Black lives matter. Unfortunately, they don’t matter to blacks as much as they should. If they did, the number of blacks killed by other blacks would be much, much lower.
And what about the black lives that have been lost at the hands of protesters and rioters this past week? Willis Krumholz identifies the known cases.
There’s retired St. Louis police captain David Dorn, who was shot and killed while protecting a friend’s store from rioters and looters. There’s Italia Marie Kelly, who was killed in a shooting in Iowa when the crowd of protesters became unruly. There’s Chris Beaty, who was shot and killed when he tried to stop thugs who were stealing purses during demonstrations.
There’s also Max Brewer. This black police officer is in intensive care after he was run over during protests.
Do these black lives matter? They do to me. I am saddened and appalled by these killing. However, with the exception of Dorn, I’ve seen virtually no coverage of the attacks that ended these black lives (or, in the case of Brewer, placed a black life in serious jeopardy).
Some of us subscribe to the view, considered heretical by the Black Lives Matter movement and its media boosters, that all lives matter. We are saddened and appalled by the killings of non-blacks during protests, some of which Krumholz describes.
Mainstream media outlets almost never mention them. Instead, as Krumholz says:
The media. . .repeat the toxic narrative that police officers are targeting and killing black men when the hard data doesn’t come close to backing up their claims. They are willfully blind when “protestors” commit bad acts—like in Virginia, where firetrucks were blocked from going to a burning house that had a young child inside.
Krumholz asks:
Can a democratic-republic function when its media is so dishonest, it’s elite so corrupt, and when one of its major political parties allows street violence?
His answer is: “probably not.” Right now, I can’t honestly disagree.
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