Rita Panahi: Radical reality behind the BLM movement
We’ve seen celebrities, sportsmen and politicians taking a knee in the name of Black Lives Matter, yet these virtue signallers seem to have done no research on the extreme and downright dangerous agendas this movement supports, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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In recent weeks a series of corporates from Nike to Apple to the AFL have pledged support for the group, Black Lives Matter.
We’ve seen celebrities, sportsmen and politicians taking a knee in the name of BLM but do the virtue signallers know anything about the organisation they are supporting beyond their disingenuous name?
The radical Left is very clever in giving its movements names that nobody could possibly disagree with, whether we’re talking Black Lives Matter or Antifa, short for anti-fascist.
But one only needs to look a little deeper beyond the pretty title to what the movement represents to find all sorts of unpleasant, extreme and downright dangerous agendas.
BLM is a radical Marxist group with a set of political goals that the overwhelming majority of people would find insane from ‘defunding the police’ to ‘dismantling capitalism’ and ‘seeking reparations’ to disrupting ‘the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure’.
Did the footballers taking a knee for BLM stand with the group’s anti-police, anti-capitalist, anti-meritocracy demands or support the group’s claims that ‘black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise’?
And, what would happen if a player actually did some research and found out about BLM’s extreme positions, would they be allowed to stand while everyone else knelt?
Or would they be ostracised and bullied into submission by the groupthink that pervades the AFL and other organisations that have embraced divisive race politics.
To be fair to BLM, their co-founders have been pretty honest about self-identifying as Marxists and are clear about their ideological motivations and goals. But much of the media has been less honest in reporting fully on a group that has been at the centre of violent protests in the US and UK.
BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who has labelled the police the “single most terrorist organisation”, was asked about BLM’s ideological direction.
Her response was unequivocal: “We actually do have an ideological frame, myself and Alicia (BLM co-founder) in particular are trained organisers, we are trained Marxists, we are super versed on ideological theories,” Cullors said.
Indeed, Alicia Garza also self-identifies as a Marxist and has an extensive history of anti-capitalist activism. The third BLM co-founder is Opal Temeti, who is so concerned about police brutality that she cosied up to Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, a man who leads a socialist regime with the world’s most murderous police force responsible for the highest rate of killings by law enforcement officers. A UN report released last year notes that in 2018 alone the Venezuelan government “registered 5287 killings, purportedly for ‘resistance to authority’. Between January 1 and May 19 (of 2019), another 1569 people were killed, according to government figures. Other sources suggest the figures may be much higher.”
Back in 2015, a few months after Maduro’s regime killed a number of protesters including a 14-year-old child, Temeti proudly shared a stage and posed for photos with the brutal tyrant and tweeted: “Currently in Venezuela. Such a relief to be in a place where there is intelligent political discourse.”
Of course there is no genuine discourse, intelligent or otherwise, allowed in Venezuela where police imprison, torture and kill political dissidents.
Despite BLM’s extremist agenda and hypocrisy, much of the media and a cavalcade of dimwitted celebs, corporates and politicians pretend they are purely about anti-racism.
This week one of BLM’s leading activists, Shaun King, a man with a deplorable history of promoting race-baiting falsehoods, advocated for the destruction of Jesus and Virgin Mary images that depicted the pair as white.
Over the years BLM has been the beneficiary of donations from corporations, celebrities such as Beyonce and George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
With all the attention BLM has received, some corporates have been less vocal in their Pride Month activism in support of the LGBT community.
But Sony’s PlayStation made sure to mark the occasion by adding a rainbow motif to their social media presence. The official accounts for PlayStation Australia, UK, and Europe were among those to sport the gay pride colours.
But that show of support did not extend to the official account of PlayStation Arabia, a region where the LGBT community faces genuine oppression and where homosexuality is illegal and can carry the death penalty in certain jurisdictions.
Nothing sums up vacuous, empty corporate virtue signalling more than a corporation proudly proclaiming their woke credentials in countries where gay people enjoy equal rights but going missing in countries where the LGBT community is subjugated.
When the support matters, it’s not there. The same cowardice is evident when brands are loud and proud about female empowerment in the West but not in countries where women are relegated to second-class citizens.
IN SHORT
Red Skins and Chicos lollies and Eskimo Pie ice creams are the latest products to fall foul of the PC police; all will be renamed. Coco Pops and Coon cheese are hanging on despite activists’ objections.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist