Last Wednesday in Chicago, four 18-year-olds allegedly kidnapped a special needs man. In a Facebook Live video, the man endures outrageous physical and verbal abuse at the hands of his abductors. The incident is incredibly alarming: that four individuals would commit such acts against anyone, but especially someone who is already vulnerable, is unacceptable.
However, far-right Twitter users have taken this incident, and the actions of four individuals, and turned it into something much more, given that the perpetrators are black and the victim is white. Branding it as the #BLMKidnapping, the far-right is making it seem as though the Black Lives Matter movement, as a whole, is to blame for what happened. Over the past two and a half years, it has been seen time and time again that "outliers" justify their actions under or because of the Black Lives Matter name. But these outliers do not represent the movement, and lead activists do not condone violence: not in protests, not against police officers, and not against individuals.
Image by Devin Allen
The far-right is eager to portray Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organization, one that hates white people and police officers and wants to Make Our Country More "PC" And Take Away My Freedom of Speech. But for a group of people that scream "All Lives Matter" from behind their keyboards, the far-right has done an excellent job of missing the true atrocity of this crime: the violation of the victim. As #BLMKidnapping trended on Twitter, users focused on calling the incident a "domestic terrorist attack," demonizing an entire race and blaming Black Lives Matter. For a demographic that champions white lives as being just as endangered as black lives, they certainly have dropped the ball in regards to caring about the assault victim.
The Black Lives Matter movement is not anti-police, it is not a hate group, it is not a terrorist organization, it is not threatening white people's rights. While all lives do matter, African Americans are killed by police at a rate of 3x than white people, and that's the reason why this movement exists. Black people are consistently killed at higher rates, incarcerated at higher rates, and indisputably disenfranchised in society--and not because they don't "work hard" or are "thugs" or "violent." It's because the United States was founded on racism, and that racism has become one of the pillars of our nation. That is why Black Lives Matter is so important: because all lives can't matter until black lives matter, too.
But even with this explanation, the far-right is too caught up in the idea of having a KKK-equivalent. In a very misconstrued and disheartening mindset, they want to create a balance of white-and-black hate groups. The far-right has missed the point of Black Lives Matter, and is missing the point of their so-called #BLMKidnapping. To say that this isn't about race would be false--the perpetrators can be heard shouting, "F**k white people"--however the kidnapping was not about Black Lives Matter. To continue referring to this isolated crime as the #BLMKidnapping is to pin individuals' actions on African Americans as a whole. That's like if we suddenly started portraying Dylann Roof as the poster child for white people.
But the far-right is so caught up in their racism and bigotry that they would probably display that poster child with pride.
