Black Lives Matter Organizer Says Destruction of Property is “Not Violence”

From George Floyd Protests to Black Lives Matter Protests

One of the defining events of 2020 is, without a doubt, the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis Police. The viral video of George Floyd saying “I can’t breathe” and begging for his mother while Officer Derek Chauvin held Mr. Floyd down with a knee to his neck for several minutes ignited protests around the globe.

Two organizations that have exploited the outrage to great effect are Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA. While both of these groups have existed in the United States for several years, in 2020 they’ve moved to new heights of political significance. Several weeks later, the Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA protests still continue to disrupt and lay waste to America’s major cities.

The mainstream media appear to be going to great pains to portray the Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA protests as peaceful, despite ongoing reports on social media of rioting, destruction and violence perpetrated by the protesters against innocent people. While the widespread support of big corporations, celebrities, most of the legacy media and many elected officials should give one pause as to the authenticity and true purpose of such a “grassroots movement”, recent statements by one Minneapolis BLM organizer warrants closer attention then it has received.

Burning Cars, Breaking Glass, Splitting Hairs

In a podcast interview with the independent watchdog news site MintPress News, Monique Cullars Doty, a local organizer for the Black Lives Matter Twin Cities Metro and greater Minnesota region and the Twin Cities Coalition for Jamar Clark, claims that the mainstream media is painting the protests across the nation as “getting violent”. Obviously I disagree with her characterization of the mainstream media’s portrayal of the protests, but more importantly in this interview the BLM organizer follows up this claim by stating, matter-of-factly, that “breaking cars, burning cars . . . breaking glass windows, spray-painting . . . aren’t acts of violence.”

terrorism: the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes – Dictionary.com

She then goes on to make a distinction between acts against inanimate objects and acts against living creatures, claiming that only acts against living creatures can be acts of violence. This statement begins at 5:06 minutes of the podcast (linked at the end of this article) and her entire statement on the subject is transcribed here:

As far as reporting our protests getting violent, breaking cars, burning cars, breaking, uh breaking glass windows, spray-painting; those aren’t acts of violence. Right? Acts of violence are acts that are committed against living beings. Whether humans, animals, those are acts of violence. We’re not going to have acts of violence against inanimate objects, right? Building and structures. So, often they’ll say protests have become violent. No, they have become destructive, which some people may consider that constructive because some times you have to tear things down in order to rebuild them.

Aside from the fact that the mainstream media is downplaying the violence on display by these protests, you might be inclined to dispute the BLM organizer’s interpretation of the term “violence”. But if you really think about it, what this statement really means is much more important.

Are these protests about oppression against black lives or really about something else?

In my humble opinion, the BLM organizer’s statement above is intended to do two things. The first is to downplay the violent destruction being imparted on the people and the cities where Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA are protesting. And that’s without getting into the fact that there have been several instances of both threatened and actual physical violence by BLM/ANTIFA protesters against innocent people.

The second purpose of splitting hairs between violence against people and destruction of property is to distract from, or preempt any discussion of, what the real intent behind “breaking cars, burning cars . . . breaking glass windows, spray-painting” by BLM/ANTIFA protesters is. Before even getting to any discussion about the acts of violence against innocent people, just the “destructive” acts that the BLM organizer suggests are “constructive” are being committed for one reason.

Are these “constructive” destructive acts being carried out to seek “justice” for black people who died at the hands of the police? In response to the protests, police department budgets have been slashed in major cities and all of the officers involved in these recent shootings have been terminated and/or are under criminal investigation. Furthermore, cases like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks are not as clear cut as they are being portrayed by the mainstream narrative, if you’re inclined to take a closer look.

So then is the goal of the continuing protest riots to “defeat racism”? Long before George Floyd, Americans were already increasingly walking on eggshells from fear of offending this or that group and facing the wrath of “cancel culture”. Companies and public officials are now openly racist against whites, particularly white males. Furthermore, the United States had its first black male president serve two terms and American black culture dominates popular music and entertainment. Are these the hallmarks of a society that is oppressing black people?

Is the never-ending violent destruction of businesses and lives, where many American blacks call home, really justified? Or is there another reason?

Personally, I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that the ongoing mayhem is simply about outrage over George Floyd or about “seeking justice” or “defeating racism”. If you listen to the entire podcast interview, Margaret Kimberly of the Black Agenda Report who also participated in the interview, comments on what appears to be the real thrust behind all of the well-organized, never-ending protest rioting. At 30:00 minutes into the interview, Kimberly states that “we have to fight for . . . socialism.”

Socialism is an ideology that oppressed and killed millions under the promise of “economic democracy”.

Dictionary.com defines the term “terrorism” as “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes”.

While neither of the proponents of the Black Lives Matter movement in this interview are senators or talking heads on mainstream media, these two people are in positions of some influence in the Black Lives Matter movement. They also appear to think the use of violence “breaking cars, burning cars . . . breaking glass windows, spray-painting” or the threat thereof to intimidate or coerce people for their political purposes is “constructive”.

Do you?

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Resource Links:

• Definition of “terrorism”, Dictionary.com, accessed August 14, 2020
• Podcast: How the Democratic Party Unleashed Decades of Racial Injustice and Police Brutality on Communities of Color, MintPress News, June 19, 2020.