On the 25th of May George Floyd was murdered. It was an example of abuse of power, police brutality to the highest order, and it inspired a worldwide movement, as I am sure we all are aware. 

This very public killing of an unarmed black man in police custody quite rightly sparked outrage beyond the United States.  Calls for legal action to be taken against the officers involved were entirely legitimate. Justice needed to be done. Calls for reformation in the police concerning de-escalation training, racial bias as shown in Washington this week, and the introduction of body cameras, once again were legitimate. Calls to end the militarization of police equipment were long past their due by date. All achievable changes that would reduce the likelihood of this incident from happening again – this is a logical goal that should have been an aim of all of those who witnessed this horrible incident. 

Yet, in the face of such blatant wrongdoing, why is it that Nottingham Forest striker Lyle Taylor, a young mixed race footballer in the public eye, refused to kneel in support of the Black Lives Matter organisation in Forest’s 1-0 win over Cardiff City this weekend?

In the words of Taylor himself, “The message has been diluted beyond belief… It's gone past the point. What's really happening?... Black lives do matter, but you'll never hear me say Black Lives Matter again in reference to that company.”

Taylor has since come under criticism, yet he is entirely correct. The Black Lives Matter organisation, put best by MP Tom Young, “have attempted to exploit the justifiable outpouring of anger and disgust following the murder of George Floyd to promote their own divisive political agenda”. Essentially, they took advantage of 2020 to pursue ends largely unrelated to racial justice.

Through conflating the ills of capitalism, inspiring civil unrest in pursuit of anarchy, censoring speech around race and attempting to overthrow capitalism itself, Black Lives Matter lost the vital middle ground supporters needed to achieve social change - 55% of the UK believe that BLM increased racial tensions in the UK, with only 18% disagreeing. In losing this support, they hampered the strive for racial equality.

The most public of these failures was inspiring civil disobedience. Arson, vandalism, and looting between May 26 and June 8 were tabulated to have caused $1–2 billion in insured damages nationally—the highest recorded damage from civil disorder in U.S. history, eclipsing the record set in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the police officers who brutalized Rodney King.

Looters soon lost sight of their purpose. An elderly black sandwich shop owner, standing over her gutted store, shouted 'Tell me Black Lives Matter? You lied - you wanted to loot this store.” Elliott Broaster, a young black vape shop owner from Philadelphia, described how his vape shop, ‘Smokes n Tings’ had become, “a local incubator for a lot of kids of colour.” He would often invite young black kids who want to start businesses in for coaching on how to sign leases, fund storefronts and use Shopify. His business, looted, vandalised, and remains closed. Both plan to use donations to rebuild their livelihoods. 

Yet, sadly for our two black business owners, Black Lives Matter donations rarely reach those they claim to champion. Both former store owners have resorted to GoFundMe. A movement that sets about to foster ‘Black Joy’ suddenly looks rather lost.

Black Lives Matter have rarely been about genuine, achievable racial reform. In the words of Taylor himself, "I would request anyone looks into Black Lives Matter to look into what that organisation does and what they stand for because it's scandalous that the world and the world's media has got behind Black Lives Matter.”

The truth is that the organisation was founded on ideals far removed from social justice. The organisation’s original motivation, as posted on their first website, is to end the "extrajudicial killings of Black people by police and vigilantes." Sounds honourable. The predominant approach, however, is to entangle the cause of justice for victims of police violence in an expansive web of far more radical objectives.

Patrisse Cullors, one of the three founders, describes her and her colleagues as, “trained Marxists.” Now shamefully removed, a clause in their 2020 ‘beliefs’ page outlined their aim to, “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families.” I can’t be alone in just wanting to install racial justice? Defunding the police, removing the family unit and replacing them with ‘extended family communes… sounds rather like utopian socialism to me. Funnily enough, history tells us that isn’t too successful. 

Just last week, a post on their Instagram read, “capitalism must be toppled and a just economic system, built on shared resources, must be ushered in.” For an organisation that was founded to, quite rightly, prevent unlawful and racist killings of black people, this seems rather left field? So typical of the Black Lives Matter organisation, by conflating too many issues they risk losing the coalition of supporters needed to achieve social change in a democracy. 

Calling for the police to be dissolved… is ridiculous. Rioting and burning down businesses of people part of the very same communities for which BLM claim to be in support of in the name of George Floyd… is ridiculous. And claiming that the US is fundamentally and unquestionably racist in every public sphere is so ridiculous that it prevents people genuinely assessing the aspects of society that are. These are purely examples of rhetoric designed to stoke up tensions and anger, to cause further chaos and civil disobedience. It is no coincidence that an organisation that envisages, "a fundamentally different world," is invested in sowing the seeds for anarchy.

