“Black Lives Matter”, “Black Lives Matter” is a phrase that is heard a lot these days. In fact, the “Black Lives Matter” movement, as it’s called, has inspired a bunch of spinoffs like All Lives Matter, Better Matters and The Gantt Report’s own phrase “Cat Lives Matter”!
To some Black thinkers, Black intellectuals and Black philosophers, the Black Lives Matter movement is little more than a collection of marchers and marches.
I’m old enough to have seen this type of thing before. There was the Abolitionist Movement that opposed slavery that was replaced by slave-type Jim Crow laws. There was a “Freedom Riders” movement but Black folks are far from freedom in many ways. There was the famous “Civil Rights Movement” but things still aren’t “civil” and Black people still don’t have some rights that white citizens have like economic, political, judicial due process and other rights. There was even an “Occupy Wall Street Movement” that came and went like a thief in the night! The Florida-based “Dream Defenders” appeared on a lot of talk shows but their dreams resulted in nightmares!
One way to describe what is going on is to say “Nothing Matters”!
We need to plan Black progress. We need to plan Black survival. We need to plan for better Black lives!
Who decided that the best way for Black people to deal with life situations was to march, pray and lock arms with devils and enemies and sing “We Shall Overcome”?
Don’t disrespect Dr. King like that! King marched for equal rights and justice. King marched for better salaries and wor
king conditions for Black workers. King marched to oppose unjust wars and world imperialism.
If you want to march to get the Mayor of Chicago to resign why don’t you march to get every red necked, klansman, neo-nazi or skin head in elected office to resign? Politicians like Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel are in office in every city and every state in the United States!
Why don’t Black Lives Matter marchers march down to the ‘hood, register every eligible Black resident to vote and educate them about why they should vote out devilish candidates. including both Democratic and Republican political devils, and vote in candidates that put them first and sponsor and pass legislation that will benefit Black people?
Why don’t they march to the ‘hood and patronize Black businesses that hire Black workers and if there are none, the marchers should start Black businesses of their own?
Why don’t they march to the ‘hood and patrol Black neighborhood streets to stop our people from killing each other so our community can be a safe place for children to play and for seniors to sit on their front porches?
Why don’t marchers pool their money and financial resources together? Why don’t they clean their neighborhoods up, help Blacks that are homeless, help Blacks that are disabled or read more Black books ?
Perhaps it’s because marches will be televised. There are no news reports about organizing your community, starting Black banks, or uniting with Black people around the world!
Your enemies want you to have non-violent, praying marches! They don’t want you to stand up, speak out or literally fight for your rights. They don’t want you to think. They want you to react, peacefully!
In a capitalist society, a capitalist country and a capitalist controlled World, the only lives that matter are the lives with money and land!
If the Black Lives Matter movement suggests that 2016 problems can be solved with poorly imitated 1950 community strategies they will be disappointed.
Stop being reactionary and stop fighting about who gets the sound bites on morning radio and Fox News and organize a united Black movement that will understand we all have a role to play in Black progress, the marchers, the prayers, the rioters, the fighters, the thinkers, the writers and everybody else.
If we can’t unite the old, the young, the political, the religious, the philosophical and the warriors in the Black community, nothing will matter! (Buy Gantt’s latest book, “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing” on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere. Contact Lucius at www.allworldconsultants.net. And, if you want to,“Like” The Gantt Report page on Facebook.)
Lucius is a contributing columnist to NNPA newspapers around the nation, and the author of “Beast Too: Dead Man Writing,” available on Amazon.com and from bookstores everywhere.