Open Racism in Milwaukee

Rich Lowry, commenting on the Milwaukee riots, notes what he calls "a new low" in the movement that calls itself "Black Lives Matter":

In a carefully stated YouTube video, [social media reporter Tim] Pool described the verbal taunts and threats, as well as actual violence, directed at whites. After an 18-year-old male was shot in the neck and extracted by Milwaukee police in an armored vehicle -- Pool identifies the victim as white, although other press reports don't mention his race -- he concluded he had to leave. (For the record, Pool is half-Korean -- not that rioters care.)

The Milwaukee unrest has taken on a more explicitly racist cast than other riots after officer-involved shootings, in yet another new low for the anti-police movement that has roiled our cities in recent years.

After Ferguson, the movement famously adopted the slogan, "Hands up, don't shoot." If it were to take its next catchphrase from Milwaukee, it might be (per Pool's reporting), "F -- k white people."

Another report on the rioting noted that the sister of the late Sylville Smith urged the rioters not to stop, but to "take that shit to the suburbs." It would be easy to dismiss this as words spoken in anger by the bereaved -- and perhaps that's what it is -- but the rioters have clearly gone along with this in spirit.

I disagree with Lowry that this racist movement has reached a new low. Its slogan, which would have been fine with an "also" or a "too", struck me as a taunt from the beginning. And the fact that so many well-meaning people who have said, "All lives matter," have been attacked as bigots (or worse) ever since have been red flags. Add to this the apparent lack of concern with what might actually help inner city blacks -- not to mention everyone else -- live safer, freer lives, and the current spate of violence comes as no surprise at all.

-- CAV