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Prominent Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckessonsaccusations of racism againstthe creators of the upcoming film War for the Planet of the Apes quickly backfired Monday night.

In two since-deleted tweets, Mckesson slammed the movies creators for dehumanizing him and associating black people with apes. The indictment from the liberalprotester came in response to a new poster for the movie, which depicts one of the apes wearing a blue vest.

Mckesson and some other social media users assumed the vest must bea veiled reference to the Black Lives Matter leader, who is known for donningsimilar outerwear.

Another Twitter user, who describes himself as a black activist, said white supremacy is so deeply complicit in the movies America sees.

Mckesson, apparently offended at the perceived slight against his efforts as a progressive activist, shot off two tweets disparaging the summer blockbusters creators for their lack of consciousness.

Given the history of rendering black people as apes, Im offended & appalled by the lack of consciousness in Hollywood. #PlanetOfTheApes, Mckesson wrote. In associating black people w/ apes, active work is being done to perpetuate the dehumanization of black ppl in mass media.

It didnt take long for Twitter users even those friendly to the Black Lives Matter movement to suggest that accusing the movies creators of mocking Mckesson might be a bit of a stretch.

In fact, a simple YouTube search reveals that many of the apes in the original 1968 Planet of the Apes movie wore blue vests. This latest iteration of the film franchise is likely nothing more than a reference to the original movie.

Robby Starbuck, a Hollywood producer and director, was quick to point out that fact in a series of tweets.

Starbuck wenton to write: Theres some serious narcissism involved in assuming a film w/ hundreds of millions at stake would think about how they might offend DeRay.

If Mckessons claims are accurate, the Planet of the Apes franchise must have started mocking the activist all the way back in 1968, which was 17 years before he was born in 1985 and 45 years before the Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013.

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Black Lives Matter activist cries racism over 'Planet of the Apes,' and ... - TheBlaze.com

Black Lives Matter protesters march in Seattle.

For many Americans, the countrys 241st birthday last week was an unqualified cause for celebration. For many other Americans, however, this Fourth of July was a reminder that United States policy has yet to live up to the Declaration of Independences aspirational language. When the words life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were written, in fact, many groups of people were excludedincluding enslaved black Americans.

It required our bloodiest war to banish slavery. And while we elected our first black president in 2008, and while todays Congress, though still overwhelmingly white, is more diverse than its ever been, racism persists in all our institutions. A multitude of structural barriers block pathways to economic opportunity across generations of black families, imperil many black Americans physical safety, and diminish investment in black communities and businesses.

Stubborn racial disparities jump out of the data. The unemployment rate for black workers has averaged about twice the unemployment rate for white workers for as long as weve been tracking it. Median income for black households has remained at about 60 percent of median income for white households since the late 1960s (and wage gaps are particularly wide for black women). When it comes to wealth, the difference is even larger and has grown in recent years; median white net worth today is about 13 times as high as median black wealth. Middle-class black families are significantly more likely than middle-class white families to live in high-poverty neighborhoods that suffer from a lack of investment in public goods.

Differences in educational attainment explain only a small fraction of the gaps noted above, but theyre also significant. While test-score gaps by race have declined in recent decades and the gap in high school completion by race has almost disappeared, black students are still much less likely than their white peers to both enroll in and complete college. Our criminal justice system, including policing practices, disproportionately oppresses black Americans: Despite being no more likely than people of other races to use or sell drugs, for example, black Americans are arrested for marijuana possession at almost four times the rates of white Americans. Less than 15 percent of the American population is black, but in American prisons, black people comprise just under 40 percent of the population.

A black child born into the bottom two-fifths of the income scale is more likely than not to end up in the bottom 20 percent as an adult; similarly, 56 percent of black children born into the middle quintile end up in the bottom 40 percent when theyre older, compared with only 34 percent of middle-quintile white children.

Policies that explicitly target some of these obstacles facing black Americans, like criminal justice reforms and the restoration of voting rights, are a key part of the racial justice agenda. Proposals to help low- and middle-income people across the board are also an important way to push back on these inequalities; since black Americans suffer disproportionate economic hardship, they are disproportionately helped by policies that improve economic security. Weve written about many such proposals on these pages. Raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024, for instance, would be expected to give 40 percent of black workers a raise. Expansions of safety net programs like SNAP (food stamps), Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, which carry long-term benefits for children in the families that receive them, would help millions of black Americans as well. Bold ideas like a federal job guarantee and Medicare for All would, if enacted and realized, substantially reduce disparities in unemployment and health outcomes by guaranteeing that every American had access to a job and health care.

