Black Lives Matter

Skepticism General Skepticism
1

Yet another American fest of virtue signaling, the BLM movement has now been exported to our shores, and all over the place, sport heroes are taking the knee and wearing BLM armbands and so on and so forth. As far as I can work out, there is actually no clear statistical evidence that American police is more likely to kill black suspects than any other ones, so even there the whole thing is bogus.

In any event, saw this posted on Facebook today. It makes for an infuriating read, but deserves to be spread around a bit:

By Shane Brody.
I find it strange that a foreign black man is murdered by foreign police and we have a wave of BLM hysteria that has now even swept through our sporting fraternity…
…let me however be objective here for a minute and consider that perhaps this unacceptable situation acted as an important impetus for the idea to take root in South Africa and in other societies…so yes, lets talk about it…

Lets look at South Africa in particular however and see if we can get to better understand the support shown for this movement by some of our sports “heroes”…
Before I continue, let me pose this question: do black lives or for that matter do any lives really matter in South African society?..I will attempt to answer this rhetorical question by posing a few questions about some specific incidents of the many that crop-up in our press daily, and by relaying some personal experiences:

…do the children drowning in pit toilets in rural schools matter? (who can and should be addressing that?)…do the lives of our poor black children in townships without sporting facilities at their schools matter? (who can and should be addressing that?)…do the lives of poor black pensioners whose life savings at VBS bank were looted by politicians matter? (who can and should be addressing that?) …does the life of Collins Khoza, sjamboked to death by police, matter? (who can and should be addressing that?)…in fact, who of our caring sportsmen protested that?..
Do the lives of thousands of poor black farmers whose livestock died in the drought while drought aid was stolen by politicians matter? (who can and should be addressing that?)…do the lives of young black babies and their mothers lost in hospitals recently because they couldn’t be assisted matter?(who can and should be addressing that?) - this, while corruption is widely reported on in provinces like the East Cape! …this, in a country where officially, hundreds of billions in valuable tax rands have been found to be “unnaccounted for” over the past 25 years… (if considering the mere existence of the Zondo Commission investigating government corruption, I call it grand theft rather!)

Do the destroyed lives of 100 poor black farmers/intended beneficiaries of the Vrede Farm Dairy Project in the Free State where R230 million was looted by the Zuptas matter? (who can and should be addressing that?)…Do opportunities for the young black township cricketers that I managed for a few years matter? - this, while now-famous black sports stars imply some form of systemic racism and lack of opportunity at societal level?..yes, a blaming of society for this!?..

Let me tell you today how many times I (not a sportsman or celebrity…just a farmer!) approached our local municipality and Department of Sports and Recreation to loan our cricket club (one that was specifically created by me and some other caring folk to help young black cricketers who had no assistance at their township schools to be seen in the provincial club scene) the old Sandringham Sports Club grounds in our town…it was on a number of occassions! - at least 6 I’d guess! …some letters were also written by our club committee…all ignored! …
In short, after I offered to maintain the pitch and so forth at my cost, I was only ever given the run around or Her Worship, our distinguished Mayor at the time, just wouldn’t pitch to meetings! …other officials promised to get back to me…they never ever did! Eventually I gave up on Sandringham and next I saw the facility was leased to a guy running a tavern! - that’s how much black lives meant to our local government - give the youth booze but not an opportunity to play potentially life-changing sport! …this, Graeme Smith and AB de Villiers is how much Black Lives mean to the keepers of the public purse! …

…today, the Sandringham buildings are a shell, roofless and destroyed…the pitch no longer exists! …wandering cattle graze on what was once the outfield? I hope Siya Kolisi, Francois Pienaar, Graeme Smith, and all those parading around sanctimoniously with visible BLM armbands are aware of such stories!?..

