www.kenstallings.com
It's time to tell it plain.
The Dallas terror attack on police, where four cops were murdered and nearly a dozen more seriously wounded, has forced the matter to action. It is time to call out Black Lives Matter for what it is, and in the process, discuss a very ironic and tragic piece of historical parallel.
There was a time when there was a false and self-destructive social narrative coursing its way through America, and it had a considerable amount of popular and political support at the highest levels. There was a time where to be a successful politician in America, one had to have associations with the Ku Klux Klan, but it was not during the 1950's era of "Mississippi Burning." Rather, it was during the turn of the 19th century.
The ultimate expression on the popular culture during this era was the virulently racist Hollywood master film producer, D.W. Griffith, and his movie "Birth of a Nation." A more repugnant and lying film one would be hard pressed to find in American history. It totally warped the reality of the era, portraying blacks in America as powerful and evil people, predating on white society. In reality, blacks in America then were quiet and unassuming, primarily out of a motivation to simply stay alive!
But, the influence of the Klan in America back then went much further than merely Hollywood. It found its way to the very top of American political power. President Woodrow Wilson invited Griffith to screen "Birth of a Nation" at the White House, something that had never before taken place. To think! The first film ever to be shown at the White House had to be such a virulently racist piece of propaganda! At the end of the film, Wilson exclaimed, "It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."
Of course, the fix was in from the beginning of the film as Griffith opened the movie with a quote screen of Wilson's comments on the period of time the film exploited. Being that the film was produced in 1915, it was a silent feature, so the quote box was the most powerful way to express a statement. That statement of Wilson's read:
"The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation ... until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect Southern culture."
Again, that quote was from the sitting President of the United States, and used to open the film as shown to the public!
Now, compare that support of the Klan by Wilson to current President Barack Obama's support of Black Lives Matter:
"I think what Black Lives Matter is doing now to bring attention to the problem of a criminal justice system that sometimes is not treating people fairly based on race, or reacting to the shootings of individuals by police officers, has been really effective in bringing attention to problems. I think the reason that the organizers use the phrase 'black lives matter' was not because they were suggesting that no one else's lives matter. Rather, what they were suggesting was there is a specific problem that is happening in the African-American community that isn't happening in other communities. And that is a legitimate issue that we have to address. The African-American community is not just making this up. It's not just something being politicized. This is real"
But, is it real? Or is it just as ugly and false and misleading and self-serving as the phony tripe served up by Woodrow Wilson and D.W. Griffith? In a tragic way, President Obama tells the truth, but wraps it in a misleading and self-destructive false narrative!
The horrifying statistics regarding the degree to which blacks in America carry out violent crime, in a measure far exceeding their population, is stark. However, these federal statistics stopped being published indexed by race in 2008 when Barack Obama took office. The stats regarding police shootings continued to be released indexed by race, even including Hispanics in the tally. But, despite this attempt to silence the truth, we can still glean the truth, and put the present situation into proper context. These are statistics as released by the US Department of Justice. The stats on police shootings are from 2015. The stats on violent crime are from 2008, again the last year such stats were released.
In reality, blacks are responsible for about 47% of all deadly shootings of police officers even though blacks only comprise about 13% of the American population. Whites are responsible for 52% of deadly shootings of police officers. Keep those numbers in mind when considering the 2015 stats regarding police shootings of suspects. Last year 1,001 instances took place where police shot suspects dead. Of those, 502 were white suspects. Only 250 were black, and 163 were Hispanic.
The ugly truth is that despite blacks, as a percentage of population, being nearly four times more likely to shoot dead a cop, police shot dead black suspects less than 25% of the time, or at a rate only twice its population percentage. Again, blacks are four times more likely to shoot a cop dead, but were only twice as likely to be shot dead by a cop! Had the shootings of suspects strictly followed the instance of blacks carrying out violent crime, then the numbers of black shot dead by cops would be about 48% of the total, vice the 25% that it really was.
But, the actual situation is far worse. In truth, in 2008 when the stats were last publicized, blacks were responsible for an astonishing 84.9% of violent crime in America! Again, a group of people numbering only 13% of the American population was responsible for nearly 85% of all violent crime carried out! Not any less tragic, but nevertheless still profound, is that blacks are vastly more likely to murder other blacks than people of other races! Blacks murder blacks at a rate of 40.9% of all murders carried out by blacks. Whites murder blacks in only 3.6% of white shootings! Again, this is despite blacks being only 13% of the American population!
For these hard statistical reasons, the narrative of BLM is a lie that will burn itself out. But, at what price?
What price did America pay for the lying narrative spewed out by D.W. Griffith and Woodrow Wilson? Their children brought forth an ugly chapter to American history, defined by Jim Crow laws, and the Bull Connor police force unleashing fire hoses and dogs on people who were simply peacefully protesting gross inequity in society.
In terms of BLM militants and their self-serving and lying narrative, D.W. Griffith would be standing in his grave and applauding their efforts, until that is, he learned they were black. Then perhaps, Griffith would finally realize for himself what a horrible monster he helped create so many years after his work and death.
The only glimmer of hope is that there is a growing segment of black America who has seen and experienced the reality, and decisively reject this false and self-destructive lie. Through their own personal examples of success in an America that is actually hungry to embrace any citizens who work hard for individual achievement and prosperity, they have seen the corrosive effects of this false and murderous BLM narrative.
One only hopes that their growing numbers can stymie this great lie before America is brought to another horrible tragedy of national rage and violence. What we have already seen is plenty bad enough!
-- Ken Stallings
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