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Heather Mac Donald (Manhattan Institute)

Black Lives Matter activists on two southern California college campuses shut down scheduled appearances by anti-BLM critic, pro-police advocate and author of the book The War On Cops, Heather Mac Donald.

Mac Donald, a Manhattan Institute scholar, was scheduled to give a Blue Lives Matter talk at UCLA on Wednesday to discuss her 2016 book and do a Q & A following her speech. The College Fix reports that while Mac Donald was able to get through the first half of her speech without incident, but when she opened the floor to questions, all hell broke loose.

A Facebook video posted by Bruin Republicans at UCLA, which organized the event, shows the event in its entirety. When Mac Donald concludes her speech on cops being the real victims, a student organizer stands to open the floor for questions, and people off camera can be heard chanting Black Lives, they matter here!

During one heated exchange, a young black woman in the audience asked Mac Donald whether Black victims killed by cops mattered.

Yes, Mac Donald replied. And do black children that are killed by other blacks matter to you?

The room reacted, as expected, and the young woman repeated her question to Mac Donald.

Of course I care, and do you know what, Mac Donald said. There is no government agency more dedicated to the proposition that black lives matter than the police.

(lol. OK, sis)

After back and forth between Mac Donald and the protesters, she was escorted off the campus.

Thursday, Mac Donald was scheduled to appear at Claremont McKenna College to deliver another talk, and according to the Claremont Independent, that event ended similarly:

On Thursday, a raucous crowd of student protesters blocked the exits to Claremont McKenna Colleges Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, shutting down a scheduled lecture and question-and-answer session by Heather Mac Donald, a prominent scholar and critic of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Chanting Black lives matter here and no cops, no KKK, no fascist USA, protesters massed tightly around the exits, blocking fellow students from entering Mac Donalds scheduled presentation, entitled The War on Police. Even faculty members who sought to enter the building were denied, with waves of protesters screaming and resorting to physical force to repel anyone who drew too close to the building. At one point, a crowd of White students screaming Fuck White supremacy, fuck White supremacy pushed an elderly White professor away from the Athenaeum entrance.

When the scheduled start time of Mac Donalds presentation came and then went, the crowds earned a half-victory: Students wishing to attend the event were unable to hear Mac Donald in person, though her presentation ultimately took place over a video livestream more than an hour behind schedule.

According to the Independent, Mac Donalds speech was eventually livestreamed.

I take issue with the way both of these stories were reported. In defense of the Fix, they are a right-wing publication, so it is expected that their detailing of the events may have a bit of bias. Fortunately, they also posted the Facebook video which does at some points discount the way they portrayed the incident.

Comments on the Independents story show that people on campus disagree with their telling of the events as well. Both accounts appear to be slanted against the Black Lives Matter movement; there is no objectivity in either story.

Its worth noting that neither the Fix nor the Independent are college publications that receive their funding from a school, so that would explain why they are not held to a higher standard of journalism.

In any case, freedom of speech is freedom of speech, and just because you dont like the message doesnt mean you get to shut it down.

As evidenced in the UCLA video, it appears that is what people were trying to do.

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Black Lives Matter Activists at 2 College Campuses Disrupt Scheduled Appearances by BLM Critic Heather Mac Donald - The Root

Over the past three years, a powerful hashtag and movement has grown up to demonstrate against police killings of black people

PEPSI has been blasted for an advert featuring Kendall Jenner which appears to use an iconic scene from a human rights demo but what is Black Lives Matter?

The telly ad sees the 21-year-old model use a can of Pepsi to stop a stand-off between cops and a multi-racial group of protesters bearing resemblance to a protest.

EPA

The civil rights group came about in response to extreme police brutality which culminated in the shooting dead of three African/American men in 2013

More than 1000 people were killed in police in the US in 2015, nearly a third of them black.

This is despite the fact that black people are 13 per cent of the population.

Against this background there was the fatal shootings of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana.

