Lefties always have an uphill battle trying to convince normal Americans that their causes are just because most people naturally recoil from their Marxist poison – at least at first. It takes years of non-stop propaganda with the help of the liberal media and entertainment industry for mainstream Americans to swallow the poison, and even then – they don’t get solid majorities. Prime examples – abortion, man-caused global warming, and gay marriage.
Now the noxious swill they’re trying to force down our throats has to do with “white privilege,” and the “national conversation” we’re supposed to be having about police brutality in black communities is designed to advance the notion that blacks – even today – are disadvantaged victims of racial bias. More redistribution of wealth and more reparations may be required to correct this ongoing injustice.
After plucking rare but politically convenient stories from the “nearly endless supply of sad events that occur daily in a nation of 315 million,” as John Hinderaker of Powerline put it, “an unholy alliance of activists and newspaper reporters and editors tries to distort our perception of reality by giving undue emphasis to them.”
Heather Mac Donald writes:
Police killings of blacks are an extremely rare feature of black life and are a minute fraction of black homicide deaths. The police could end all killings of civilians tomorrow and it would have no effect on the black homicide risk, which comes overwhelmingly from other blacks. In 2013, there were 6,261 black homicide victims in the U.S.—almost all killed by black civilians—resulting in a death risk in inner cities that is ten times higher for blacks than for whites. None of those killings triggered mass protests; they are deemed normal and beneath notice. The police, by contrast, according to published reports, kill roughly 200 blacks a year, most of them armed and dangerous, out of about 40 million police-civilian contacts a year. Blacks are in fact killed by police at a lower rate than their threat to officers would predict. In 2013, blacks made up to 42 percent of all cop killers whose race was known, even though blacks are only 13 percent of the nation’s population. The percentage of black suspects killed by the police nationally is 29 percent lower than the percentage of blacks mortally threatening them.
Meanwhile, the very real epidemics of black on black and black on white violence are essentially ignored by the media. The “national conversation” America should be having on race should begin with addressing the problems of long-term dependence on government, broken families, lack of (more specifically rejection of) education, gangs, crime, and the drug culture that destroy black communities.
But no. The national conversation the left – and that includes our president and attorney general – wants us to have on race is about white privilege, police brutality, and black victimization.
That’s a tough sell when their black “victims” all turn out to be criminals who resisted arrest and/or threatened police officers – the latest poster boy actually pointing his gun at a cop. They are literally asking us to protest the shooting of an armed black thug who was pointing his weapon at a police officer. I mean, come on.
(By the way, the word “thug” is not an inherently racist word. It has an actual definition that is race-neutral: THUG: “a cruel or vicious ruffian, robber, or murderer.” I’ll use it in a sentence: “The 300 pound teenage thug strong-arm robbed a convenience store, pushing the smaller clerk around like a rag-doll.”
It does not apply to every black male, including black males who peacefully protest what they perceive to be police brutality. It applies to anyone – black or white – who engages in violent criminal behavior.)
When the truth isn’t convenient to the narrative, narrative enhancements become necessary. It wasn’t a gun in Berkeley Missouri, it was an iphone. In the Michael Brown case, he wasn’t a black thug who just robbed a convenience store, assaulted a cop, and was shot as he charged at him – he was a “gentle giant” who was surrendering with his arms up in the air and was gunned down by an evil, racist brute. In the Eric Garner case, an honest case can be made that excessive police force was used (it certainly looks so from the tape) – but a case cannot be made that incident had anything to do with race. Because (for the millionth time) – the cop overseeing the arrest was a black female sergeant.
So after cherry picking “man-bites-dog” stories and lying about them, the shock troops of the organized left are mobilized to protest. Oh goodie.
And here’s where the uphill battle becomes a bit rougher for them. Because (just between you and me) left-wing shock troops are made up of repulsive cretins who repel normal, decent people. The truth can be sanitized by the media and entertainment industries in good time, but with instant news sources – like twitter and blogs – the unsanitized version gets out there first. And the protesters are currently doing things that cannot/will not win them friends or influence people.
