Cleveland Black Lives Matter boycotts anti-Trump protest at RNC

The Cleveland chapter of Black Lives Matter announced they would boycott the demonstration on Monday at the Republican National Convention because liberal activists have hijacked the movement and are exploiting the deaths of young black men at the hands of police.

Washington Times:

“They talk about uniting to end poverty but what they are really interested in is solidifying their political power to advance their agenda,” Mr. Mixon told The Washington Times.

Mr. Mixon blamed black voters for allowing the Democratic Party and its allies take their votes for granted, which he said propitiates the imbalance in the justice system.

“Black people have bad voting habits. We just vote for anybody who has a ‘D’ next to their name,” said Mr. Mixon, whose group endorsed Republican Sen. Rob Portman in the state’s U.S. Senate race.

The boycott exposed rifts within the national coalition of liberal groups operating with Black Lives Matter movement, which has faced increasing criticism amid deadly attacks on police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Mr. Mixon defended the national movement, saying the attack on police were the product of frustration in the black community over decades of injustice by police and courts.

“Some people believe the only way to bring justice is with a sniper rifle,” he said. “If the justice system did its job, black people would be safer and police officers would be safer.”

The demonstration on the opening day of the Republican convention was dubbed “United Clevelanders Against Poverty” and was put together by Organize Ohio.

Mr. Mixon said the advocacy groups do not support black communities.

“We are boycotting the protest because the people who started the protests are people in segregated unions and segregated communities,” he said.

This should have been obvious once George Soros began funding the BLM movement:

Pro-Democrat donors have been linked to groups affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement since anti-police rioting and protests launched after the August 2014 death of black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

The case fell apart after the Justice Department cleared the white police officer who fatally shot the 18-year-old Brown. The movement might have petered out but for millions of dollars from pro-Democrat funders such as billionaire George Soros.

The founder of the Open Society Foundations, Mr. Soros spent $33 million in one year on groups that descended on Ferguson and helped transform a local crime story into a national cause celebre, as reported by The Washington Times’ Kelly Riddell.

Both Open Society and the Democracy Alliance, the richest political fundraising arm of the left, provide funds to Color of Change, a prominent group within the Black Lives Matter coalition that doesn’t pull punches.

Four days after the Dallas rampage that left five officers dead, Color of Change issued a press release accusing police of “terrorizing Black communities.”

Soros is all about advancing a far-left agenda, not the agenda of Black Lives Matter.  Mr. Mixon is one of the few activists who realize this and resents the takeover of BLM by hard-left political organizers.

Mixon is definitely a minority within the BLM movement, but it's significant that there is this kind of dissension at all.  Mixon's group plans to participate in demonstrations on Wednesday and Thursday, but in the name of social justice issues like poverty rather than police targeting black people.  Meanwhile, the backlash against Black Lives Matter could end up giving the election to Donald Trump in November.

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