The New York Times‘ op-ed package on the anniversary of George Floyd’s killing included an examination (5/22/21) of support in polling for Black Lives Matter.
To mark the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin, the New York Times put together a special opinion section reflecting on what has changed and where the country is now on race and police violence. One piece (5/22/21) described and analyzed the rise and fall of support for the Black Lives Matter movement: “Did George Floyd’s death catalyze support for Black Lives Matter? If so, for how long and for whom?”
Looking at data from online polling firm Civiqs, the authors concluded that “Republicans and white people have actually become less supportive of Black Lives Matter than they were before the death of George Floyd.” Indeed, after a gradual increase in support for BLM among both whites and Republicans following the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, and then a more marked rise that began around the release of the video of the vigilante murder of Ahmaud Arbery in May 2020, support plummeted from early June through late September.
Immediately after the police murder of George Floyd, white Republican opposition to Black Lives Matter began climbing—as Fox News and other right-wing outlets turned the movement into a favorite scapegoat. (Chart source: Civiqs.)
The authors, professors Jennifer Chudy and Hakeem Jefferson, attributed the rise to the “viscerally upsetting and morally unambiguous” videos released around that time, including the video of Floyd’s murder, and the subsequent fall to “politicization of the issue by elites”:
In the days and weeks following Floyd’s death, Republican politicians quickly turned attention away from the actions of a murderous police officer to those individuals protesting the injustice. As just one salient example, three days after Floyd’s death, as protesters took to the streets in Minneapolis, Mr. Trump declared, in memorable rhyme, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
That’s true as far as it goes—but it leaves out a critical piece of the story. While Trump’s tweet made headlines, it didn’t name BLM; the former president actually called out BLM very infrequently. Given his average of more than 30 tweets per day in 2020, his 25 “BLM” or “Black Lives Matter” mentions across the entire year were a drop in the bucket. In contrast, he tweeted or retweeted about Antifa 55 times.
The right’s most influential media outlet, however, was more than happy to make those links explicit for its predominantly white, Republican audience.
For the first five months of the year—when Republican opposition to BLM continued its slow creep downward from a high of 83% in 2017 toward 60%, Fox News mentioned Black Lives Matter in 14 shows. For the next five months, the network mentioned the movement in 543 shows.
Primetime ratings leader Tucker Carlson led the charge, with such racist and false depictions of BLM protesters that at least nine advertisers withdrew their ads from his show (Media Matters, 6/10/20). To give just a few examples (see Media Matters for a lengthier list), Carlson agreed with a guest that BLM “has been a violent movement from its inception” (6/5/20), claimed that one of its stated positions was “the destruction of the nuclear family—your family” (6/15/20), suggested that BLM “is a totalitarian political movement and someone needs to save the country from it” (6/22/20), and argued (6/15/20):
Black Lives Matter believes in force. They flood the streets with angry young people who break things, and they hurt anyone who gets in the way. When they want something, they take it. Make them mad and they will set your business on fire.
But of course, the attacks on BLM were not limited to Carlson; they went wall-to-wall at Fox. On just one episode (6/8/20), host Laura Ingraham brought on three different guests to attack BLM, asking one why the movement seeks “a complete subjugation of others.” (The guest, in turn, warned of BLM’s “Black supremacy” and “Marxist agenda.”) To another guest, Ingraham caricatured the BLM philosophy: “If you have to burn down the neighborhoods and tear down the Lincoln Memorial, because he wasn’t woke enough, then you’re going to have to do it.” Guest Lara Logan of Fox Nation argued: “These people don’t care about justice for anyone. What they’re actually trying to do is provoke violence, provoke more incidents where more innocent people will die.”
(Another piece from the Times’ op-ed package—5/21/21–the paper devoted some 4,500 words to a transcript of an un-factchecked focus group with “14 Trump Voters on the Legacy of George Floyd”; in it, the influence of right-wing media distortions was apparent. When asked what comes to mind when they hear “Black Lives Matter,” the answers were invariably negative, including “Marxist hate group,” “misguided,” “corrupt” and “a bunch of losers.” When told that the BLM protests last summer were “overwhelmingly peaceful,” a participant retorted: “I just want to say, is this a joke? I mean, are you serious? Really? They were peaceful protests? You’ve got to be kidding.” The Times might have saved a great deal of ink and just posted a link to an episode of Tucker Carlson’s show.)
USA Today‘s headline (5/30/20) presented overwhelmingly peaceful protests against police racism as dangerously violent.