Maintaining full employment conditions in the labor market is also essential for working-age black families. New research from the Federal Reserve underscores both that periods of high unemployment are particularly damaging for black employment and that persistently tight labor markets disproportionately raise black wages, employment, and incomes. In a forthcoming paper with Keith Bentele, we show that the real annual earnings of low-income, working-age black households doubled between 1994 and 2000, from about $4,600 in 1994 to about $9,600 in 2000 (2015 dollars). We estimate that two-thirds of that total earnings growth can be attributed to the tight labor market, which helped connect previously jobless or underemployed people with more work opportunities.

These findings suggest that the Federal Reserve plays a key role in shaping the condition of black lives when it decides whether to maintain full employment. Yes, the central bank must manage its dual mandate: full employment at stable prices. But especially given the low correlation between inflation and unemployment in recent decades, the Fed would do well to consider the racial impacts of its decision-making.

Still, the fact that black Americans would benefit substantially and disproportionately from the policy reforms listed above does not make them sufficient. In a widely read article from a few years ago, Ta-Nehisi Coates made a forceful case for considering reparationsthat is, some form of direct compensation to black Americans for past injustices that reverberate across centuries and remain embedded in the many institutions noted above. Both the Black Youth Project (BYP) and Movement for Black Lives have outlined reparations proposals more recently. Recognizing that more details need to be worked out and that a reparations program may well include some of the ideas mentioned aboveas the BYP argues, reparations can take many forms, including but not limited to cash payments, land, and economic development, scholarship funds, and textbooks/other educational materialsthey all recommend the passage of H.R. 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, which would set up a commission to determine the most appropriate course of action. The questions before such a commission would be complicated: How exactly does one make restitution for several hundred years of injustice? What is the appropriate scope of the injustices addressed? Dont Native Americans have a strong claim to reparations as well? But they would also surely be answerable.

Though full democracy remains an elusive goal in America, the persistence of social movements striving to make the country better is also one of Americas enduring attributes. The best way to celebrate our nations birthday is to work together to bring our reality closer to the rhetoric upon which it was founded.

Tax Cuts for the rich.Deregulation for the powerful.Wage suppression for everyone else.These are the tenets of trickle-down economics, the conservatives age-old strategy for advantaging the interests of the rich and powerful over those of the middle class and poor. The articles in Trickle-Downers are devoted, first, to exposing and refuting these lies, but equally, to reminding Americans that these claims arent made because they are true. Rather, they are made because they are the most effective way elites have found to bully, confuse and intimidate middle- and working-class voters. Trickle-down claims are not real economics.They are negotiating strategies. Here at the Prospect, we hope to help you win that negotiation.

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Does the Fed Think Black Lives Matter? - The American Prospect

On Monday evening, the local community members of Newport News, Va., held a #ShutDown757 Unity March on the anniversary of the Black Lives Matter 757 march in 2016.

The march took place within several Hampton Roads cities, including Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach, the Daily Press reports. In Newport News, the group blocked lanes on Jefferson Avenue while marching to the police station.

According to the groups website, the march was aimed at giving the concerned citizens within the Hampton Roads area a voice, a platform, a way to join in the national fight for social justice.

Sara Lareau, a member of Black Lives Matter 757, said, We need to stand as a community of all races, and we need to come together and not hate each other.

Misty Collins, a former deputy sheriff and animal-control officer with the Newport News Police Department, attended the march to support the police.

These guys, they get killed, she said while holding up a sign that said, Go away cop killers.

Newport News and Hampton dispatchers said they didnt have any reports of incidents as a result of the marchers. The only person to be pulled aside by the Hampton police for reported obstruction of free passage of others was Aubrey Dwight Jones, the organizer of the event.

Read more at Daily Press.

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Black Lives Matter Holds Unity March in Newport News, Va. - The Root - The Root

Lawyers for one of the wounded law enforcement officers filed the complaint Friday in US District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana against various arms of the Black Lives Matter movement and leaders including DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie.

The complaint alleges Black Lives Matter and its leaders are responsible for the shooting because they "incited the violence against police in retaliation for the death (sic) of black men shot by police," and "did nothing to dissuade the ongoing violence and injury to police."

"In fact, they justified the violence as necessary to the movement and war," the complaint says.

The person who filed the lawsuit is named in the complaint only as Officer John Doe Smith. It says he is 42 with two children and is permanently disabled as a result of the numerous injuries he suffered in the ambush.

Smith, the complaint says, was shot through his abdomen, left shoulder and left side of his head. The shot to his abdomen "tore up his intestines," requiring 16 surgeries and causing recurring infections. Medical staff must attend to the exit wound daily, it says.

The shot to Smith's head almost tore off his left ear, which needed to be sewn back on, the complaint says. His skull was shattered and he lost brain matter on the left side, in an area controlling communication. His left eye stays mostly closed with the eyeball turned outward, it says.