Alike to Taylor, I find it hard to understand how anyone, with a true understanding of Black Lives Matter as an organisation, could possibly justify supporting it. In principle they use calls for racial justice to conceal a broader ideology, and in practise they offer little achievable solutions other than furthering civil disobedience and stoking up racial tensions in the United States.
 

The fact that so many governmental institutions across the world, from the Office of the Mayor of London in the London fireworks, to the Prime Minister of New Zealand, lent their support, should be looked upon with genuine confusion. Instead of supporting Black Lives Matter the organisation, why don’t we skip the conspiring middleman and just support black lives?

If the Black Lives Matter organisation is so imperfect, why did corporations at the forefront of capitalism pledge millions throughout 2020 to Black Lives Matter? The simple answer is they didn’t.

Of the $428 million made available by Microsoft to fight racial justice, just $5 million went to non-profits and is unclear if any of that reached the BLM organisation. Apple’s donations went to the Equal Justice initiative, with Uber dividing theirs between the Equal Justice Initiative and Centre for Policy Equity, the same organisation where YouTube parked the entirety of its donations. Alike to the Nottingham Forest striker Lyle Taylor, and unlike the millennial keyboard activists who rarely bother to look beyond the name, the corporate world, in their legitimate quest for racial justice, saw that there were organisations better prepared to tackle the issue. For that I commend them. 

In the words of Taylor, “Standing behind Black Lives Matter and the all the institutions that have done that - the BBC, Sky, all of them saying Black Lives Matter, it's not a good idea because of what the organisation stands for.”

Without supporting Black Lives Matter, one can support black people and furthering the cause of equality. One can support reforms in the justice system, while supporting the police in carrying out their job of upholding law and order. And one can look upon riots and civil disobedience caused by anarchists during the BLM protests last summer with disgust and yet still be outraged by George Floyds murder. Good hearted scrutiny, scrutiny like this in the interest of racial justice, should not be ‘cancelled’ at first sight. Where would that leave freedom of speech that characterizes our great democracies?

The fact one is writing under the cover of the controversy column is symptomatic of this unhealthy environment around race that been engineered by BLM activists. It is in my view that this article does not belong in the controversy column. Since when should a western student concern for their future job prospects when criticising an organisation that is by no means perfect? 

Taylor summarised this perfectly in his far from typical post-match interview, explaining how the sensitive narrative surrounding race has prevented himself from being able to identify as mixed race. "You can't say mixed race because it's now dual heritage. No, no. I'm mixed race. My mum is white, and my dad is black,” continuing, “If you say a word in an interview you are waiting for someone to be offended. That’s the issue.” This censorship on speech, combined with the backlash if someone slips up, has prevented the genuine discussions surrounding race that are needed to further racial equality. When doing research for this article, a user posted below Taylor’s interview, “He maybe should avoid Twitter today!” This hit the nail on the head for me.

It boils down to the harsh reality: Supporting Black Lives Matter does not determine if you are racist or not. To claim that it does, is not just naïve but highlights a lack of research into the organisation. The BLM keyboard activists have championed the term ‘educate yourself’- now they look rather hypocritical.  Rather than utilising 2020’s zeitgeist of racial reform, Black Lives Matter have instead hopped onto the movement, enticing those who desire a world free of racism into a nexus of more malign socialist values. 

The umbrella organisation’s mission statement, "a complete transformation of the current systems," (note: plural) is all that is needed to vindicate this concern. A transformation of the US Justice system which is proven to be racist? Yes please. A transformation of the economic and family system? No thank you. Neither are by any means perfect, but I didn’t donate to Black Lives Matter to change them.

A missed opportunity:

The horrible death of George Floyd marked an unparallel opportunity for radical change for not just American, but world race relations. Yet, under the stewardship of the Black Lives Matter organisation, confected outrage at capitalism, class and western values - coupled with pervasive Marxism - consumed the movement. It is no coincidence that Taylor called their message ‘diluted’. Sadly, these actions may lose BLM the vital middle ground supporters needed to secure social change in a democratic environment. As someone who is passionately in support of racial justice, for that they will never be forgiven.

History will also look back on 2020 as a squandered opportunity in the fight for racial justice, consumed by an organisation intent on conflating confected outraged in order to entice 2020 into submission. Black lives matter, 2020 has highlighted that once again. Yet, as Lyle Taylor has made so clear with his brave actions and words: They just matter too much to have the political, divisive and conspiring Black Lives Matter organisation leading the charge.