Marathon Organizers Respond To Black Lives Matter Plans

[branford]

176. What garbage. Guess what, people who don't agree with you aren't Republicans or anything close.

Interrupting the marathon will not prove that black lives matter to anyone, as many in the BLM movement clearly realize as evident from the cited article and many others.

This is not the 1960's, and BLM is not protesting against a segregated marathon. Accordingly, what it will prove is that certain self-appointed leaders of the purportedly aggrieved African-American community are willing to disrupt the lives and safety of innocent people unconnected to the pertinent civil rights issues. To a great many across the political spectrum, if that is the community making the demands, many might sadly perceive that those lives really are not worth much, and certainly not the expenditure of any political capital. The police officers dragging the disrupters away to the cheers of the crowd and nation couldn't ask for a better pr visual.

With each stupid public stunt like the "pigs in a blanket" chant and now trying to ruin the marathon, support for aggressive law enforcement will actually increase. If the cycle results in greater attempts by groups like BLM to disrupt the lives of innocent people or violence against police officers unconnected with abuses, as has been seen recently across the country, police will become more aggressive still, all with the approval of a willing and often enthusiastic public.

If you effectively want war to get attention, enjoy your very fleeting fame, because it's a war the African-American community call ill afford and will surely lose.

Police abuses are getting more attention than ever in our increasing digital age and reforms are steadily, albeit slowly, being implemented. I hope BLM doesn't continue to squander or reverse all the public goodwill and political momentum with juvenile, self-absorbed and downright dangerous antics.