This piece is not about the notion that black lives matter. Virtually everybody supports the phrase ‘black lives matter,’ because they do. This is not the topic in question, and those who try to make it so are engaging in straw man arguments. Let us lay to rest that the question of black lives mattering is not, nor has ever been, in play. This is about the movement, and the organization it is attached to, the Movement for Black Lives, and the negative effects it has had on the black community.

According to the Gallup Center on Black Voices, 81% of black Americans either want to retain police presence, or want more. Only 19% of black Americans want less police presence. That statistic is very interesting, considering that polls from the same source show that only 19% of black people have confidence in the police. One fairly obvious way those two seemingly disparate statistics are actually congruent with each other is that in many cities, including my hometown of Stockton, California, one of our biggest complaints about the police is that they don’t come fast enough when called; that sometimes, police don’t show up for up to two hours, if they show up at all. In my city, that has a lot to do with the fact that our police officers were reduced by a third in 2010, after a former mayor cut $14 million from the department. The reduction was felt across the city as crime drastically increased in the subsequent years and Stockton set new records for most homicides in 2011 and 2012. When the cuts were made, it was so dire that Stockton PD officers had to reluctantly let the city know that they could no longer guarantee our safety. This was true for many cities struggling with crime within those few years, particularly Detroit, MI. Budgets were cut and crime increased. Among the lack of confidence in the police department by a majority of black people, there is a significant number of those who do so because of the lack of police presence. As many in my city expressed, we lacked confidence, not in their ability to do their job, but in their ability to show up.

Another position BLM takes is to end all charter schools. This has been a position BLM along with other notable groups have officially taken since 2016, despite mounting evidence that the majority of black and brown families support charter schools and favor them over their local public schools. The vast majority of black and Hispanic American parents are pro-school choice, as many know that being able to choose the kind of education their child receives may give their child a better chance of performing well. In California, 75% of black boys in the public-school system cannot read at grade level. These staggering statistics stretch across the country, and parents see the need for having the freedom to choose a better way for their kids. Ending charter schools would not only do nothing to help minority communities, it will hurt them. If anything, BLM is much more aligned with white Democrats than they are with black people.

The alignment does not end with white Democrats. BLM and M4BL founder Patrisse Cullors admits in an interview that she and her two cofounder colleagues are “trained Marxists.” Because of this admission, BLM’s official positions should be viewed through that broader lens. Researcher and business analyst Lipton Matthews breaks down in an op-ed why BLM’s opposition to both capitalism and the nuclear family is incredibly problematic and contrary to the core values of the broader black community, as is Marxism itself. M4BL writes:

“We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and villages that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”

Matthews responds in the op-ed:

“Those unfamiliar with Marxism may be puzzled at this seemingly random opposition to the nuclear family. Deeper introspection, however, reveals that the BLM organization’s outlook is quite consistent with Marxism.”

“Marxists view the living arrangement of the ‘extended family’ as more conducive to fostering collectivism, since it requires conformity to successfully facilitate production. On the other hand, the traditional, two-parent nuclear family is depicted as an insidious invention of capitalism, responsible for displacing the communalism of the extended family.”

For the uninitiated, Marxism is communism, and it is a system in which the government owns all property and distributes as it sees fit. It is a system that has proven to fail time and time again, yet proponents of it continue to infiltrate free societies to romanticize and promote it. The millions of people who have fled communist regimes have much wisdom to offer those of us who think the teachings of Karl Marx are a good thing, but unfortunately, their voices are not elevated like the ones preaching it to the masses. Marxism tends to dress itself in words like “freedom,” “liberation,” or “revolution” to attract young minds. The bitter irony is that Marxism is literally the opposite of those words. There is nothing inherently wrong with “it takes a village to raise a child,” but a strong nuclear family is also very important and can work hand-in-hand with the village. BLM’s opposition to the nuclear family is pointed and deliberate. 

Witchcraft is another aspect of Black Lives Matter; invoking spirits of dead civil rights leaders and other black people killed. This comes from the leadership of BLM who admit to ancient African and Eastern pagan rituals of conjuring up spirits and praying to certain pagan gods. This aspect of BLM may not mean much to non-Christian blacks, but as of 2020, 79% of black Americans identify as Christian, and the bible prohibits witchcraft and the occult of any kind; yet the messages of BLM seem to have made its way into many mainstream churches -- black and otherwise.

Two of the most important reasons why BLM has made its way into churches is because:

• Many mainstream churches have embraced liberation theology, which is an anti-biblical movement that makes Jesus into a radical political revolutionary seeking to overthrow the rich rather than G-d incarnate who came to save humanity from eternal death. 
• Mainstream churches are unaware of the witchcraft that underlies BLM.

Again, this is not a discussion about whether or not black lives matter; that discussion tends to be a binary distraction from the deeper threat that BLM poses to the black community. But one does not have to take my word for it; go to a black church. Step into a low-income black neighborhood. Ask black people how they feel about the issues raised here. I guarantee you the answers you will receive will be much more disparate than the leadership of BLM would have you think. While some may say BLM’s tactics are necessary, there are a great deal of us who believe that not only are they not necessary, they will hold us back.

That is exactly what any movement will do to us so long as they use cultural Marxism as their guiding principles: they will set us back. Black Lives Matter is a loud minority, and it is time for the quiet majority to speak out. It is the only way that we can move forward.

Image: konkarampelas, Pixabay