Senseless #BlackBrunch movement will fail

Taken from Monday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show on KIRO Radio.

The Black Lives Matter protests are continuing and the protesters who allege that this country doesn’t value black lives are starting a new movement to get attention. It’s called #BlackBrunch.

As part of the #BlackBrunch movement, protesters pick out “white spaces” or brunch eateries because brunch is apparently something enjoyed by more white people than black people.

They’re targeting these brunch institutions because that family that just spent $30 per person apparently doesn’t care about black people. They need this disruption in the middle of their life to wake up to the fact that cops kill .00026 percent of black people in this country. (Note: “kill” is not the same as “murder” – this percentage represents justified use of force)

According to Yahoo, the #BlackBrunch movement originated in Oakland late last year, and this past weekend around three dozen demonstrators marched into New York brunch establishments. They voiced familiar chants and songs:

“Which side are you on, friend. Which side are you on? Justice for Mike Brown is justice for us all.”

It’s unfortunate they’re choosing Michael Brown as their poster child for the supposed lack of justice, since generally speaking, when you attack an officer, when you try to steal that officer’s gun, you’re actually not the victim. They probably would have been smarter to pick up the Eric Garner case because you can say this is a clear instance of an officer going too far and you’d have the majority of America on your side.

The organizers of the new brunch movement released a statement that is just mind boggling.

“There is a war on black people in America that cannot be ignored and the #BlackBrunch tactic is one that is committed to interrupting business as usual until the war against us has ended. Young black leaders organize #BlackBrunch in response to the historic violence and unjust crimes committed against black people in America.”

Historic violence? What is the history that they’re looking at exactly? In a country that used to have slavery, in a country that actually had laws on the books that were legitimately racist, in a country that did have a police force out there hurting black people on purpose – how do you say that we are experiencing historic violence against black people in this country now?

That is nonsense. The truth is, hate crimes against black people are down significantly year over year. (There are actually more hate crimes against white people, according to FBI statistic). And the further truth is, instances of cops killing anyone, black or white or Asian or Hispanic or whatever, is very low.

Given there is skyrocketing black-on-black violence, especially when you compare it to either white-on-black or cop-on-black violence, it might make a little better sense if these folks also went into predominantly black spaces to have important conversations.

People are upset and inconvenienced by what the #BlackBrunch protesters are doing, but protester Iris Dillard told The Washington Post they aren’t sorry.

“The fact that people are negatively responding to the #BlackBrunch and not the illness of racism and the myth of American progress, disturbs me more than anything.”

To which I’d say maybe it’s an indication that your movement is ineffective at actually getting your message across, that maybe the tactic of inconveniencing people who you assume aren’t on your side is actually both a misperception and also counterproductive.

For all the points that these folks have, and I think they have some points worth discussing, they completely negate any sort of case and any sort of progress when they do stupid stuff like this.

When you go in the middle of a tree lighting ceremony in downtown Seattle stopping kids from singing, stopping people from shopping for gifts for their loved ones, you’re not sending a message people are going to be receptive to. People are going to be angry with that message and ultimately that message is going to fail.

Taken from Monday’s edition of The Jason Rantz Show on KIRO Radio.

JS