The Grio, the NBC News website “devoted to providing African-Americans with stories and perspectives that appeal to them,” declared billboards proclaiming “Blue Lives Matter” to be an example of white supremacy.
In what reads as an opinion piece curiously filed under “news,” the Grio declares, “Blue Lives Matter billboards don’t honor fallen officers, they discredit black humanity.”
Writer Lincoln Blades writes, “when I heard that advertising agencies were planning to post billboards honoring fallen police officers, I immediately thought it would be a great idea. But, once I saw the actual billboards themselves, with the words ‘Blue Lives Matter’ printed boldly across the billboard, I instantly felt sick to my stomach.”
A Louisiana based advertising company donated 302 billboards to the campaign to honor police officers. Stephen Herbert of Lamar Advertising, the company that donated the signs, said, “We wanted to recognize the local police departments and men and women that put their lives on the line everyday. I don’t know how they do it and we just wanted it to be part of the community.”
But The Grio sees it differently:
Specifically using the words “Blue Lives Matter” as a counterpoint to “Black Lives Matter,” the ridiculous and anti-intellectual creators of this campaign have firmly decided that propagating their white supremacy will be best masked under the guise of mourning men and women who died in the line of duty.
The Grio, however, is not alone. MSNBC, which recently made significant on-air changes away from their progressive activism to appear less partisan, has a report entitled “‘Blue Lives Matter’ Billboards Spark Controversy.” In it, they write, “The intent of the campaign may be laudable, but the timing and pattern of the message has been interpreted by some as an effort to co-opt, diminish, or damage the significance of the original movement.”
The MSNBC report, however, cites only the New York Times Editorial Board and the President of Connecticut’s NAACP as fomenting any “controversy.”
“Some Republican lawmakers have been accused of similar counter campaigns using the phrases ‘All Lives Matter,’ or ‘Christian Lives Matter.’ It’s a deliberate attempt to tarnish ‘Black Lives Matter’ by turning it into an inflammatory or even hateful anti-white expression, according The New York Times editorial board,” they write.
MSNBC continues, “‘This effort to Co-Opt the Black Lives Matter Movement is totally unnecessary,’ Scot Esdaile, President of Connecticut’s NAACP, told NBC Connecticut. ‘We have many friends in the Law Enforcement Industry; and the community and police do not have to be at odds!!! It’s imperative that we work together and not continue to fuel tensions!'”
The Grio went further.
A recent poll suggests that 58 percent of people believe a war on cops exists. This fear is what is now driving city officials in Minnesota to go so far as to get violence against cops labeled hate crimes.
Yet through all of this fear mongering, false equivocation, and counterfeit memorializing, lies the truth that we’re living in an age where police have never been safer. We’re on pace to have 35 police officers murdered this year — and well over a 1,000 people killed by police.
That’s not a war — that’s a slaughter.
The justified use of deadly force by police officers has increased 16 percent since 2010, according to the FBI.
FBI crime statistics for justifiable homicides by police
Activists make no distinction between justified and unjustified police shootings, opting to use raw numbers.
An analysis by the Guardian found twice as many white people were killed by police as blacks.
Police killings by race
The Grio concluded:
As a black man, I believe that the lives of law enforcement agents aren’t simply expendable, because I realize all life is precious. I would never want to see a war on police, because I want my boy to make it home to his family, and I wouldn’t want anything to threaten that.
With that said, it’s also important that my boy’s life is not at risk when he’s not in his uniform, and he’s walking around covered in nothing more than the hoodies he loves wearing and the melanin God gave him.
If you believe his life truly matters, then I demand that you advocate for him in and outside of his blue uniform. And if you can’t do that simultaneously, your racist bullshit does not deserve to be plastered on any billboard anywhere.