While centrist media didn’t vilify BLM in the same way, they did disproportionately emphasize disruptive protesters, particularly early on (FAIR.org, 7/1/20). Protests, in fact, were overwhelmingly peaceful—one major study found that 96% involved no property damage or police injuries—with episodes of violence typically initiated by police rather than protesters. Yet outlets ran with headlines like “George Floyd Death Protesters Spread Violence, Destruction Across US Cities” (on a USA Today video, 5/30/20) or Reuters‘ “Racially Charged Violence Rages for Third Night in Minneapolis” (5/29/20).
Such coverage didn’t seem to erode Democrats’ support for BLM, which rose sharply after Floyd’s murder and has since stayed high. But it did nothing to correct the right-wing purveyors of outright bigotry and falsehood, whose role in turning white Republicans strongly against the Black Lives Matter movement should not be overlooked.
Featured image: Photo of Black Lives Matter protesters that accompanied a New York Times op-ed (5/22/21) on support for the movement in polls.
Why can’t the question be, “why do Democrats support BLM? Look at what they are watching.”
‘What do we want? Dead cops. When do we want them? Now!”
‘Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon”
BLM, a fine organization
Tim,
You are as consistent as a metronome.
As someone who has been to several BLM marches, I have NEVER heard either of the above at the marches. Now, granted, I can’t be everywhere in the march at the same time, so it could have happened there. And that isn’t to say that these things weren’t ever said. In EVERY movement there are radicals that don’t represent the main base of the movement. BLM is no different.
The idea that you can use a caricature of fringe individual to characterize an entire movement is pure propaganda.
BLM and other left organizations tend to not give the crazies the mic. Flip over to the Conservatives & Republicans in specific: not only give the crazies the mic, they also elect them (see Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz).
Also, BLM has fought against ALL police brutality, standing with white families who have lost loved ones at the hands of police in TX, CA and other states.
Wow. Yeah, that sure is ‘racist’ of them.
First, to say black lives matter but get mad when somebody says white lives matter is racist, but I never once said anything about race. Read.
Just because you never saw the videos of hundreds of BLM people chanting what I wrote doesn’t mean the video isn’t out there. Do your own research. It wasn’t one or two. It was hundreds at the same time. Not fringe
Hundreds in a demonstrations of several thousand is like 10%. Sounds like a fringe to me.
You stated: fringe individual.
Watch the videos of hundreds. You change your defense to suit your needs.
Disinformation runs rampant in Republican circles. The question arises as to what they are trying to do to deny the racism existent in our society and in the manner in which police generally treat blacks and other brown people more harshly to put it mildly? Is white supremacy and the votes of such so important to them? So strange. Or is it just that most democrat’s agree with the BLM movement and their aims, and so Republicans need to be in opposition? It troubles me – this constant politicalization of every issue. It appears we are still fighting the civil war
Nobody has once said racism doesn’t exist. We don’t believe that it is systemic. We don’t believe there is much. We also think that microaggressions are talked about because you cannot find many examples of racism.
Disinformation is rampant among Democrat circles.
See how easy it is to make a lame, unfounded claim?
Yeah, OK… But in order to have these beliefs, you have to so narrowly define racism and systemic so as to mean “I can’t be racist! I have black friends!” and “There’s a clear link between race and crime; those are just facts!” an “He’s not actually burning a cross, so he can’t possibly be racist!” Whatever you denialists wanna tell yourselves, have fun; but don’t expect the rest of the world to go along with it.
Tim,
We can easily document in 5 minutes or less a series of police killings/injuries that white people almost never get, but happen to black people very consistently, sure sounds like a system wide phenomena.
Very few, if any, poor white kids has been executed by a pair of police officer for sitting in a park with a toy gun. Very few have been shot while out jogging. Very few white people have been shot by police, in their own homes while watching TV. Most white people aren’t concerned about getting pulled over by police, because for white people, it rarely ends in violence.
You know, people in MAGA hates complain about being treated badly: the stares, the glares, and feeling like they are treated poorly in some places/businesses.
Guess what? Those are microaggressions.
As usual, Conservatives CAN empathize, but only if it happens to them.
Do you know the circumstances around the police killings or do you disregard the circumstances?
Executed? Please list the “Executions.” It should be easy for you.
48% of all MURDERS are committed by 13% of our population. Most of those are committed by men 14-30. That means 48% of all MURDERS are committed by 3% of our population. But of course, why look at context?
I have an idea.
If progs can defund the police, the police should be allowed to de-phone the progs.
So, if someone from a proggy neighborhood calls the cops about black crime, the cops should de-phone the call as ‘racist’. After all, the call is about ‘black as criminal’, surely a ‘racist’ notion.
So, if white, Jewish, or Asian prog in some city calls the cops about black crime, the cops need not arrive on the scene. They can just hang up and de-phone the prog who made the call.
