Extremists behind anti-cop protests leading to demise of movement

Shoppers making a last ditch effort to Christmas shop were disrupted at Bellevue Square over the weekend, as about 33 protesters spoke out against police brutality by singing in a large circle holding hands. I happened to be shopping at the mall at the time and was able to witness how the crowd reacted, and it wasn’t the way the protesters hoped.

I saw people point and laugh, taking photos to undoubtedly upload on Instagram or Twitter. I saw some people just go about their day, shopping for a gift for mom. I saw others stop and scoff. When the protesters asked for people to engage in the ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ sign, no one in the crowd (that I could see, at least) joined. There was a very loud shout of, “Go home!” coming from the shoppers. These protesters weren’t wanted there. And the total lack of interest is a sign that these protests will soon, thankfully, go away.

Why have folks started to turn away from these protests? They tell us we live in a country where it’s “open season” on black men; that police are murdering black people wantonly. Surely, there are issues worth our attention, but it’s that fake narrative behind the end of this movement. Not only is their narrative fabricated (which actually hurts anyone interested in talking about legitimate issues with race in this country – and they undoubtedly exist), but the goals of these activists have nothing to do with police brutality. It has to do with communism.

At the protest, an activist handed me a double-sided statement from Carl Dix, a co-founder of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. The statement argues why “Amerikkka” is a country full of oppression where “police murder people again and again,” but are “…almost never punished.” What’s the cause of this problem? Not that “police need more or better training” but this is happening “…because of capitalism.”

Not only was this flyer a promotion for Communism (and an end to capitalism), but it made some scary demands, claiming “…now is the time to build up the forces for revolution so that hen [sic] the time comes, when the rulers are deep enough in trouble and when people can’t go on living like this anymore, we’ll be ready and in position right to seize power from the capitalist blood-suckers and build a whole new world.”

At the bottom of their flyer, they include a link to the Revolutionary Communist Party website and a little advertisement for Revolution Books (yes, the anti-capitalist activists own a bookstore where they – get this – charge people to purchase goods! That’s not ironic at all).

These activists don’t care about Michael Brown or Eric Garner or any black man killed by cops. They are singularly focused on destroying capitalism and they’ll exploit any cause they can. The reason these protests are dying down, I think, is because the people who agree with the original point of the protests, are starting to realize the organizers are Communist malcontents that are societal outcasts for a reason: your ideas are extreme and wildly unpopular.

At one point, at Bellevue Square, the activists staged their “die-in” where they just laid on the floor (taking naps? relaxing?). That’s when I left: I had an IMAX screening of The Hobbit to catch.

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