Sherrilyn Ifill: When White America Offloads its Failures on to Civil Rights Movements

[Nevilledog]

https://sherrilyn.substack.com/p/a-response-to-conor-friedersdorf?sd=pf

This was supposed to be a Twitter thread - a response to the recent newsletter in the Atlantic written by Conor Friedersdorf in which he announces that “the Black Lives Matter approach” to ending police violence against Black people “has largely failed.” https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/01/public-outrage-hasnt-improved-policing/672840/ His post contrasts the muted public reaction to the recent killing of Keenan Anderson at the hands of the LAPD in early January, with the outpouring and response to the video of the murder of George Floyd. And he correctly notes that police killings have continued and even increased according to some studies.

But now that the video of the brutal and savage murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis has also been released, and the 5 officers (all Black) charged, what I have to say cannot be managed in a Twitter thread. Because I suspect that many white people - and perhaps Black people as well - will ask as Friedersdorf does: “What happened to national outrage over police killings?” And perhaps like Friedersdorf they will even take the step to conclude after viewing this latest horror, that the demand to end police violence - “the Black Lives Matter approach” has failed.

And this, the willingness to cast the failure of white people to effectively confront and contain the manifestations of violent white supremacy as Black civil rights failure, deserves a strong response.

Black Lives Matter was first a call to action, a statement of demand for respect for our humanity first made prominent on social media by Black women activists after the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida - not by a police officer, but by a random racist man who imagined himself part of a “neighborhood watch.” Black Lives Matter also became the rallying cry and social media hashtag for Black people protesting around the country after seeing the video of police officers killing Eric Garner in New York, and after protests erupted in Ferguson, Missouri following the killing of Mike Brown by a police officer. The phrase “Black Lives Matter” moved around the world as the videos of subsequent murders ignited a firestorm of attention and outrage about police violence in the U.S. Indeed journalists and politicians have used “Black Lives Matter” as a shorthand for the larger civil rights ecosystem that has worked to end police brutality - from traditional civil rights organization to the more radical Movement for Black Lives - even when expressly asked not to do so. https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/BLM

*snip*

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