Dear Editor,
We need to talk. Your inflammatory anti-police hysteria has gone too far. The July 16 article, “Dear Mom, Dad, Uncle, Auntie: Black Lives Matter to us, too,” stated that, “Last week in Louisiana, two white police officers killed a Black man named Alton Sterling, while he sold CD’s on the street.” Such a dishonest reporting of the details in that incident is outrageous, making it seem as though Sterling was peacefully selling bootleg CD’s on the street and those police officers just came along and shot him dead.
No, what happened was that a homeless man called 911 to report that Sterling had threatened him with a gun. The police officers went to investigate. He resisted arrest. The two police officers first tried to use their Taser. Sterling just shrugged off the electrical shock. The officers then tried to wrestle him down. While wrestling with him, Sterling tried to pull his handgun to shoot those two police officers. They shot him to save their own lives. So first, they tried to tase him, then they tried to wrestle him down. They were trying to subdue him without shooting him.
But the argument seems to be that police officers are supposed to prove that they are not racist by letting Black criminals kill them. Why are police officers supposed to let criminals kill them? Oh, and since Sterling was a convicted felon, that meant that he couldn’t legally buy or own a gun.
The publishers of Northwest Asian Weekly should be ashamed of themselves for publishing such a dishonest piece of garbage like that and making it seem as though two Baton Rouge police officers killed Sterling for no reason whatsoever. When the news media regularly whips up such inflammatory hysteria that police officers are engaged in a war on Black males, that causes people like the shooters in Dallas, and now Baton Rouge, to murder police officers. You journalists should be ashamed of yourselves.
— Peter Karr
Bellevue
Blacklifematterpghorg says
Having communicated with “those in charge” who say “they’re not in charge” and having documented a complete set of facts about the Black Lives Matter movement, I have much say.
The BLM founders recently wrote that they didn’t want our group in Pittsburgh to be a part of their network because our focus is “ENDING GUN VIOLENCE IN PITTSBURGH!”
The BLM Founder explained: “their focus is centered on the leadership and experiences of black, queer and transgender women and gender non-conforming people.” Is their efforts really a “fight for gay and transgender rights.”
Thereafter, they staged BLM events in Pittsburgh with “a majority white, gay and lesbians group that joined together with local political sellouts.” It was clearly an effort to upstage what we have been doing for more than two (2) years.
Nonetheless, this new “AGENDA” appears to be exactly the ideological errors critics identify as proof that the “moral crusade” lacks the ability and competency to lift things to the next level.
IT IS WHAT IT IS BECAUSE THE NATIONAL MEDIA HAS CATAPULTED UPWARD A FEW POLITICAL INSIDERS AS BLM LEADERS.
To be taken seriously by policymakers the new “AGENDA” should have been more focused and less “wild-eyed.”
They are demanding everything but the basic fundamentals necessary to address impoverish black neighborhoods and the black boys and girls struggling to survive (epidemic gun violence, excessively high unemployment, low skill levels, abject poverty, and the like).
For some reason the media and political establishment allows just the uninformed and most belligerent to do the talking for the BLM movement.
Again, these BLM leaders who say they are not BLM leaders, are benefiting financially by taking advantage of our local BLM issues. They show up at the local demonstration with no plan, no vision, no centralized platform and could care less about local black lives.
However, as the “BLM network” recognized by the national media they are given financial support to promote “the leadership and experiences of black, queer and transgender women and gender non-conforming people,” and not the issues important to local BLM groups.
Todd Elliott Koger
(Local Organizer of BLM Activity in Pittsburgh for more than two years)
Blacklifematterpghorg
P.O. BOX 8149
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15217