I can go on all day about the dozens of recent cases like the recent plundering to the tune of 5.7 million of the UIF fund by overpaid and corrupt government officials…do the black lives of the poor and unemployed not matter? (who can and should be addressing that?)…do the lives of the millions of people working in our locked-down and now uneccesarily banned life-sustaining industries (who are losing their jobs as I type this) matter?..

So listen carefully friends, you don’t need to go back in history to ask or suggest whose lives mattered and whose didn’t…or what lives should matter now and whose shouldn’t; just look at the rot around us RIGHT NOW!! …and tell me that Black Lives Matter or any other lives matter in this country!..only when I see the aforementioned sportsmen and their comrades acknowledging that CORRUPTION MATTERS…and when they bow and protest to have the corrupt thieves prosecuted! - will I believe that they are serious about the concept that BLACK LIVES MATTER!!..anything else in my opinion is merely posturing and grandstanding to further personal interests - a curse that today characterises South African society at large!

UNTIL CORRUPTION MATTERS, NO LIVES MATTER!! …

2

BLM has the ear of the media and a “with us or against us” attitude. Public figures “have to” embrace it in much the same way the biblical jews painted their doors with blood: So that, hopefully, the angels of their doom may pass them by. Sadly, what they haven’t yet realised is that sooner or later the mob WILL come for them, all they’re doing by appeasing is giving more power to the mob and buying themselves a little bit of time… maybe, in the process.

That and/or they’re too sheltered and completely oblivious about what’s going on in the real world.

Siya Kolisi

Can go fly a kite. That man had more opportunity foisted on him than 99.9% of any white people in SA ever had in their entire lives and then has the gall to claim he was downtrodden, because he felt uncomfortable in a brand new school. Sigh. You have to just stand in awe of the entitlement and victim mentality and flop your hands helplessly. There’s no pleasing some people.

3

Perhaps it’s easy for me to speak, seeing as I am not a celebrity, but I am astonished every time I see some celebrity humbly apologize for some or other infraction of the PC code. The only meaningful reply to that sort of accusation is “fuck off.”

As for Mr. Kolisi, I am in the fortunate position of not caring in the least about sport, with the result that I have only a vague idea of who he even is (rugby or cricket? I can’t remember now). And thus, I don’t feel obliged to have any opinion about him. :slight_smile:

4

Cliff notes: He’s a springbok rugby captain that lead SA to a world cup victory. He came up through Grey college due to his talent being spotted early on and receiving a scholarship of some kind. He also recently bemoaned loudly in the media how hard it was being black, because arriving at Grey he didn’t immediately feel like he fitted in and there was some “in-language” he had to learn. It almost reads like satire.

5

It reads like the story of my life. :smiley:

6

On another forum, someone posted this bit of research:

Deaths Due to Use of Lethal Force by Law Enforcement

I have not read through it in detail. The article reports disproportionately large numbers of black Americans get killed by police.

On the face of it, an open and shut case. But wait - there’s more! One can go check up all manner of statistics. E.g. what percentage of Americans are black, and who commits crimes and so on. Well, while black Americans only make out some 13 percent of the population, they commit more than fifty percent of the murders, and are vastly over-represented in most other crimes as well. I.e. one would expect more cop-civilian interactions then, in this specific group, and therefore more cop-induced deaths. In fact, given the available numbers, it appears as if police are actually LESS likely to kill black suspects.

And so, in summary, it appears as if just like South Africa, America also has an elephant in the room, that no one is allowed to mention. There are many curious parallels between South Africa and America, and a black population with high rates of alcohol and drug abuse, dysfunctional families, high crime rates, low levels of motivation and ambition, academic underachievement etc. seems to be one of them. And as with South Africa, I don’t think there is anything inherently criminal or dumb about black folks. This is a cultural phenomenon, and I am not clear on what causes it. Perhaps I should go read up on the extent of affirmative action policies in America.

Anyway, there may well be very widespread and endemic racism in America. It is not clear to me how waving placards and destroying infrastructure is going to make anyone feel any less racist.