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Black Lives Matter Tag

The City of Baltimore has had a rough time over the last couple years. Riots and a high profile legal case, both of which were largely based on race, have dominated headlines. How is the city helped by hiring Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson for $165,000 to run human resources for Baltimore schools? Note how the Baltimore Sun has upgraded McKesson to "civil rights" activist:
Civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson to join new city schools cabinet Civil rights activist and former Baltimore mayoral candidate DeRay Mckesson will return to his old stamping grounds at city school headquarters to lead the district's office of human capital.

Last fall a large group of Dartmouth students who are also Black Lives Matter activists, marched into the school's Baker-Berry Library and caused a disruption. This was no small affair. Campus Reform reported that students in the library who were simply trying to study alleged physical and verbal assaults such as “F*** you, you filthy white f***s!” An investigation was launched, and the Alumni Relations office has now concluded that no punishment is warranted.

The Black Lives Matter movement is angry with Hillary Clinton over Hillary's use of the term "Superpredators" in the 1990s to describe young black male criminals. That term was an integral part of selling the public on tougher criminal sentencing that BLM blames for the current high rates of incarceration for blacks. We covered the issue when a BLM protester confronted her at a fundraiser in late February, Hillary apologizes for stigmatizing generations of young black men as “superpredators”:
It was a chilling speech in 1996. Speaking in favor of a new crime bill, Hillary Clinton used the term “superpredator” to describe young, mostly black, men who were residual criminals. While the term was not literally limited to blacks, it came to signify and justify the mass incarceration of young black men under harsh sentencing laws:

A Toronto-based Black Lives Matter organizer, Yusra Khogali, tweeted about killing, "men and white folks," in February before deleting the tweet and locking her account. According to Newstalk 1010:
Many are now calling for a police investigation, calling the tweet 'hate speech'. There's been no comment from Ali yet, but NEWSTALK 1010 has contacted Black Lives Matter and we've yet to hear a response. Believe it or not, the tweet had five 'likes' before it was removed. Shortly after, Ali locked down her twitter account. But there was even one response that said "praying for ya... to destroy them."

Shutting down major highways as a protest tactic is extremely dangerous. Not only does it create the possibility of car accidents, it also traps motorists behind the road blockage, making it impossible for emergency vehicles or vehicles with people in distress to pass. This tactic was used by anti-Israel protesters who hijacked a Martin Luther King Day protest on the San Mateo Bridge and blocked the span at its highest point, trapping hundreds of motorists. [caption id="attachment_113857" align="alignnone" width="600"]https://twitter.com/farah_salazar/status/558214869648814080 (via Farah Salazar Twitter)[/caption] In that instance, there were in fact motor vehicle accidents and at least one report of a vehicle with a child in medical distress who could not pass.

Protesters have been interrupting quite a few Trump events of late, but none were as "successful" as the one in Chicago.  That multi-pronged, organized and coordinated protest, covered by Professor Jacobson, actually shut down the event.  The progressive left is hailing this as a victory, so we are sure to see more of the same at future Trump events, and because it's perceived as a "victory," at the events of other Republican candidates before too long.  Professor Jacobson also discusses this slippery slope in another post. One report from a Politico writer explains how the organizer and some of his classmates felt in the minutes before the event was cancelled and as the students prepared for their disruption. Politico reports:
Just 50 feet in front of the podium where Trump was scheduled to appear at any moment, Nathaniel Lewis, a 25-year-old African-American graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, had established a beachhead of sorts: a pocket of about three dozen college students and activists. They were ready, too. What Lewis and dozens of his UIC classmates had planned was perhaps bigger—and better organized—than any protest Trump had faced to date. It had been a week in the making, and now everyone was in place: with roughly 2,500 on the street outside and hundreds more inside, including dozens working directly with Lewis. As they waited, the crowd growing loud around them, a few were starting to feel doubts about what they were hoping to do.

It was a chilling speech in 1996. Speaking in favor of a new crime bill, Hillary Clinton used the term "superpredator" to describe young, mostly black, men who were residual criminals. While the term was not literally limited to blacks, it came to signify and justify the mass incarceration of young black men under harsh sentencing laws:
“They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘superpredators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”

You remember Mizzou Prof. Melissa Click, don't you? She's the world's most famous red-headed social warrior professor who gained internet fame for seeking "some muscle" to keep a student journalist away from a Black Lives Matter protest. https://youtu.be/xRlRAyulN4o?t=6m19s Click claimed this was an aberration and that she's not really the wacko she appears to be on the video. The Columbian Missourian reports on the consequences, or lack thereof:
She acknowledged that ordering Schierbecker away from inside a human wall around the camp and calling for “some muscle” was poor judgment.
But Click, who also had joined student protesters during MU's Homecoming parade, didn't rule out protesting with them again; nor did she rule out filing a lawsuit against the UM System Board of Curators, MU or Schierbecker. She said she would not join students in protest if she felt it would endanger others or disrupt an event.

