Daniel McLaughlin | On July 1, 2020

George Floyd Protests, Minneapolis, MN.

Cities around the country have been burning from rioting, resulting, ostensibly, from the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer. The lesson to be learned, however, is not one you’ve been presented with.

After the incident, protests broke out against police brutality toward black Americans. What is most unfortunate is that the Black Lives Matter movement is based on false premises. The charge is that more black people lose their lives at the hands of police than white people, due simply to racism. More black men are not killed by cops, however, and, though a higher percentage of the black population is killed by cops, that reflects the fact that 50% of violent crime are committed by about 6% of the population, young, black males.

That many black communities are crime-ridden is a fact we face and need to address, but in those neighborhoods, black on black crime is epidemic. They result from decades of failed policies by the cities and states, policies that are not inherently racist, but rather proposed out of compassion. They result from misplaced good intentions that lead to results opposite of what was intended.

It appears that blacks are disproportionately abused simply because the media only make a national sensation when a black person is involved and pretty much ignore them when they happen to white people. The media whores create outrage, but it is misplaced. If people are going to protest about abusive police, protest in every instance, whatever the skin color. It is not about race, it is about abuse. But let’s be realistic. The vast majority of police encounters are justified by the circumstances. Most incidents are caught on ubiquitous cellphone cameras, but out of the many millions of interactions with police, only a tiny fraction involve abusive officers. In a twist of irony, many of the violent police encounters of black men are with black cops. Racism typically is not the issue.

The race situation has actually improved tremendously over the last sixty years, and that is something to celebrate and encourage. Continual race-baiting does not help the black communities, nor does it help anyone other than those who make their living by creating strife, division, and hatred, which brings us to the core of the issue.

The riots themselves have nothing to do with Floyd’s death or race. They are the coordinated, well-funded operations of the radical left, with some right-wing radicals taking advantage of chaos. Antifa has been named a domestic terror group, as is appropriate. They are fundamentally anti-capitalist, and their underlying vision is the destruction of American society as we know it. Though they are the thugs, they are not the movement. The radical left has taken over the Democratic party leadership, and they are just as anti-American, anti-capitalist, and anti-western-culture as the thugs.

Those thugs are responsible for the rioting, burning, destruction and looting. Pinning the violence on black people, they serve their own purposes. More black people are waking up to the fact that the left is not interested in them as people, but only as a voting block. They are being used as game pieces in a very dangerous and serious game.

The radical left has moved to a new stage, one of increasing violence, attempting to crash the economy and American society. This could be an awakening for America, a time to rise from apathy and realize it is under deadly attack from insiders. That could be a unifying force for good, for all races, for taking back the country from the radicals who make laws to weaken it, who actively work to undermine the institutions, legally and culturally, and who seek to displace the America we know with a leftist Utopia like Venezuela.

Originally published on Townhall Finance.

Daniel McLaughlin

Daniel J. McLaughlin is the author of “Compassion and Truth-Why Good Intentions Don’t Equal Good Results.” Formerly a finance executive, he is now focused primarily on writing on economics, business, and politics. You can find him at daniel-mclaughlin.com.