Ray Lewis defines the problem but misses the ball
Ray Lewis fell into a trap laid out by the willfully ignorant media and contriving politicians that use smoke and mirrors to detract from systemic problems. This video is dangerous in that it gives the executioners of racial injustice and terror an ally of the correct persuasion. In other words, if this black athlete with a less than stellar criminal past echoes a derelict media, the Republican Party, and to some extent the Clintons, then, to hell with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Ray Lewis is using the same type of smoke and mirrors tactics to delegitimize a movement. Unfortunately for the old guard, Black Lives Matter and its allies do not scare nor do they care what anyone else thinks. They are on a mission with a focus that every real and sustainable movement must be. I was there at Netroots Nation 2015 when they changed the course of the Bernie Sanders campaign in a day.
Crime and murders in low economic black neighborhoods have many causes. Some causes are not even immediately evident including the presence of lead in paint and elsewhere. Black Lives Matter tackles systemic injustices of all types that affect black people. Many of these themselves are responsible for the crime, poverty, and lack of education that afflict these communities.
Recently Bill Clinton was confronted by Black Lives Matter protesters and his response showed that he still does not get it. He still does not understand that his welfare policies and crime policies hurt the black community. Locking folks up without educating them forestalls a crime problem and makes it worse in the future.
Of course, comments like those from Ray Lewis effectively gives Bill Clinton a pass, a derelict media a pass, the establishment parties a pass. While perusing my internet feed, I came across a video from a young lady, Tiffany Ferguson from her channel Socially Unacceptable. I found it a fresh response from a young woman to both Bill Clinton and Ray Lewis’s shameful video. It inspired the mashup in the video in this post.