I believe Ma’Khia Bryant’s life mattered.
But the woman Bryant allegedly wanted to stab, her life matters, too.
It seems that for Black Lives Matter and for many on the progressive left who claim to fight for social justice, only Bryant’s life mattered.
For those unfamiliar with the case, Bryant — a 16-year-old black girl — was fatally shot Tuesday during an altercation with police in Columbus, Ohio.
Shortly after the shooting, establishment media outlets such as NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Daily Beast ran with the story, angling it as another example of a black American being shot by the police.
Noticeably absent from the coverage, however, was that Bryant allegedly was mere moments away from using a knife to stab a 20-year-old black woman at the time Bryant was shot.
Even after police body-cam footage of the incident became available to the public, numerous left-wing activists and politicians couldn’t help but paint the incident as another example of systemic racism in action, exemplifying how irredeemably racist American policing truly is.
NBA superstar LeBron James went as far as to tweet a picture of the officer involved, writing “YOU’RE NEXT #ACCOUNTABILITY.”
Although James later deleted the tweet, he did not apologize, instead tweeting, “I’m so damn tired of seeing Black people killed by police. I took the tweet down because its being used to create more hate -This isn’t about one officer. it’s about the entire system and they always use our words to create more racism. I am so desperate for more ACCOUNTABILITY.”
Similarly, other left-wingers have chosen to ignore important facets in the case, instead opting to use Bryant’s death as an opportunity to bash American policing.
In reality, the Columbus police officer, Nicholas Reardon, who is white, probably saved a black woman’s life. If black lives mattered to the self-proclaimed social justice warriors on the left as much as they say, they might be praising this man.
Instead, they are condemning him.
The reason is simple: Black Lives Matter activists hate white police officers more than they love black people.
People such as LeBron James hate white police officers in the same way that white supremacists hate blacks. Their hatred is no different.
And, as is the case with all hatred, it comes at great cost.
Many more people will die because of this anti-cop hatred, many of those people being black.
A 2020 study from the University of Utah estimates that, from June to July of that year, about 710 more homicides and 2,800 more shootings resulted because of reduced policing.
“The quantitative data and qualitative evidence strongly suggest that a ‘Minneapolis Effect’ has struck—i.e., in the wake of anti-police protests following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, police officers are being re-deployed from anti-gun efforts and are retreating from proactive law enforcement tactics. This reduction in law enforcement efforts targeted at firearms crimes has led, perhaps predictably, to an increase in firearms crimes,” the study concludes.
“And the victims of these crimes are disproportionately Black and Brown, often living in disadvantaged and low income neighborhoods.”
When compared to the number of black men who die due to homicide, police shootings of unarmed blacks is very low.
According to a Jan. 25 report from NPR, police have fatally shot at least 135 unarmed black men and women nationwide since 2o15. As of April 18, 139 blacks had been victims of homicide this year in Chicago alone, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Additionally, a 2019 crime report from the FBI found that, of the 2,906 homicides with black victims that year, 2,574 victims were killed by black perpetrators.
Despite the supposedly existential threat white supremacy poses to African-Americans in the modern era, 246 of those homicides were perpetrated by whites.
Also, only 13 unarmed black men were killed by police in 2019, according to USA Today.
It is undeniable that black Americans are being murdered on an almost daily basis. However, a small amount of this violence is caused by police misconduct.
All black victims of violent crime deserve justice, no matter who the perpetrator is. Unfortunately, Black Lives Matter doesn’t believe that to be the case.
To them, the only black lives that matter are the ones taken by white police officers.
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