Sunday, September 6, 2015

A Short Correction

It would appear that I am wrong, that Black Lives Matter and Campaign Zero are not the same organization.  Like most political movements in this country, the anti-police brutality movement is very diffuse.  Black Lives Matter is both a slogan and a formal organization.  Campaign Zero uses the slogan, but is a separate organization.  To quote from the link:
This raises interesting questions about whether Mckesson [leader of Campaign Zero], as an independent operator, is an appropriate representative of Black Lives Matter. The answer is muddy, and hinges on how you define the organization. It was originally a hashtag that blossomed into an organization founded by three women—Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi—in Oakland in July 2013 after Trayvon Martin was shot to death by George Zimmerman. BLM exploded during last year’s highly publicized string of incidents in which unarmed blacks were blown away by police; it now has a board and recognized chapters all over the country. “Black Lives Matter” is now both the specific name of a working organization and a more general rallying cry for people working to halt the steady stream of blacks being killed by agents of the state. Mckesson has become the face of that latter movement [the general rallying cry], operating under its flag; he is not the official face of, or operating under, the organization.
So, it would appear that Campaign Zero is moving in the direction of being a mainstream pressure group with mainstream civil libertarian goals.  The formal "Black Lives Matter" movement does not have anything so specific and may or may not decide to follow in the direction of being a mainstream pressure group.

Of course, I don't expect the movement's right wing critics to know all of this any better than I did.

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