The statement “black lives matter” should not be controversial. The comedian Michael Che makes this point in a stand-up routine on the Black Lives Matter movement from 2016 that has been making the rounds on social media. “We can’t agree on anything anymore,” Che laments. “We can’t even agree on black lives matter. That is a controversial statement.” Che continues by asking, incredulously, what is “less than matters? Black lives exist. Can we say that? Is that controversial?”
The denial of this bedrock principle, “black lives matter,” by individuals and communities, both now and in our nation’s history, is a stain on our national conscience. The denial of this principle transgresses our nation’s founding belief that all men are endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The denial of this principle violates the core tenet of liberal democracy that each individual possesses equal dignity and deserves equal respect.
But we must separate the principle from the movement. Americans of goodwill are enraged by the heart-wrenching, stomach-turning deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others, who were unjustly killed in police actions.
And Americans broadly agree that it is time for reform. According to a recent Monmouth University Poll, 3 in 4 Americans “consider racial and ethnic discrimination to be a big problem.” A majority of Americans assert that the anger caused by police violence perpetrated against black Americans is justified. And a majority of Americans now believe that “the police are more likely to use excessive force with a black person than a white person in similar situations.”
But at the very moment, we need to be having open and honest conversations about possible avenues toward police reform, that conversation is being shut down, framed in an anti-democratic way that eliminates the space for political judgment.
Amid the present furor, there has been little opportunity to counter the progressive ideology of the (upper-case) Black Lives Matter movement publicly or safely. People are losing their jobs for speaking freely, in public, about the validity and viability of various reform measures.
A University of Chicago economics professor, for example, was recently removed from both his post at the Chicago Fed and his role as editor of the Journal of Political Economy simply for thinking it was a bad idea to defund the police. The vice president of research and innovation at Michigan State University was forced to resign because he publicly cited a study indicating there is no widespread racial bias in police shootings.
At this point, though, many Americans of goodwill are listening to black voices that have been ignored far too often. Many Americans are open to reforms proposed by the moderate side of the defund movement, including spending more money on education and social services and reconfiguring the responsibilities of police officers. The Equal Justice Initiative and the Policing Project have listed reforms with the potential to make policing more democratic and transparent. Neighborhood policing initiatives have shown some success in New York City and Chicago.
At a moment when the majority of Americans are in favor of reforming the police, that is no longer good enough. Leftist adherents of the Black Lives Matter movement are stifling conversation and demanding purity. They are using social pressures to make sure that every person of goodwill adheres to one type of uniform belief system.
But Black Lives Matter is about far more than defunding the police. And if you cannot in good conscience agree with the other left-wing aims of the Black Lives Matter movement, “to disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” “foster a queer-affirming network,” and gain freedom “from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking,” then you are portrayed as someone who does not care about black lives.
But is there any evidence that these aims will improve black lives? It doesn’t matter — Black Lives Matter has hijacked the conversation, making it seem as if the only way to care about black lives is to hold liberal beliefs about matters of sexuality and policing.
Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, citing Thomas Sowell, notes that “If you have two parents in the household, you reduce poverty in the African American community by 85%.” Scott rightly observes, “That’s a stunning truth that needs more oxygen.” Perhaps improving black lives does not, in fact, require abolishing the traditional family.
A majority of Americans are lower-case democrats who support lower-case black lives matter. By making the subject of police reform a partisan issue between noble liberals and their devilish opponents, we reduce the likelihood that viable, sensible reforms will pass with bipartisan support.
As democratic citizens, we must reserve space for sharing opinions and making political judgments publicly and safely, without being subject to cancellation, to social or physical coercion, whether on social media or at mass protests. The only alternative is the suppression of opinion. That is not just counterproductive. It is anti-democratic.
Aaron Zubia is a postdoctoral research associate in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.