This sparked the Twitter slogan #blacklivesmatter

MARTIN FAMILY

But before the killing of Castile and Sterling, black people in the US and abroad were shocked by the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Martin was walking back from a store to his fathers fiancees house when he was shot by George Zimmerman who was not a police officer, but a volunteer for a neighbourhood watch scheme.

He was cleared of the murder of a black teenager, Trayvon Martin.

Reacting to this perceived injustice, theBlack Lives Matter slogan began appearing as a hashtag online.

People across the world including celebs have taken to Twitter to criticise the Pepsi advert since its release, with Charlotte Church stating: This makes me sick and retweeting Kris Jenners support of the commercial.

Viewers complain the imagery echoes that of the young woman Ieshia Evans serenely standing up to armed police in Baton Rouge while protesting the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling.

Others have been left in disbelief at how tone deaf the advert is. Daily Show writer Kashana Cauley wrote: So all us dark people have to do is convince a cop that the Pepsi were holding isnt a gun.

Bernice King, daughter of US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, tweeted: If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi.

Within 24 hours, Pepsi pulled the ad but it is online, with many mickey takes. In a grovelling statement, the drinks giant said: Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding.

"Clearly we missed the mark and we apologise.

"We did not intend to make light of any serious issue.

"We are removing the content. We also apologise for putting Kendall Jenner in this position.

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What is Black Lives Matter, what is the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad fiasco and how is it connected to Trayvon Martin's ... - The Sun

wbur Neal Blair, of Augusta, Ga., wears a hoodie which reads, "Black Lives Matter" as stands on the lawn of the Capitol building during a rally to mark the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March, on Capitol Hill, on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015, in Washington. Black men from around the nation returned to the capital calling for changes in policing and in black communities. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The Black Lives Matter movement originated as an organization to combat police violence but has morphed into an organization for civil rights issues. How does it compare to the civil rights movement, and the Black Power movement of the 1960s?

Here & Now's Robin Young speaks with Peniel Joseph(@penieljoseph), a scholar of African-American history and professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin,about his cover story for the New Republic, "Why Black Lives Matter Still Matters."

On how Black Lives Matter compares tothe civil rights and Black Power movements

"I think it straddles really both movements, but it's more comparable to Black Power than civil rights. That's primarily because BLM movement has a structural criticism of racism. So, they're not just criticizing the justice system. They're making a claim that the justice system in the United States is connected to unemployment, public school segregation, environmental racism and inequality. So its just basically the police are the tip of a larger iceberg of systemic oppression. What makes them so interesting is this notion of intersectionality. The three cofounders of that hashtag were all black women, feminist and queer identified. When we think about BLM, they're really the first movement coming out of that civil rights, Black Power, black liberation struggle that places gender, sexuality, youth, poverty at the core of that movement for social change."

On women in historical black rights movements and Black Lives Matter

"The Panthers and the wider Black Power movement, and when we think about civil rights as well, deeply implicated in systems of patriarchy and sexism and misogyny against women. With that being said, black women were also key organizers of both the civil rights protests and also Black Power. Here, with BLM being so decentralized, you've had black women share the spotlight and take the lead in terms of both organizing the actions and disruptions of the BLM. So, it's really a change for the better, I would argue, when you have black women at the forefront of the leadership, but also when we think about the theoretical foundations of the leadership. They're thinking about black women being head of single-parent households in the United States. They're thinking about black women and rates of incarceration, the wealth gap between black and white women and the income gap, which is very important because black women are the major voters within the African-American community. They're the major breadwinners. They're the major people who raise the young black boys and young black men who are often victims of police violence."

"When we think about the BLM movement, they're both taking the civil disobedience tactic nonviolently from that civil rights struggle, but they're ratcheting up by calling for a systematic, wide change."