"John Doe Police Officer was strong and vibrant and he has been struggling everyday, fighting to live, and fighting to get better," the complaint says. It seeks at least $75,000 in compensatory damages.

It is not clear why the officer filed the complaint under a pseudonym.

Donna Grodner, the attorney for the officer who filed the suit, told CNN she wasn't authorized to speak about the case.

Armed with a rifle, he fatally shot Officers Matthew Gerald, 41, and Montrell Jackson, 32, outside the store as soon as he saw them.

Sheriff's Deputy Brad Garafola, who apparently was responding to reports of a man with a rifle, heard the shots and took cover, but then ran to help one of the downed officers. That's when Long opened fire, killing Garafola.

Long then shot Officer Chad Montgomery, who had pulled up in front of the building. The bullet grazed his head.

In a nearby parking lot, Sheriff's Deputy Nicholas Tullier, then 41, was in his cruiser to run the tag on Long's car when the gunman emerged from the woods and opened fire, shooting as he walked toward the vehicle.

Tullier was shot once in the head and twice in the abdomen and was in a coma for months.

Long took shots at another arriving deputy, Bruce Simmons, 51, shattering the bone from his elbow to his shoulder. Simmons now has a titanium rod in his arm.

SWAT officers then arrived on scene and shot Long in the leg, causing him to fall to the ground. As Long reached for his weapon, five SWAT officers fired, killing him.

The complaint describes in detail numerous protests that erupted across the country over several years, spurred by the shooting deaths of black men at the hands of police, and lists instances of violence, looting and vandalism at protests in Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore; McKinney, Texas; Dallas and Baton Rouge.

The suit notes Mckesson's involvement in Black Lives Matter, and it points to his participation in the protests and his appearances in the media when he was introduced as a leader of the movement or a protest organizer.

When violence erupted at some of the protests, the complaint says, Mckesson and other Black Lives Matter leaders "failed to disavow the violence and urged its followers that violence was part of revolution," the complaint says.

"By embracing and supporting violence in protest that could have been conducted peacefully, BLM declared a virtual war on police," it says.

When reached for comment, Mckesson told CNN, "This is the second lawsuit an officer has filed against me from Baton Rouge. ... I'm confident it has no merit."

Elzie had no comment, and other defendants from Black Lives Matter could not be immediately reached for comment.

Mckesson and Elzie were present for protests in Baton Rouge in July 2016 held in response to the officer-involved shooting deaths of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile near Minneapolis earlier that month.

The suit says they came to protest and "to incite others to violence against police and other law enforcement officers."

Mckesson was arrested during the protests on July 9, though he told CNN days later the arrest was unlawful because he was complying with police requests to move back at the time.

The lawsuit also says Long's actions when he killed the Baton Rouge officers "followed and mimicked those of another BLM activist who killed several officers in Dallas just days earlier."

Investigators identified the Dallas gunman as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, a military veteran who had served in Afghanistan.

Long, who acted alone in the shooting, traveled to Baton Rouge after stopping in Dallas shortly after the shooting to get revenge for the recent killings, the complaint says, suggesting that Black Lives Matter encouraged the behavior.

CNN's Shawn Nottingham and Melissa Gray contributed to this report.

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Baton Rouge officer sues Black Lives Matter - cnn.com

A Black Lives Matter march is planned for Hampton Roads Monday night, according to event organizers.

The organization #BlackLivesMatter757 will march throughout the region starting at 7:57 p.m., the group posted on social media.

The organization was spearheaded July 10, 2016, in light of the the national Black Lives Matter movement and aimsto give "concerned citizens within the Hampton Roads area a voice, a platform, a way to join in the national fight for social justice," according to the organization's website.

Marches will start at the same time in Hampton at Mercury Boulevard, Newport News near Rouse Tower at Jefferson Avenue and Mercury Boulevard, Portsmouth at High Street and Virginia Beach at the Oceanfront and Norfolk on Granby Street, the organization posted on social media. No specific addresses were released.

Newport News and Hampton police departments released statements about the planned marches.

"Officers will be on-hand to ensure a peaceful First Amendment demonstration and are prepared to manage and coordinate traffic flow in order to provide for the safety of the demonstrators, as well as the public," Newport News police said on Facebook. Alternate routes will be posted on the department's South Precinct twitter page.

Hampton police will also set up patrols in the area to facilitate pedestrians and drivers on the road, said spokesman Matt Bond.

"There has not been a permit obtained by the organizers of this event; however, there has not been an official decision made regarding any applicable law enforcement action that may be taken," he said.

Bond said decisions about enforcement would be made during the event.

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Black Lives Matter marches planned for Monday night - Daily Press