1. It’s political.
2. Not only ‘black’ lives matter: white lives, and those of other minorities, also matter.
3. It supports other ideas, besides racial justice, which Christians shouldn’t support.
4. It is a Marxist, or terrorist, organisation.
5. It is violent.
To answer these points, we must distinguish between BLM: as a meme, a broad movement, and an organisation. One may support some, without supporting all. About being ‘political’: of course, it’s a political issue. Martin Luther King is beatified today, but at that time, Christians criticised the Civil Rights Movement for being too radical, too pushy, too uppity.
Of course, all lives matter. The point is black lives are particularly at risk today, especially in the USA. The breadth of the movement, however, enables it to embrace other groups undergoing discrimination. Too often appealing to ‘white lives’, and other minority groups, is an attempt by apprehensive white Christians to deflect criticism from themselves. Some even criticise BLM of racism, and worsening racial antagonisms; but that is to blame victims of racism for resisting the racism they experience, rather than the sinners themselves.
BLM does have a wide-ranging agenda for liberation, not wanting to limit itself to a single issue. Its support for other minorities, such as LGBTQ communities, may therefore not be something conservative or evangelical Christians may want to support. But political realism necessarily involves forming alliances to achieve a common aim, even though we may not agree with all each group’s ideology.
There is also no evidence that BLM, although certainly ‘leftwing’, is ‘Marxist’, or follows any Marxist theories. The charge is based on ignorance, and a desire to smear the group. Likewise, for being ‘terrorist’; although it does organise demonstrations, for which King was again censured. The violence associated with BLM marches are the overflow of centuries-old historical injustice against black people, not something BLM has officially called for. Violence, perpetrated in police killings, have rather been the cause of the protests, while the violence on the streets is the result of a three-way provocation between ill-disciplined demonstrators, police over-reaction, and right-wing militias.
Far from BLM being a militant ‘organisation’, its problem is that it is not enough of an ‘organisation’. Instead, it is a decentralised ‘network’, which allows a high degree of autonomy to its member groups, making it hard to control at a local level. Contrast this with the Civil Rights Movement, highly centralised and disciplined, which insisted on compulsory training for participants, in non-violent methods of civil disobedience. Very different from BLM’s loose structure.
Rather than the variety of ideological motivations, characterising BLM, Civil Rights derived inspiration from the Christian faith, and its base in the Black Church. Although BLM’s decentralised nature has enabled it to expand rapidly, this may also be a weakness. Like other headless movements (e.g. “Occupy!”) its lack of structure may make it a short-lived flash in the pan. Perhaps greater Christian involvement could make BLM even more politically effective?
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