On how Black Lives Matter is more closely related to Black Power than the civil rights movement

"King is initially a reformer, and he becomes a political revolutionary. And in a way, except for adhering to nonviolence, he really starts to have a structural criticism against Vietnam, militarism, racism, human rights violations. When we think about the BLM movement, they're both taking the civil disobedience tactic nonviolently from that civil rights struggle, but they're ratcheting up by calling for a systematic, wide change. Their tactics have also been very disruptive, in line with the Black Power period. When we think them shutting down highways, some people were very supportive of that, but it's to the chagrin of others. There were Black Lives Matter rallies that were disrupting the status quo on college campuses. They were even disrupting people's brunch in New York City and other cities to the chagrin of many yuppies and buppies and elites of all stripes. So when we think about the BLM, it's really about both that structural critique and the robust, in-your-face tactics that they're using."

On the movements decentralization of leadership

"That's a good thing in that they're very similar civil rights organizing vis-a-vis the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Their nickname was SNCC, and when we think about SNCC, we associate them by 1966 with Stokely Carmichael and the call for Black Power. But initially, they were founded by Ella Jo Baker, whos an activist from North Carolina, a feminist, a trade unionist and really one of the most important organizers of the 1960s. And she tells the young people not to be hijacked or come under the thumb of any of the older leadership. Even though Ella Baker's around 60 at this time, she's making an argument that decentralized leadership is better than having one central political mobilizer like King, who the movement sort of rises and falls with. So, when we think about the BLM movement, what's so great about the dozens of chapters that they have is that there isn't one person who's leading all of this. That makes it harder for media to identify and set up neat narratives with the movement. But I think that it means that the movement's going to be much longer lasting because we actually have people doing work and organizing, and it's not a top down hierarchical leadership structure.

"And we've seen that through BLM and the Movement for Black Lives policy agenda that was published last summer that talked about ending the war against black people, divesting from criminal justice institutions that incarcerate and lead to mass incarceration and investing in black youth in neighborhoods and communities. I would say we do have several young activists who people know who they are, including Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, DeRay McKesson and others, who are organizing and young people know who they are. But it's just not the top-down celebrity culture that we saw in the context of the 1960s and '70s. And remember that also it didn't work. Very, very famous people didn't lead to the kind of substantive transformation that people had hoped for because if it had, we wouldn't have the need for BLM movement 50 years later in 2017."

On what he'd say to people who think the pendulum has swung too far fromgovernment standing up for law enforcement

"Well, I'd say that's absolutely the wrong perspective because the BLM movement really illustrated the depth and breadth of structural racism and state violence through law enforcement against African-American, against Latino and, at times, poor white communities in the United States. If anything, we need dramatic and radical reform that actually goes beyond what Obama's Justice Department politically could achieve. We have to change and transform this whole society. And in that way, they do go back to Dr. King and when King talked about a bitter and beautiful struggle for social and political change."

This segment aired on April 5, 2017.

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One Scholar On The Future Of Black Lives Matter09:47 - Here And Now

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The meeting, which takes place April 15th, invites people tomeet, strategize and organize events and isapparently family-friendly, with families encouraged to bring their children along as well.

After criticism directed at the decision, the group defended their policy, stating that If you identify as a person of the African Diaspora you can attend our meetings and become a member. If not you can support us in other ways.

One Twitter user suggested that Martin Luther King Jr. would never have supported such a policy, and the group simply said that he made that choice and we have made ours.

The group alsopointed to the fact that the black nationalist Malcolm X had a similar policy of not allowing white people to attend his meetings.

The Philadelphian Black Lives Matter branch is not the first to try a policy of discrimination based on skin color. Last year,Nashville Public Libraryofficials informedNashvilles chapter of Black Lives Matter members that the groups open to black and non-black people of color only meetings policy was prohibited onpublic property.

However, the upcoming meeting in Philadelphia takes place at the independently funded Mastery Charter School,meaning they are not subject to the same equality laws prohibiting such a policy.

You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew,oremail him at bkew@breitbart.com.

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White People Banned from Black Lives Matter Meetings in ...

