Is Silence Violence

Is Silence Violence

By Bob True

The phrase Silence is Violence has become characteristic of the implied correctness of the Black Lives Matter movement. The Irony is its intention is to silence other voices that might question the movement or its motives.

The idea that blacks are being systematically and intentionally targeted for demise as Black Lives Matters claims, has no basis in fact. So often we see the number of blacks killed by cops related to the number of whites killed by cops, with a comparison stating that blacks are disproportionately being killed by cops. Because they make up only 12% of the population but represent 24% of the people killed by cops. This is specious at best. It assumes that the only relationship between people being killed by cops is skin color, when in fact a more telling figure is the number of people who commit a crime.  When we look at those numbers there is a flip flop. Blacks account for 22 percent of violent crime while only representing 12%  of the population and whites account for 50% of the crime while representing 62% of the population. When this is considered you are actually more likely to have a deadly encounter with an officer if you are white.

The idea that the system we live in is flawed from the outset and therefore unfixable is counterintuitive and has its roots in Marxist rhetoric.

It is based on the idea that blacks are being excluded from the financial benefits of the capitalist system. To say that this was never the case in America or that Blacks have not been excluded from the economic benefits that many others have enjoyed would be untrue. But not recognizing the advancements that Blacks have made since the Civil Rights Movement would be equally disingenuous.

It does not matter which metric you use to measure the progress we have made towards equality

The number of black college and university professors more than doubled between 1970 and 1990; the number of physicians tripled; the number of engineers almost quadrupled, and the number of attorneys increased more than six-fold. (Thernstrom) 

African American-owned businesses are the fastest-growing segment of the women-owned business market and are starting up at a rate six times higher than the national average.

In a paper published by the Joint Economic Committee, this year, it stated. "While there were only five Black Members of Congress when the Civil Rights Act became law in 1964, there currently are 56 Black Members of Congress, including 12% of the House of Representatives." (Beyer)

The Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois published a paper in 2015 called Trends in Racial Attitudes.  In this work, the authors synthesized data from a poll about racial attitudes starting in the 1940's they used graphs to show the trends. The scope of this work is broad and I don't want to belabor the point by summarizing all of the topics covered, but I will share with you the things that struck me most. 

The first is a clear change in white attitudes. For example, interracial marriage, attending the same schools, and having an equal chance to have any kind of job, had limited support in the early to mid-’40s. Yet  by 1972, 97 percent of whites agreed that blacks should have equal opportunities. In 1995,  96 percent of whites believed blacks should attend the same schools. In addition, a Gallup poll in 1958 found that only 37 percent of whites would vote for a Black candidate for president. In 1997 that number jumped to 95 Percent. White acceptance of these ideas is so broad that polls no longer ask these questions.

Another thing these polls showed was the difference between how whites and blacks explain racial inequality today. Whites tended to think that inequality was due to lack of motivation and lack of access to education, rather than inability or prejudice. Blacks, however, tended to think that the main reason for inequality was prejudice. (Krysan)

These polls indicate that until the end of the twentieth-century blacks did have a valid complaint about the attitude of whites and could ascribe their lack of progress, or at least some of it,  to prejudice and racism. But they also indicate that white attitudes towards blacks are changing at a much faster rate than black attitudes towards whites. One should also note that this kind of change and the rate at which it has happened is unprecedented in all of human history. I know of no other race or culture that has made such a positive shift in such a short period of time.

That said, there is still a disparity between blacks and whites economically and there are still many things in our society that need to be changed. But research seems to indicate that it is not systemic racism or even institutionalized racism that is to blame. This is a complex subject,  to be sure, so no simple answers will adequately address all the issues.  But there are two that stand out.  Family and culture.

One New York Times story highlights a study by economist Raj Chetty that concluded " in terms of income mobility, nothing matters more for a low-income child than the family structures she sees in her community — not neighborhood segregation, school quality or a host of other factors. (Lowrey)

These findings are also reflected in a number of papers by Deidre Bloom.

Her articles are complex and extensive. Risking oversimplification I would summarize her findings by saying that poverty is something we hand down to our children. She also noted the disadvantage that children have from a single-parent home. (Bloom)

Marriage, it turns out, not only helps with economic stability but also social stability as well. That's not to say that marriage will solve poverty but there is a strong correlation between marriage stability and income mobility in almost all of the studies I have read. That being the case, why is it the policy of Black Lives Matter to disrupt the nuclear family?  Here is a quote from their website:  

"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families." (BLM)

In this quote, we see evidence of another cultural ideology that often permeates black culture. The idea that western-culture or American culture is white culture that capitalism is white culture and that our educational system is white culture, and therefore anti-black. As a result, any black person who succeeds in western-culture by becoming better educated, having a stable family, and working hard to get ahead has somehow sold out to the whites.

Those divisions were not a part of Dr. Kings dream. He said:

 "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...I have a dream...That one day... the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood...I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." How ironic it is that whites have been working towards and still believe in the ideals of  Martin Luther King's dreams while Black Lives Matter has given up on it.

At the height of the Civil Right movement Dr. King proclaimed:

 "We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence." (King)

To read the Black Lives Matters website one would think that we are still at the height of the racial violence of the 60s, or that Tulsa and Rosewood are contemporary events even though they happened almost  100 years ago. Here is what Black Lives Matters claims to be fighting against "the rampant and deliberate violence inflicted on us by the state. All of those who have been torn apart by state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism" (BLM)

In their search for equality, they maintain that inequality is their focus "We are unapologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others."(BLM)

In every way, they defy the wisdom of Dr. King.  They claim that the bank of justice is bankrupt and that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity in this nation. They don't want to cash the check of freedom or gain the security of justice. In their quest for their place, they have no compunction about committing wrongful deeds, to burn, to loot, to beat, and to kill.  Not only have they drunk from the cup of bitterness and hatred they spew it out in the hopes of embittering others and offer it as justification for the physical violence that comes as a result.

All this time the clarion call for freedom and equality has come from Dr. King. And it is clear that many have risen to it, but it is also clear that there are some who reject it. So I ask: Who speaks for the Blacks, Dr. King, or Black Lives Matter?

If it is Dr. King, it is time to let your voices be heard, before they are drowned out by the so-called Black Lives Matter movement. They are stealing your voice. Let Black Lives Matter know they do not speak for you. Let them know you will not be hoodwinked, Bamboozled, led astray and run amok, by a Marxist organization that has no interest in Black freedom or Black lives.

Works cited:

Beyer, Don. “The Economic State of Black America in 2020.” Https://Www.jec.senate.gov/, 2020, www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/ccf4dbe2-810a-44f8-b3e7-14f7e5143ba6/economic-state-of-black-america-2020.pdf.

BLM. https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/)

Bloome, Deirdre. “Racial Inequality Trends and the Intergenerational Persistence of Income and Family Structure.” American Sociological Review, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2014, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4598060/.

         Krysan, M., & Moberg, S. (2016, August 25). Trends in racial attitudes, Institute of        Government, and Public Affairs. Retrieved from http://igpa.uillinois.edu/programs/racial-attitudes

             Lowrey, Annie. “Can Marriage Cure Poverty?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Feb. 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/magazine/can-marriage-cure-poverty.html.

Martin Luther King I Have a Dream Speech - American Rhetoric, www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm.

         Thernstrom, Abigail, and Stephan Thernstrom. “Black Progress: How Far We've Come, and How Far We Have to Go.” Brookings, Brookings, 26 June 2020, www.brookings.edu/articles/black-progress-how-far-weve-come-and-how-far-we-have-to-go/.