The call is obviously offensive for two reasons.
1. It identifies some black person as a criminal. That be ‘racist’!
2. Even if true, the prog should try to UNDERSTAND that black criminality is mere resistance against ‘systemic racism’ of ‘white privilege'(or yellow privilege or Jewish privilege). So, be a victim of the righteous negro and don’t report the crime like some lowlife ‘karen’.
So, if the police receives a call, “Help, there is a black man trying to rob, rape, and murder me”, the police can just hang up and de-phone the call as ‘unacceptable’ and ‘racist’.
Priss:
So much the troll.
I love the part where you think people start the conversation with police about their assailant’s race.
Interesting.
Seriously? When a crime is being committed, should everyone NOT describe who is doing what? Leave the police with nothing? Not knowing if it’s a man or a woman, short, tall, fat, thin, what color hair, what clothing, or what race?
Your response is silly.
Well, you don’t. You state the reason for the call and they will ask for a description. You don’t say “black crime” from the start.
Because of how we order adjectives, you would describe the criminal as a black man or maybe a tall, black man. Who in their right mind would say, probably a person who identifies as a man?
There have been a few cases of people reporting the wrong race because they didn’t want to seem racist. That’s when fear of being thought of as a racist trumps your need for justice. Of course, John would want “Social Justice.” Which is another way of saying, not prosecuting the perpetrator to make you feel like you’re a good person.
Is it OK to oppose violence and racism and not “support” BLM? — I wonder because for some the answer to the question “Do you support BLM?” equates to the answer to “Are you against racism?”.
I’m not in love with BLM because: (a) its inherently divisive name; (b) I missed when it stopped being just a hashtag and became a movement; and (c) people trashing and looting cities in its name with very little reprimand from the rest, at least initially. I saw some of it first hand and on local (liberal) news.
Foo,
A) The problem that BLM is addressing is that, to police, Black Lives don’t seem to matter, based on police actions. So the natural protest is going to be that Black Lives DO matter, hence their name. I would be interested in your explanation of why that is “divisive”.
b) It stopped being a hashtag and started being a movement after Fergusson MO uprising, which was literally YEARS ago at this point.
c) The people arrested over the past year for trashing/looting, and also planning violence targeting police have predominantly not been associated with the movement. So when we say, with good stats, that 96% of the BLM protests haven’t been violent at all, the numbers back up that statement.
@Joshua, since you asked: BLM name is divisive because it has a skin color in it, isn’t it obvious? Any other race might wonder if their lives matter to BLM, hence the appearance of ALM. I understand the desire to point out the police violence against blacks specifically, but the choice of the name is unfortunate, because it’s non-inclusive.
As to your point that most looters were not BLM, that is fine, although I don’t how you can tell who is a real supporter and who isn’t? The issue for me was that BLM leaders and organizers, at least initially, seemed reluctant to distance themselves from these acts and were largely avoiding condemning such behavior or even using the word looting.
Let’s be honest. Those of us who went to the downtowns of major cities saw broken windows for many blocks after a night of rampaging in the name of Black Lives Matter. Were the vandals card carrying members of BLM? The organization at that time was not organized; “Black Lives Matter” was just a slogan. Proponents of BLM took a racist turn when they claimed that it was racist to say, “All lives matter.” But I have never seen a charter or articles of incorporation, a mission statement, or a formal avenue to membership in what now, apparently, is some sort of organization. A bunch of Texas lawyers tried to get the president of the Texas Bar Association, a man without a racist bone in his body, removed from office because he did not endorse BLM. But I submit that it is possible to demand police reform, reject vandalism, and ignore BLM without being racist. The only beneficiaries from such impetuous dialectic are the oligarchs who need to perpetuate racial hysteria to prevent black and white workers from uniting to promote their mutual material interests. Free tuition at public universities, for example, would serve people who now cannot afford to go the college. But, again, an educated public might demand that their tax money go to education, health care, infrastructure, housing, safety, and dignified employment, instead of to the military-industrial complex to murder children all over the planet. So expect the oligarchy in its media and government to perpetuate division and animosity based on skin color.
Liberal support for BLM stayed high because liberal media outlets often downplay or refuse to cover aspects of the protests that might embarass the movement. For example, the New York Times article about plummeting support does not mention rioting obliquely, if at all – nor does this article on FAIR. While Hollar is able to pick out examples of negative headlines from Reuters and USA Today (both centrist), most reporting and opinion writing on the subject has been favorable.
