Opinion
Black Lives Matter is Not 'Anti-Police'
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
B ernie F oster
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I
t has been both interesting and
unsettling to watch the attacks
from the political right on the
Black Lives Matter movement
and the larger movement for
Black lives. Specifically, the sug-
gestion that Black Lives Matter
activists are somehow terroristic
and promote the killing of police
is so outlandish that it’s not only
difficult to believe that anyone
would even take such allegations
seriously, but it’s also hard to
imagine someone mouthing such
words in the first place.
Let’s start by debunking a myth
that is being promoted by the po-
litical right.
The political right and several
police unions have suggested that
there is a war against the police.
The facts stand in contrast. The
number of police killed has actu-
ally decreased.
Given this, why are we being led
to believe otherwise? Simply put,
promoting fear and suggesting that
there is somehow a war against the
police is a smokescreen to shift at-
tention away from the actual war
that has been underway, and that
is a war against Black civilians by
right-wing haters and out of con-
Bill
Fletcher Jr.
The Global
African
trol police.
This point cannot be empha-
sized too strongly. Not only do the
police than White young men.
It is these statistics that the polit-
ical right wishes us to ignore.
As a result of the attention that
folks in the Black Lives Matter
movement and the movement for
Black lives have brought to the
phenomenon of police lynchings,
they have found themselves the
target of those who wish to sup-
press any actual discussion of the
discrepancy in police violence.
Using the suggestion of terrorism
is a time-honored technique to
smash any open discourse.
Promoting fear and suggesting that
there is somehow a war against
the police is a smokescreen to shift
attention away from the actual war that
has been underway
facts demonstrate that there is no
war against the police, but they
also continue to demonstrate that
young Black men are anywhere
between seven and 21 times more
likely to be shot and killed by the
In the fall of 2001, shortly after
the 9/11 Al Qaeda attacks on the
Twin Towers and the Pentagon,
the then attorney general of South
Carolina wrote an op-ed suggest-
ing that protesting dockworkers in
Charleston who had been set up
by the police were domestic ter-
rorists.
The allegation was completely
outrageous and was quickly dis-
avowed by sensible South Car-
olinians. Nevertheless, the clear
hope had been that such an allega-
tion would lead to the defeat of a
nation-wide campaign to free the
five Charleston dockworkers.
That scare tactic did not work.
Today, such scare tactics are be-
ing reissued and for the same gen-
eral purpose.
Rather than focus the attention
of the country on the discrepancy
in police violence and the larger
negative differential in treatment
experienced by African Amer-
icans compared to Whites, the
hope is that fear of chaos and fear
of vigilante justice against police
will lead the population to close
its collective eyes and simply tol-
erate whatever actions the police
believe to be appropriate.
It will not happen.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the host
of The Global African on Tele-
sur-English. Follow him on Twit-
ter, Facebook and at www.billf-
letcherjr.com.
Environmental Justice for People of Color
T
he Civil Rights Movement
in the United States identi-
fied a long list of issues that
were broadly considered the his-
torical and contemporary evidence
of systematic racial discrimination
and injustice. With the 2016 pres-
idential election rapidly approach-
ing, the critical importance of
environmental justice for Black
Americans, Latino Americans,
Native Americans and for other
people of color must be reasserted.
As a young statewide coordina-
tor for the Reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. and the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC) in my home state of North
Carolina from 1963 to 1968, I
saw first-hand how movements
for change have to first define
the issues from the perspective of
the oppressed in order to have a
chance of overcoming longstand-
ing systems of racial injustice.
Golden Frinks, the SCLC North
Carolina State Field Secretary,
once told me, “Son, you gotta use
our own definitions about these
massive racial inequities with-
out getting the permission of the
perpetrators.” The wisdom that I
learned from my mentor Brother
Frinks has helped to guide my ca-
reer over the past decades.
Thus, in 1982 during a
game-changing civil rights pro-
test led by the United Church of
Christ’s Commission for Racial
Justice in Warren County, N.C., I
remembered what Golden Frinks
had taught me. A devastating ra-
cial injustice was taking place in
the state and it needed to be chal-
lenged.
I was the first person to coin
and define the term “environmen-
tal racism.” This was in response
to a decision by North Carolina
to dump over 400 tons of can-
cer-causing PCB (polychlorinated
Page 2 October 21, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner
Benjamin F.
Chavis, Jr.
NNPA
President and
CEO
biphenyls) hazardous waste into
a state-made landfill in the mid-
dle of a Black American farming
community in Warren County.
Over 500 of us were arrested and
jailed, but we were very success-
low-income populations with the
goal of achieving environmental
protection for all communities.”
Subsequently, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) opened
up a full-time Office of Environ-
mental Justice.
President Barack Obama in
2014 issued a Presidential Procla-
mation to observe the 20th anni-
versary of the Clinton E.O. 12898.
President Obama emphasized, “As
we mark this day, we recall the ac-
tivists who took on environmental
challenges long before the federal
government acknowledged their
needs. We remember how Ameri-
‘... Americans — young and old, on
college campuses and in courtrooms,
in our neighborhoods and through our
places of worship — called on a Nation
to pursue clean air, water, and land for
all people’
ful in bringing national and glob-
al attention to another serious
life-threatening manifestation of
racial injustice.
Environmental racism is defined
as racial discrimination in the de-
liberate targeting of ethnic and
minority communities for expo-
sure to toxic and hazardous waste
sites and facilities, coupled with
the systematic exclusion of people
of color in environmental policy
making, enforcement, and reme-
diation.
By 1994 President Bill Clin-
ton had issued Executive Order
12898 on Environmental Justice in
Minority Populations and Low-In-
come Populations “to focus fed-
eral attention on the environmen-
tal and human health effects of
federal actions on minority and
cans — young and old, on college
campuses and in courtrooms, in
our neighborhoods and through
our places of worship — called on
a Nation to pursue clean air, water,
and land for all people.”
Today, people of color are still
facing the consequential horrors
of exposures to environmental
pollution that have led to dispro-
portionate public health disparities
and the unprecedented increase in
cancer and asthma, as well as oth-
er respiratory illnesses. There is
an inextricable linkage between
poverty, economic inequality and
environmental injustice.
But there is some good news
about these challenges. Van Jones
and a team of young, dedicat-
ed environmental justice leaders
and activists have established an
effective national organization
called Green For All. The mission
of Green For All is to work “to
build an inclusive green economy
strong enough to lift people out
of poverty.” I have supported and
admired Van Jones’ leadership in
helping to bring people of color
together to advance the cause of
equal justice and sustainable de-
velopment.
It is also relevant to note The
Guardian article titled, “Pollution
isn’t colorblind: environmental
hazards are killing more Black
Americans,” that was co-authored
by Congressman Keith Ellison
and Van Jones. Ellison and Jones
explained, “Thanks to people’s
movements like Black Lives Mat-
ter and the Fight For 15, the call
for racial and economic justice is
getting louder and stronger.
But while we are out on the
streets fighting for equality, our
kids are being poisoned by the
air they breathe. Environmental
injustices are taking Black lives
– that’s why our fight for equality
has to include climate and envi-
ronmental justice too.”
I predict that one of the key po-
litical issues in next year’s presi-
dential election will be the issue
of environmental justice. We have
to keep on making progress. The
health and quality of life of our
communities are at stake. While
people color now make up over
30 percent of the population of the
United States, our issues, demands
and interests cannot be triaged on
the table of political expediency.
Witnessing so many new young
leaders and activists stepping for-
ward to gain more ground makes
me optimistic that 2016 will be the
year of advancement for all peo-
ple of color and for all those who
stand for freedom and equality.