Do all black lives really matter? Before the indignation causes an embolism, consider the following:
Most of us attending to the news have heard the name David Dorn, and remember that he was a 77-year-old black police captain gunned down on Martin Luther King boulevard in St. Louis in late May by a looter wanting to steal a television from his friend’s store.
We might even recognize the name Lucy Hosley, a 69-year-old black woman whose Bronx shop was pillaged by looters during the height of riots following protests over the death of George Floyd.
But how about Cincere Joiner? Not so much, right? Because Mr. Joiner, a young black man, was just one of eleven black men murdered in Chicago in the seven days beginning on June second. Does anyone know the name of another victim during the period? Certainly not from the news; the media couldn’t care less about these black lives. They’re just part of the background noise in the charnel house that is Chicago.
So now let’s really think about the question.
Captain Dorn’s black life didn’t matter a whit to the young black thug intent on robbery. To him, Captain Dorn’s black life was an impediment to getting what he wanted.
Ms. Hosley’s black life didn’t matter to the vandals who smashed and cleaned out the store that was her livelihood. Her black life was irrelevant to those drunk on the sheer nihilistic joys of smashing and taking under the cover of mass protests proclaiming “Black Lives Matter.”
And Mr. Joiner’s black life mattered not at all to the murderer who gunned him down at 4.19 in the afternoon of June 9. A murderer who, statistically at least, was probably black as well.
Was Captain Dorn’s black life celebrated by “Black Lives Matter,” and his death at the hands of criminals protested? Was Mr. Joiner’s? Was the violence done to Lucy Hosley’s black life excoriated by the megaphone-wielding demagogues of BLM and their fellow agitators?
We all know they weren’t. To those leading the mob, these were unpersons, not worthy of mention. Those victimized by the mob can never be celebrated. Those whose deaths were personal tragedies or random crimes without an element of exploitable outrage were useless. To these demagogues only politically useful black lives matter, alive or dead – as we have all known consciously or not for some time now. Given the time to think, we understand that it is not the black lives, but the opportunities for power, that push this whole process forward. Which is why the changes demanded must be undertaken immediately – before we have time to think.
It’s now time to point this reality out – while there’s still some shreds of reason left.