For instance, demonstrators in Oakland, California, broke store windows and trashed a public Christmas tree during a Christmas march protesting police shootings.
The SFGate news website reported that the 50 protesters were “largely peaceful” but a few bad apples “broke store windows in downtown Oakland late on Thursday, looted a liquor store and pulled ornaments and lights off the Christmas tree.”
If you read the comments at the Yahoo link, you’ll find no supporters of the “protesters” in Oakland – only people sick and tired of hearing about this crap.
This is what the “largely peaceful” march looked like:
You might ask why the “peaceful protesters” didn’t immediately leave the march and disassociate themselves from the vandals, instead on continuing to march on in tacit approval of it. You might also ask why the liberal media is always so quick point out the “mostly peaceful” nature of these left-wing protests even when they end up with broken windows and looted stores. It almost looks like they’re trying to shield their fellow travelers from criticism in order to protect their shared precious narrative.
Tea party protests, of course, never got such preferential treatment. The MSM made a point of ferreting out the one or two questionable signs (out of thousands) in an attempt to smear the entire movement. There was never any violence at tea party rallies. There were never any arrests. And unlike their counterparts on the left – they never left a mess. Because the normal, decent people who make up the tea party aren’t violent, abusive, hypocritical slobs like leftists are.
Here’s another example via Gateway Pundit of another narrative fail for the left: PROTESTERS PLAN MARCH & RALLY in Brooklyn During Funeral of Slain Officer Rafael Ramos:
“This is par for the course,” the Rev. Michael A. Walrond Jr. told protesters after a march through Harlem on Sunday, the day after the officers were killed. “You were called for such a time as this. Don’t get tired. Don’t get weary.”
Indeed, though some groups were willing to stand down, others balked. Along with the protest on Sunday, led by Justice League NYC, a demonstration was held on Tuesday along Fifth Avenue. Another protest is to take place in Brooklyn on Saturday, the day of the funeral for Officer Ramos.
Now even commie Mayor De Blasio is in the unenviable position of having to denounce his precious snowflake fellow travelers because he can see that their tactics aren’t helping “the cause.”
Despite Mayor Bill de Blasio’s pleas for a temporary truce as the city prepares to bury two slain police officers, hundreds of anti-police-brutality protesters took to the city’s streets last night—a move the mayor today called “deeply divisive.”
“Two families are in deep pain and our NYPD family is in mourning. As I have said, it’s deeply divisive to hold political protests during this period of remembrance,” Mr. de Blasio said in a statement today.
The mayor has repeatedly called on protesters to stand down after the brutal murder of police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, who were gunned down by a man who posted online he was seeking revenge for the police-related deaths of unarmed black men Michael Brown and Eric Garner in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, respectively.
Left-wing agitators never fail to appall normal, decent people when they are in the spotlight. Unlike cockroaches, who at least have the decency to scatter when the light’s turned on – leftists just keep being their gross, abhorrent selves.
But don’t worry – their more sophisticated fellow travelers in the media and entertainment industry will sanitize the ugliness all in good time. They will portray all the problems in black communities as someone else’s fault.
As always, the narrative that wins out will be the one that that does the most harm.
UPDATE:
Via Weasel Zippers: #BlackLivesMatter Crazies Try To Block St. Louis Airport:
Another way they’re not winning hearts and minds.
https://twitter.com/DefendWallSt/status/548618675335749632
And another: Bomb Threat Tweeted to Jet Blue After Offer to Send Police to NYPD Officer’s Funeral
And another: Eric Garner’s Daughter Claims Police ‘Set up’ Her Retweet of NYC Cop’s Home Address
And another: Students Rally Around Peer With ‘No Sympathy’ For Dead Cops At $60,000-A-Year Brandeis.
Nice Deb 