David Horowitz
Many of my relatives and friends are in a state of alarm over
George Floyd’s death. They are
sufficiently upset to voice their support for Black Lives Matter, even though
nobody knows if race was a motive in police officer Derek Chauvin’s
knee-on-neck restraint. Nevertheless, Black Lives
Matter and its offshoots are employing aggressive tactics to increase the scope
of their influence.
But nothing is at it
seems. A go-to source on the history of
Black Lives Matter and its core mission is David Horowitz. He posted on the subject recently at FrontPage Magazine. Highly recommended if you
know anyone who is attracted to Black Lives Matter out of guilt or sympathy or
a misunderstanding. Here’s a short
extract (numbers in brackets indicate a footnote in the article):
The power of Black Lives Matter
stemmed from its exploitation of the ideology of oppression – Identity Politics
– a ready-made indictment looking for a crime. Black Lives Matter was at the
center of a very large network, including hundreds of leftist organizations
sharing the same vision. Among them: The Freedom Road Socialist Organization,
Dream Defenders, Hands Up United, Black Left Unity Network, Black Workers for
Justice, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Right to the City Alliance,
School of Unity and Liberation, Dignity and Power Now, Grassroots Global
Justice Alliance, Causa Justa/Just Cause, Organization for Black
Struggle, Communist Party USA, Showing Up for Racial Justice, and others.
Many of these organizations are
funded by America’s largest corporations and philanthropies, including the Ben
& Jerry Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the
Margaret Casey Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and George Soros’s
Open Society Institute.
. . .
Black Lives Matter was formed in
2013 by three self-styled “Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries,” who selected as
their movement icon convicted cop-killer and Black Liberation Army
member Assata Shakur.[4] Shakur had fled to Cuba after
being convicted of the homicide she committed when her car was stopped for a
broken tail-light by two New Jersey state troopers. Without any
warning, Shakur shot trooper Werner Foerster. The 34-year- old
Vietnam veteran was lying wounded on the ground pleading for his life,
when Shakur walked over and executed him.
Officer Foerster left a widow and a three-year-old son.[5] Black Lives Matter activists refer
to the murderer as “our beloved Assata Shakur” and chant her words as
a ritual, “at every meeting, every event, every action, every freeway we’ve
shut down, every mall we’ve shut down.” [6] The chant is this: “It is our duty
to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and support one
another. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” The last line is lifted
directly from the conclusion to the Communist Manifesto, a document and
war cry that has led to the murders of millions.[7]
. . .
The full account is here.
# # #