’s a pattern?

Let me be clear­er. By “we” I don’t mean me. I mean the “We” that was orig­i­nal­ly includ­ed in “we the peo­ple.” How many inci­dents will con­sti­tute a pat­tern for them?

To be clear, the Black Lives Matter Movement is not an anti-cop move­ment. It is a move­ment that vig­or­ous­ly and vora­cious­ly oppos­es the over­polic­ing of Black com­mu­ni­ties and the state-sanc­tioned killing of unarmed Black peo­ple (and, yes, all peo­ple) by the police. It is a move­ment that insists on hold­ing police account­able for their vio­lence and that will hold police to a high­er stan­dard pre­cise­ly because the state gives police the right to use lethal force. With more pow­er comes more responsibility.

But here’s the thing: White peo­ple know this. Conservative Black peo­ple who insist on speak­ing about the rule of law and the issue of Black-on-Black crime know this. This is basic. They know that these young peo­ple don’t want to kill cops. They want the cops to stop killing them. That was as true in 1988 when NWA released their hit song, “Fuck Tha Police,” and it remains true today, as pro­tes­tors blast rap­per Boosie’s sim­i­lar­ly titled song at protests. Yet, the release of “Straight Outta Compton” this sum­mer has led to increased police pres­ence in movie the­aters, even as we have watched the tri­al of white male Aurora movie shoot­er James Holmes.

How deeply emo­tion­al must one be to hear a group sing a song that is a cri­tique of the police ter­ror­iz­ing com­mu­ni­ties and hear the song to be say­ing that these same com­mu­ni­ties want to ter­ror­ize police? How deeply emo­tion­al must one be to delib­er­ate­ly dis­re­gard the unspo­ken “too” at the end of every procla­ma­tion that “Black lives mat­ter”? We are all enti­tled to our feel­ings, no mat­ter how fucked up and mis­guid­ed they are. But white people’s feel­ings become facts in a sys­tem of white suprema­cy and these “facts” are used to guide social policy.
Story orig­i­nat­ed here :Black America’s “gaslight” night­mare: The psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare being waged against Black Lives Matter