Asa Khalif, a leader of Black Lives Matter Pennsylvania, got an early morning phone call from his Polish grandmother in Massachusetts on Wednesday.

His grandmother, who is white, was upset about aBreitbart.com reportshe'd read, about a meeting of Black Lives Matter Philly that will be open only to African Americans. (BLM Philly isn't Khalif's group, but they're part of the same movement.)

Khalif, whose adopted father is white, had to spend a portion of his morning calming down the 80-year-old he affectionately refers to as "Mama." She was afraid that his social activism had changed him for the worse after reading the article that initially had mentioned him.

"I told her I'm still the same grandson who requests Spam sandwiches when he comes to visit," he said.

When I caught up with him Wednesday afternoon outside City Hall, Khalif was still upset that she'd happened across the Breitbart piece about BLM's closed-meeting practice, something he describes as "very common in the movement."

"It's a space particularly for black people to heal, to cry, to vent, to organize, to be empowered, to be uplifted," Khalif said about the black-only gatherings. "We deal with anti-blackness every day, just being black in our work spaces and so on. That's why it's a safe space for us. White allies and other allies who stand with us understand that."

Even though the Breitbart piece made it look like a Philly thing, it's standard practice to admit only African Americans and others from the black diaspora to Black Lives Matter meetings.

Who knew? I certainly didn't. Neither, I'm guessing, did the folks at Breitbart.com, a right-wing website whose posting on the subject is headlined, "WHITE PEOPLE BANNED FROM BLACK LIVES MATTER MEETINGS IN PHILADELPHIA."

BLM Philly isn't the least bit shy about its closed-door policy.Its Facebook pageclearly states that the next meeting, on April 15, will be a "black only space."

I find this shocking and appalling, especially considering how many nonblack faces I see participating in Black Lives Matter demonstrations here and nationwide.As a person who grew up seeing images of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. protesting arm-in-arm with whites and others during the civil rights movement, the blacks-only policy feels wrong. It's exclusionary. The optics are bad. It feels as if African Americans are self-segregating and doing to whites what has historically been done to us.

Besides, how can the BLM movement be expected to grow and catch on nationally if it limits itself? African Americans represent just 14 percent of the U.S. population, and are virtually invisible in many parts of the country.

BLM Philly organizers point to activist groups such as the Black Panthers and historical thought leaders such as Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey for inspiration. One BLM Philly spokesman, Joe Green, 36, told me Wednesday that the meetings are so "we can direct the narrative for ourselves and by ourselves."

Needless to say, news of the BLM policy hit the blogosphere with a giant thud as various right-wing websites ran with it.

Black Lives Matter Philly members wrote on Facebook: "This is not the first time we have received backlash and threats in relation to how we organize. Let us be clear now. We are unapologetically Black and believe having Black only spaces -- where Black people can come together to strategize, organize, heal and fellowship without the threat of violence and co-optation -- is an important part of Black liberation."

Organizer Candace McKinley, 35, of Germantown, pointed out that black-only meetings are "not really a new concept. The outrage about it is new."She said that the group had gotten lots of messages on social media about the practice and that members have been explaining the policy to allies and foes alike.

That would not be me. Nor would I be the one standing in the doorway blocking white folks from coming in.I'm old school.

I admire many of the great black revolutionaries, too, butI know from experience how painful it is to be left out because of external characteristics that are beyond your control. I can't imagine how hurtful it must feel for nonblacks who happen upon a BLM meeting to be turned away because of skin color.

Khalif said his grandmother asked him as much when she said to him, "Am I welcome in your space?"

The question caused the 34-year-old activist to choke up.

"I lost it on the phone," Khalif told me as his voice broke again at the memory. "She is Mama and she is always welcome with us."

That's the way it's supposed to be.

Published: April 5, 2017 9:07 PM EDT | Updated: April 5, 2017 9:10 PM EDT Philadelphia Daily News

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Black Lives Matter meetings banning whites rankle - philly.com