Oberlin College is an institution in turmoil over the past several years, and anti-Israel activism is part of the problem. Now, over 200 alumni are claiming the anti-Israel activism has created a hostile environment for Jews, and the alumni are demanding the college take action to address the problem. The issue of when anti-Israelism crosses into anti-Semitism is a hot topic on campuses recently because of the very aggressive tactics of anti-Israel campus groups, and the intense demonization of Israel. "Intersectionality" analysis is used by anti-Israel activists to try to co-opt the Black Lives Matter movement and other similar movements:
Every real or perceived problem is either blamed on or connected to Israel. The concerted effort to turn the Black Lives Matter movement into an anti-Israel movement has at its core the claim that Israel is the root of problems of non-whites in the United States. Thus, if a police chief somewhere attended a one-week anti-terrorism seminar in Israel years ago, every act of brutality by a cop on the beat is blamed on Israel.
When City University of New York Students for Justice in Palestine, for example, tried to turn the Million Student March into an anti-Israel event and blamed high tuition on Zionists, the CUNY Vice Chancellor called it “thinly-veiled bigotry, prejudice, anti-Semitism.” At Vassar College, SJP circulated a Nazi cartoon after weeks of anti-Israel activism that included picketing a course which involved travel to Israel. Prof. Miriam Elman laid out the history and analysis in Fighting The Hate: When Does Anti-Israel Become Anti-Semitic? As described below, it appears Oberlin may need to go through a similar self-evaluation.

The trend for the BDS movement is to make demonization of Israel the center of the progressive universe through the theory of "intersectionality." Israel is placed at the center of all evil in the world, the unifying focus regardless of the issue:
Every real or perceived problem is either blamed on or connected to Israel. The concerted effort to turn the Black Lives Matter movement into an anti-Israel movement has at its core the claim that Israel is the root of problems of non-whites in the United States. Thus, if a police chief somewhere attended a one-week anti-terrorism seminar in Israel years ago, every act of brutality by a cop on the beat is blamed on Israel. So too, Students for Justice in Palestine protesters in New York City even blamed high tuition on Zionists, leading to rebukes by administrators against such thinly-veiled anti-Semitism. The Jew once again is made the source of all evil, the conspiratorial puppet-master controlling all and responsible for all. And Israel alone receives such treatment and is used as the link to connect all injustices in the world.
This anti-Semitic use of "intersectionality" theory flourishes because a generation of students -- many of whom now are faculty -- have been schooled based on lies about the creation of Israel and the Arab refugees created in the civil war and invasion by Arab armies. In that false narrative, the Jews are wholly evil and the Arabs are wholly innocent.

A rally is planned in Ithaca, NY, for January 9, 2016, against allegedly racist violence by police, specifically the non-indictments in the deaths of Sandra Bland and Tamir Rice, and the deaths of Betty Jones and Quintonio LeGrier. The event is taking place at the Ithaca Commons, a public space in the center of town. Here's part of the description from the public Facebook Event Page:
On December 23rd a grand jury decided not to indict the jailers involed in the death of Sandra Bland. On December 28th a grand jury decided not to indict officer Timothy Leohmman in the extra judical killing of 12-year old Tamir Rice. On December 26th 55 year-old Betty Jones was mistakingly shot and killed by police as she opened her door. Her neighbor 19-year old Quintonio LeGrier was also killed. This is a rally in response to these events and the increasing violence and general terror administered by police towards people of color. The purpose of this rally is as follows: Agitation Mobilization Information
Ithaca Protest Sandra Bland FB Page banner

The Mall of America has gone to court seeking an injunction against Black Lives Matter protesters disrupting shopping at the mall on Christmas Eve day. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports on the hearing held in court today:
With a planned demonstration by Black Lives Matter at the Mall of America less than two days away, a Hennepin County judge on Monday heard arguments over whether the shopping complex has the right to a restraining order against protesters. In its request, the mall named four alleged leaders of Black Lives Matter and asked Judge Karen Janisch to prevent them from encouraging people to demonstrate Wednesday and to take down any social media messages about the event. The mall also wanted Black Lives Matter to post a social-media message canceling the demonstration and to post a copy of the judge’s restraining order, if one is issued.
I'll admit that I'm not up to speed on how 1st Amendment protections apply on a private property that nonetheless operates as a public space, a replacement for Main Street. So I express no opinion on the legalities.

