The hypocrisy of #blacklivesmatter

How are my boys?

These are some of the last words of Alwyn C. Cashe; an African-American cut down in the prime of his life. He died in 2005, and outside of a very small community, very few people have heard of him. That’s because Alwyn wasn’t just a man, he was Sergeant First Class Cashe of the United States Army, and he gave his life in the service of his country. When he asked “how are my boys” in the hospital, he was asking about his men, the soldiers he pulled from a burning vehicle. As a result of the burns he suffered rescuing his men, SFC Cashe died in November of 2005. He was awarded the Silver Star posthumously for his actions, and there is currently a campaign to get his medal upgraded to the Medal of Honor, which I believe he justly deserves.

Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos
Again, many people don’t know these names. However, if you follow the news, you may have heard of the two NYPD officers that were brutally murdered this past week. Their names were Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. I doubt that we’ll see vigils in their honor, and there will be no Twitter hashtags of #asianlivesmatter or #hispaniclivesmatter – because Liu and Ramos were cops.

This is the awful hypocrisy of #blacklivesmatter and the surrounding protests. Because it would seem that Orwell was right – some animals are more equal than others. I want to be very clear here though – racism is still a problem in this country, and it is something that needs to be addressed. But in many ways, hashtag activism has ruined the real activism. By focusing the protests and the outrage on isolated incidents it glosses over the larger problem of racism in America and at the same time diminishes the contributions of Americans who also happen to be minorities.

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Not too long ago in Sioux Falls, some of our locals held a protest about Black Lives Matter. Aside from the obvious irony of a bunch of middle-class white people protesting racism, what boggles the mind is the short sightedness of all of this. 19 people showed up for 45 minutes on a Saturday, and then went back to their lives. There’s no effort there, no real work to affect change. That’s the symptom of hashtag activism and the problem. It’s about feelings instead of doing. It’s writing on Twitter about how bad poverty is, but not volunteering to work in a soup kitchen. It’s complaining about rape culture, but being anti-gun.

I want to bring this back to SFC Cashe. He gave his life to save his men, and to the end his thoughts were on the well being of his soldiers. He didn’t care if they were black, white, Hispanic, or any other race. Simply that they were his soldiers, his responsibility. We could all stand to learn from the example of a man who paid the ultimate price for others.

16 Comments

    1. I disagree, it’s obvious, not intelligent. The spread of stupidity or at least the visibility of it has just lowered our standards to the point where something that is common sense sounds intelligent.

      The article itself is very similar to the hashtag activism that it discusses. Did any person that reads this blog or follows the twitter or facebook of this blog did not know this already? I highly doubt it. It does nothing but preach to the choir.

  1. “He didn’t care if they were black, white, Hispanic, or any other race. Simply that they were his soldiers, his responsibility. We could all stand to learn from the example”

    True words!

  2. Caleb, excellent article.

    Putting on my typo finding hat I’d like to say please change it to read “Sergeant First Class Cashe” instead of “Sergeant Fist Class Cashe”. Then feel free to delete this comment.

    Merry Christmas to you and to your bride.

  3. Racism is still an issue in America, but theses shootings are not racism. The media wants it to be, it generates ratings The “protesters” don’t even know what they are protesting. Black lives matter just as much as any other life, but violent criminal lives do not.

  4. As Sgt.Cash and GOD know we are all one race ,the human race.We would do them both honor if we all remembered that 24/7/365.

  5. “Its about feelings instead of doings.”. Well said. “Doings” require energy and effort that could always be spent elsewhere. “Doings” provide some form of result. However, activism today is really just agitation.

    I’m troubled by the slogans that accompany these independent events. The Brown/Wilson conflict became “Hands Up Don’t Shoot”. The Zimmerman/Martin conflict became a “Hoodie”. The slogans are easy to remember but the do NOT resemble ALL the facts of these cases. Are people so indifferent, apathetic, and lazy that they can’t be trouble by evidence? I sound like a old man.

    Get off my lawn!

  6. Gimme a break. A soldier seeing his fellow soldiers as a class of their own is hardly surprising or even relevant to what’s going on now. Minorities literally cannot do a single thing without white people crying “what about us?” as demonstrated right here. How do you criticize “blacklivesmatter” for not including white people and not see that’s the entire point. It’s not that white lives don’t matter it’s that black ones don’t in america. There is no “us,” this is a white male dominated society. Black people can’t even attempt to express their frustrations without us butting in and trying to control the dialogue. White people imagining we live in some magical fantasy land where we’re all really equal if we just try is entirely the problem.

    1. @Washington The problem with that viewpoint is you’re essentially saying that true equality is racist. If someone comes out as homosexual and no one cares, that’s equality. When a racial minority walks into a mostly white convention and nobody gives a shit, that’s equality. When someone flaunts their minority status and expects something for it, of course people aren’t going to like them. Imagine if someone walked to the front of the line and said, “I’m gay, so I get to be here.” No one’s going to like that person. The problem is that person now runs out screaming about how everyone was homophobic, while they only wanted that individual to be treated the same way as they were. Everyone now applies racism and discrimination to every event where people simply don’t want to treat others differently. If a historically white business board doesn’t make a big deal out of its new minority member, they’re considered racist. Every time we acknowledge a new “first” (female senator, Hispanic supreme court justice, black president, etc.), we are essentially saying, “Look at how different they are!” The goal shouldn’t be that we celebrate Obama as the first black President. It should be that we don’t care.

      It’s not that I want #blacklivesmatter to include whites. It’s that I’m tired of everyone trying to differentiate themselves by something they didn’t work for or achieve. Today, people still seem to think that skin color, gender, or other ascribed statuses should hold value. If I’m not happier because I hired a minority, I’m racist. When I’m told that the agency I’d like to get a job with would prefer to hire minorities and I think that’s wrong, I’m racist. I don’t think I’m racist. What I am is extremely tired of people telling me I have to constantly acknowledge how they’re genetically different than me and that it makes them worth more. I don’t give a shit about your race or sexual orientation, but if I’m more qualified than you and get overlooked because of race? Then I think there’s a problem. Apparently that makes me racist.

      “If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago, and a racist today.” -Thomas Sowell

  7. Caleb, great post. I’m sure you’ve noticed that cop/police hatred is high right now. I’ve finally given up on Farago/TTAG as the police hatred there is disgusting. This surprised me that this is also coming from the people of the gun culture. I’ve never really seen it here at GNM. You guys are great. Merry Christmas to you and your family and everyone at GNM/GU/Gunocracy!

  8. For racism to end, we as a society need to stop talking about race and start talking about multi-generational entitlement. “Those people owe me something because they have so much. They don’t need that much”. Until we as a people look for a way to create jobs and have everyone believe that it is better to earn what you have than to get the government to give it to you we will continue to have the socio-economic pressures that cause people to use racism as an excuse to ask for more.

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