Last week, Julie Pace of the Associated Press was on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baer. She made a statement that stopped me in my tracks. (I seem to be doing a lot of that lately.) She said, “Black Lives Matter has gone mainstream.”

I asked myself what she could possibly have meant, and when I did a little research, I realized the insidious nature of her comment, and how we are in the process of making Black Lives Matter a mainstream movement.

And we are in deep trouble.

In this post, I’ll describe briefly the history of BLM, how and why it has changed, and how America is naively and foolishly supporting the BLM agenda.

When BLM formed seven years ago as an outgrowth of the Trayvon Martin killing, it was seen as a divisive and radical force. They were dangerous to our country and were heavily criticized, particularly because many people, both black and white, insisted that “All Lives Matter.”

Gradually, BLM realized that its blatant attacks on the rule of law were working against it. Then they saw that the highly publicized deaths of black men at the hands of the police as an opportunity to highlight what they called “systemic racism.”

‘When we started Black Lives Matter, it was really to have a larger conversation around this country about its relationship to black people,’ said Patrisse Cullors, one of three black women who founded the Black Lives Matter Global Network, with chapters throughout the U.S. and in Britain and Canada. ‘What keeps happening, time and time again, is we’re witnessing black people die on camera, and there is little to no accountability.’

Please note that deaths of police officers didn’t enter into her conversation, nor the high murder rates of black men on black men. But publicly calling for “conversations” rather than violence had a more profound appeal to the wider population.

Thus, people from all sides of the political spectrum were engaged to fight injustice. As emotions escalated, so did the violence and destruction. Entire sections of cities were destroyed; businesses were burned out; even more people lost their jobs following the job losses caused by the coronavirus.

Instead of condemning this lawlessness, Trevor Noah, for one, justified it:

‘Try to imagine how it must feel for black Americans when they watch themselves being looted every single day,’ he said. ‘Because that’s fundamentally what’s ‘happening in America. Police in America are looting black bodies.’
Noah, who hails from South Africa, said black lives are valued less than white lives in America.

‘If you kill a white person especially in America, there’s a whole lot more justice that is coming your way than if you killed some black body in a black neighborhood somewhere.’

You can find a list of media types and politicians who justified or downplayed the violence.

So, we have BLM shifting their strategy in order to engage the public in their efforts to “create a conversation.” They remind people, however, that they shouldn’t try to take over the BLM message:

Like many black activists, Sakira Cook is pleased by such developments but also cautious. She and others worry that businesses and politicians will hijack the slogan without any real commitment to doing the hard work needed to fight racism.

‘Black Lives Matter is not just a rallying cry,’ said Cook, director of the Justice Reform Program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

‘It actually means you have to start to interrogate the systemic racism and inequalities that exist in our society and help to dismantle them. You must make sure you’re not co-opting this for your own purposes.’

What are the strategies built into this agenda?

• Police departments are marching arm-in-arm with BLM members at their protests.
• No BLM leader has emerged condemning the violence, destruction and looting.
• Recommendations to “defund” police departments are frequently “clarified” to create an illusion of reasonable changes.
• Lawlessness has been approved in cities such as Seattle, where police are banned from a six-block section of the city, and protestors are negotiating for installing utilities.
• Without a central figure leading BLM, no one person can be held accountable for the lawless behavior.

These are only a few of the demands of the BLM leadership.

The worst part of the current BLM movement is that anyone who doesn’t actively support them seems to be tone-deaf to what they are saying and implying, and in many cases are agreeing with their propaganda. In my opinion, these are the points they are making:

• We live in a country of systemic racism.
• As white people, we are guilty of maintaining the racist system.
• Law enforcement behaves in lawless ways without accountability for its racism.
• Black people have been held down, held back, and disadvantaged by the white population which is systemically racist.
• The larger population must compensate the black population for years of racism, which should include reparations.
• Law enforcement must be disempowered or eliminated so that people can live peacefully together.

If Black Lives Matter has become mainstream, they have co-opted our country to create anarchy where they will determine what is rule of law, legitimacy, and who are the winners and losers.

Is anyone listening out there?

Are there ways to take back our country?

By the way, the primary article re-printed by many mainstream media newspapers was written by the Associated Press—Julie Pace’s employer.