The phrase "All evil in the world must be traced to Israel" is how researcher Nurit Baytch perceptively characterized the propaganda tactics of anti-Israel activist Max Blumenthal. It's a phrase that increasingly characterizes the anti-Israel campus movement. Every real or perceived problem is either blamed on or connected to Israel. The concerted effort to turn the Black Lives Matter movement into an anti-Israel movement has at its core the claim that Israel is the root of problems of non-whites in the United States. Thus, if a police chief somewhere attended a one-week anti-terrorism seminar in Israel years ago, every act of brutality by a cop on the beat is blamed on Israel. So too, Students for Justice in Palestine protesters in New York City even blamed high tuition on Zionists, leading to rebukes by administrators against such thinly-veiled anti-Semitism. The Jew once again is made the source of all evil, the conspiratorial puppet-master controlling all and responsible for all. And Israel alone receives such treatment and is used as the link to connect all injustices in the world. That some of the worst perpetrators are Jewish progressives doesn't change the nature of the attack. Jay Michaelson in The Forward looks to the concept of "intersectionality" to understand why the students behind these seemingly attenuated connections view Israel as tied to everything:

A controversy brewing in St. Louis progressive activist circles sheds light on how the anti-Israel movement’s effort to demonize Israel by hijacking the Black Lives Matter agenda is intensifying. At issue is an offensive poster and cartoon featuring the image of a prominent St. Louis Rabbi Susan Talve. Both were circulated last week on social media by HandsUp United, a “social justice organization” based in Ferguson, Missouri. The anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace is supporting the effort to demonize Rabbi Talve, and the vile anti-Israel cartoonist Carlos Latuff has created a cartoon meme that is spreading. This is all part of an effort to turn Black Lives Matters into an anti-Israel movement, an increasing focus of anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activists.

Targeting St. Louis Rabbi Susan Talve

Rabbi Susan Talve, who leads St. Louis’ Central Reform Congregation, is a well-known and nationally respected figure in St. Louis’ interfaith community and in the Ferguson protest movement. Last year, she was named one of America’s most inspiring rabbis by the Forward. For years she’s taken a leading progressive position on racial issues in the United States. Since the Michael Brown fatal shooting in Ferguson, just outside St. Louis, in August 2014, she’s also voiced opposition to racial profiling and policing policies at numerous public events.

Many campuses are seeing sets of "Demands" issued by students to administrations, often seeking to suppress speech the students deem offensive and to increase faculty and student affirmative action policies and programs. It's not surprising that the Demand movement has come to my alma mater, Hamilton College, in upstate New York. Hamilton at one time focused on the study of core subjects and Western Civilization. Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, multiculturalism took hold of the curriculum as leftist faculty from Kirkland College (which merged with Hamilton when I was a sophomore in the late 1970s) maneuvered into positions of power. The story of how Hamilton was transformed was detailed in my post in December 2012, Western Civilization driven off campus at Hamilton College:

RebelPundit has newly released video footage from deep within the Black Friday protest in Chicago that provides new insight into the character of, and reception in the grassroots black community to college-based "Black Lives Matter" and other organized groups vying for control of their community. Here is the explanation from Rebel Pundit:
When protesters took to Chicago’s Michigan Avenue last week, grassroots activists at the Black Friday boycott had no interest in sharing the Magnificent Mile with “Black Lives Matter” activists from the University of Chicago, forcing protesters associated with the group off the street. While media coverage from the periphery of the march showed images of protesters lined up in front of the high-end stores and reported on a unified movement for “justice” in the police killing of Laquan McDonald, it was anything but. Our footage from the core of the march reveals the contentious and disunited elements vying for control.

Dartmouth College students who are part of the Black Lives Matter movement recently staged a protest which invaded a school library. As we reported yesterday at College Insurrection, some students who were trying to study allege physical assault. Campus Reform has the details:
Dartmouth students lead profane Black Lives Matter protest Black-clad protesters gathered in front of Dartmouth Hall Thursday night, forming a crowd roughly one hundred fifty strong. Ostensibly there to denounce the removal of shirts from a display in Collis, Dartmouth's student center the Black Lives Matter collective began to sing songs and chant their eponymous catchphrase. The band then marched into Baker-Berry Library. “F*** you, you filthy white f***s!” “F*** you and your comfort!” “F*** you, you racist s***!”