Gaslighting of Black Lives Matter

Image from US Weekly

Elisabeth Hasselbeck as a morning host for Fox and Friends once again has failed. Her failure to understand the current outcry by the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) group – and its varying degree – of the over the top antics to bring attention to the justice inequities to black Americans has brought her under scrutiny once again.

Her questioning of why they are not designated as hate group, as related to the Minneapolis BLM chants of August 30^th, shows not only naivety but also white privilege arrogance. Elisabeth Hasselbeck fails to understand or at least acknowledge that judicial inequities impacts minorities deeply.

The BLM movement acknowledges these judicial inequities and brings consciousness to the American public. Often, the discussion of race-relations has been gaslighted (see Ben Carson op-ed in USA Today) by generating varying degrees of false arguments from ad hominem attacks to red herrings (see Fusion commentary on debunking myths) in order to derail substantive change.

In most cases, race-relations discussions, in the recent past obfuscates itself with the polarization of political ideological differences and through the media spin machines (see O’ Reilly on Fox); or, hinders by the uneasy tension of race-relation discussions. Hasselbeck insinuates that BLM movement should be rated as a terrorist group because of the upsurge of police officers’ death and inappropriate chants by the group.

Image from blacksphere.net

Kevin Jackson, who was asked by Hasselbeck, on her show Fox and Friends the question, "Kevin, why has the Black Lives Matter movement not been classified as a hate group? How much more has to go in this direction before someone actually labels it as such?," would have you think that all the black community needs to do is keep families together. A two-parent household resolves the troubles within the community.  Two things – this is a sound bite solution and at the same time a straw man argument. Setting aside the amount of time to create a generational familial community, the economic opportunities for blacks within the community are stagnant, because of judicial inequities, education, and yes, because of familial strife. However, this perspective by Kevin Jackson, a political talking point does not provide an immediate implemental solution that can attribute to attainable and measurable results in a short period of time. Immediate and short time results, such as affordable housing, equitable justice outcomes, and better education opportunities with better policing can turn around troubled communities.

Both Jackson and Hasselbeck have missed the point, as put forth by Emily Ekins of the Cato Institute, “One shouldn’t label an entire movement by the comments and actions of just a few activists.” For instance, one does not condemn all of Christianity because of the Westboro Baptist Church extremism and their hate speech.

BLM is not directly or indirectly related to the surge of police officers deaths; and, in fact are down by 13 percent. And, should not be demonized because they are bring attention to injustices within minority communities. As Emily Ekins points out, the attention BLM is bringing, can only assist with reform of the justice and policing. In the meantime, BLM must move into uncharted territory of becoming more than movement and just calling attention to the sins and inequities of justice it now needs to get the political action into results for all Americans; and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Kevin Jackson, and Bill O’Reilly need to be part of solution instead of gaslighting on actual issues that are actually relevant to the American people.

Update -- In an earlier version of this post, I referred to Emily Ekins of the Cato Institute as Emily Heck. My sincerest apologies for the misidentification.