Read on Twitter
One way to promote white supremacy is to spread false rumors that anyone who opposes it is the devil. Here's some J. Edgar Hover, Joe McCarthy-style canceling from Senator Marsha Blackburn:
(a thread) https://twitter.com/MarshaBlackburn/status/1282772805315174402
(a thread) https://twitter.com/MarshaBlackburn/status/1282772805315174402
Black Lives Matter is the insistence that black lives *should* matter, and an attempt to raise awareness that black lives *do not* matter right now. Black people are murdered and there are no consequences for their killers
Police harass, intimidate, beat, frame, and kill black people, and there are no consequences for the police. Prosecutors and judges put black people in jail without evidence or trial. All of this is in stark contrast to the fact that police generally just leave white people alone
That they also don't arrest white people for things they arrest black people for, don't beat them in situations they beat black people, don't shoot them in situations they shoot black people
That prosecutors and judges mete out much more lenient punishments for similarly-situated white people, if they get punished at all.
Here is a post from Trayvon Martin's mother, timestamped just hours before Marsha Blackburn's message: https://twitter.com/SybrinaFulton/status/1282689772742496259
Here is a post from Trayvon Martin's mother, timestamped just hours before Marsha Blackburn's message: https://twitter.com/SybrinaFulton/status/1282689772742496259
`The Federalist` made an even more devastating claim about Black Lives Matter advocates last week:
"infiltrating the understructure of our educational system..school systems across the country are indoctrinating our children to achieve Marxist objectives" https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/08/black-lives-matter-in-public-schools-is-turning-kids-into-little-marxists/
"infiltrating the understructure of our educational system..school systems across the country are indoctrinating our children to achieve Marxist objectives" https://thefederalist.com/2020/07/08/black-lives-matter-in-public-schools-is-turning-kids-into-little-marxists/
It's a good political move for the right. By accusing the opponents of white supremacy of having a secret mission of reorganizing society on Marxist principles, the right panders to the segregationists and other overt, avowed, and aware white supremacists
while also courting the people in the middle who have no idea what the white supremacists and the people who oppose white supremacy are fighting about. The first group has formed the Republican base since at least the Reagan era,
and pandering to them continues the Southern Strategy that has won the Republican Party several presidential elections, huge numbers of federal judges...
(a) https://newrepublic.com/article/156855/republican-party-took-supreme-court
(b) https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/24/politics/trump-200-judicial-appointments-cory-wilson/index.html
(a) https://newrepublic.com/article/156855/republican-party-took-supreme-court
(b) https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/24/politics/trump-200-judicial-appointments-cory-wilson/index.html
and utter domination of the Supreme Court: https://twitter.com/lawrencehurley/status/1178698602463543304
The justices have delivered, giving corporations unlimited, secret political power in Citizens United; giving police even greater immunity from the consequences of their actions than before, e.g.: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-police-immunity-scotus/
The latter is an example of what the segregationists want, but it's not new that they're winning: despite some setbacks, they've been winning round after round in the areas of labeling blacks as criminals and incarcerating them and limiting their voting power since the late 1860s
and round after round in the area of defunding their schools since the late 1970s
TOUGH ON CRIME is how the Republican party has forced the Democrats to go along with the segregationists and create a racial caste system in America. It's won election after election, and pushed ambitious Democrats like Bill Clinton to join in
both in labeling black people as criminals, and in locking them up in numbers that demolish swaths of American life. It's a rallying cry for segregationists, who buy assault rifles to shoot the black men they imagine are coming for their wives and daughters
And it's a business opportunity for them and people who at least get along with them
Private prisons are probably the biggest part of that business opportunity. Republicans are all about privatizing prisons. Lots of people can get in on the profit, from the corporations who can run the Party thanks to Citizens United https://www.quora.com/Do-judges-own-stock-in-private-for-profit-prison-in-the-US
to the judges who sentence the prisoners. But it's also gun sales. And also the cheapest legal labor in the United States. The second-cheapest is employing felons at minimum wage after they get out https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2017/08/a-federal-judge-put-hundreds-of-immigrants-behind-bars-while-her-husband-invested-in-private-prisons/
Not only do corporations have to pay them little for their work, but government pays the corporations to do it:
"Firms including those in the technology and food industries are often provided tax incentives to contract prison labor, commonly at below market rates...
"Firms including those in the technology and food industries are often provided tax incentives to contract prison labor, commonly at below market rates...
"...The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) serves as a federal tax credit that grants employers $2,400 for every work-release employed inmate. 'Prison in-sourcing' has grown in popularity as an alternative to outsourcing work to countries with lower labor costs...
"A wide variety of companies such as Whole Foods, McDonald's, Target, IBM, Texas Instruments, Boeing, Nordstrom, Intel, Wal-Mart, Victoria's Secret, Aramark, AT&T, BP, Starbucks, Microsoft, Nike, Honda, Macy's and Sprint and many more actively participated...
"in prison in-sourcing throughout the 1990s and 2000s"
--Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States
--Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States
It's the business-side and its influence on government that has pushed some black activists toward Marxist ideology. If you live in a racial caste system, and you are--or someone you know is--imprisoned and forced into slave labor,
and the political forces that make this happen are vast-majority-funded by the corporations that are the heroes of the Republican Party, and the political and economic language they use is all about capitalism and "freedom" and the rights of these corporations being paramount...
imagine decades of that generation after generation, with both the government and private citizens harassing and killing black people who don't go along, and white people saying the perpetrators of that (physical, lethal) violence are upstanding citizens who never bother anyone
and that they don't understand what the problem is with these black people.
I think the other force that has pushed some black activists toward Marxism has nothing to do with ideology at all and isn't an idea-based appeal
I think the other force that has pushed some black activists toward Marxism has nothing to do with ideology at all and isn't an idea-based appeal
It's simply availability/willingness with regard to training in organizing and tactics for political change. Segregationists aren't lining up to help oppressed black people gain the rights of citizenship. A small number of Marxists probably are
So it helps the segregationists and their panderers that they can point to some basis in fact. They have a video of Patrisse Cullors saying she's a "trained Marxist"
That's enough to convince a lot of white people who want to believe it that her goal isn't for black people to gain rights of citizenship, but instead the Marxist overthrow of the federal government. But to anyone who looks closer that claim is obviously false
For example, she has over 99,000 followers on Twitter, where she makes frequent political statements, it's probably the main place she "gets her message out." Look at her public statements there: @OsopePatrisse
The number of times they have included the words "marx", "marxism", "marxist", or "socialism" is a cumulative zero. Here are links to all the searches for proof:
https://twitter.com/search?q=marx%20(from%3AOsopePatrisse)&src=typed_query
https://twitter.com/search?q=marxism%20(from%3AOsopePatrisse)&src=typed_query
https://twitter.com/search?q=marxist%20(from%3AOsopePatrisse)&src=typed_query
https://twitter.com/search?q=socialism%20(from%3AOsopePatrisse)&src=typed_query
https://twitter.com/search?q=marx%20(from%3AOsopePatrisse)&src=typed_query
https://twitter.com/search?q=marxism%20(from%3AOsopePatrisse)&src=typed_query
https://twitter.com/search?q=marxist%20(from%3AOsopePatrisse)&src=typed_query
https://twitter.com/search?q=socialism%20(from%3AOsopePatrisse)&src=typed_query
If you browse through her statements there, the first thing you'll see is that she's also defending herself from accusations that all the money donated to BLM goes to the DNC (false: they just use the same payment processing company)
It's an effective political tactic by the right: make a lot of false accusations (Marxist, corrupt, violent, etc.) about your political opponent to paint them as awful in every way.
Another thing you'll notice is that she is talking about black people getting killed by police
Another thing you'll notice is that she is talking about black people getting killed by police
and campaigning to "defund the police." She has called for reallocating some money from police departments to other social services that aren't primarily engaged in the business of killing and incarcerating
In a stunningly incomplete understanding of economics, because it involves "reallocating", some people on the right believe that is evidence of Marxism as well. Just the word "reallocating"...
I'm sure Patrisse Cullors isn't perfect. But she isn't any of the things Senator Marsha Blackburn, "The Federalist", and the rest of what the GOP accuse her of
And Black Lives Matter isn't the 501(3)(c) she speaks for. It's an idea that she is not the chief spokesperson for. That's still George Floyd, and he's still dead.