Conservative viewers have picked up on this and contrasted it with the apocalyptic tone used in coverage of the anti-mask protests and the Capitol riot, and many have come to the conclusion that BLM is a partisan political project, not a civil rights movement. Many journalists, including Hollar, are too deeply invested in the culture war to ever recognize these factors, though.
Another question is why white Democrats, black Democrats, etc. also don’t support BLM. Unless one thinks renaming a street or painting “BLM” on it while increasing the police budget and quashing reforms is “support”. [it’s not]
Muriel Bowser, for example, is a black woman Democrat, so three entire boxes checked on the IdPol liberal wishlist. Yet if someone thinks she actually supports BLM, they’re deluded. They have a big disconnect between reality and what they wish were reality. Or they’re credulous and not too bright.
Absolutely spot on. I don’t do any political party and have never voted in 52 years. I also live in the UK. I was telling people on msn comment that there are thousands of black people against this marxist movement and someone came back with the comment “but they’re republican” so don’t count. WTF? What has that got to do with anything? I thought this was a debate about so called racism and on the flip of a hat just to win some imaginary point the threw that in. It’s absolutely incredible and even more so considering these people think “themselves” intelligent. Their “arguments can be shredded in one or 2 sentences because there is zero logic to them. I wonder if young Julie here will tell you what she thinks of Professor Tony Martin who is a black historian and can tell you quite categorically who owned 90% of the slave trade and it was not the Caucasian. These people look Caucasian but do not in point of fact identify themselves as such. I wonder if she’ll reveal what his studies have found to be true or whether she’ll be a coward like they all are. She doesn’t want to lose her good deal in life. History will show these people for what they are.
Where is the outrage for the people of the Armenian genocide? The “Russian” genocide?
The Ukraine genocide? Funny how Obama has a bleeding heart for words spoken but has no problem bombing and killing millions of innocent coloured people in other countries. He’s an hypocrite just as they all are, They oppose it because it is marxist. Do you support communism? You do know communism has more blood on it’s hands than all other ideologies and religions put together. No matter what mask you don people will always spot the hidden hand of communism and that one fisted salute. My question is how can you be a marxist and a capitalist? Aren’t they supposed to be polar opposites? That’s what gives the game away. Buying your family member houses for 3 million in a predominately white area when the money is supposed to be for the “oppressed” speaks in mighty loud volumes. What do you call them when they are black and do not support BLM? Candace Owens and Bernytree66, they are black women who do not support it. There are millions of good, honest and intelligent black people who don’t stand behind this marxist outfit. Also, have you seen what black professor Dr Tony Martin has to say on the slave trade? The “charities” and institutions wont tell you this. He’s a professor in black history and is black himself and he’s a wise old owl. Courageous and with integrity. He tells you who owned 90% of the slave trade so you might learn something should you seek him out but my guess is, much like these charities that have been set up to demonise a whole demographic, you are not here for harmony, you can’t bring order from harmony, for that we need chaos. Dr Tony Martin, the good people need to seek him if they are to begin the understanding of who is instigating all this. They have a huge history of it going back thousands of years. Jesus called them a brood of vipers and the spawns of satan. This plan is thousands of years old. Ignore the communism portraying itself as the noblest of causes, at the peril of your offspring.
According to organizations and universities who track foreign online disinformation, BLM has been a demonized group since 2015, on right-wing media. Russia has supplied fake photos and articles which called BLM a terrorist organization. You know that this group of Facebook/Fox news digesters, to this day, believe that “their news” is not/has never been fake. It is a fact that many white, right wing agitators have been charged for some of the destruction. For example, the Minneapolis police building that was burned down. You can read the indictments on sites such as Lawfare Blog and Dept of justice.gov.
Tim wrote: You stated: fringe individual.
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No I didn’t.
You are correct. I mistook you for Joshua. He wrote fringe individual. You moved the bar from one person to hundreds.
No, I fucking didn’t do that either. You’re lying.
You alleged that it’s hundreds of people chanting for violence. I pointed out that hundreds of people as a subset of thousands of people would still qualify as a fringe.
We’ll let people with higher IQs than yours (>70) read for themselves.
Here’s my entire quote of what I wrote earlier:
“Hundreds in a demonstrations of several thousand is like 10%. Sounds like a fringe to me.”
Nowhere in it do I “move any bar” from one person to hundreds. You’re lying. Now fuck off.
Which was after Joshua’s comment on a fringe individual. It was in defense of “fringe” elements. You changed it from Joshua’s individual to 10%. I met Joshua’s burden when I pointed out several hundred.
You changed the bar from singular (which I pointed out was wrong) to 10%. I can point you to class on deductive reasoning if you’d like, though I’m not sure you’d comprehend it.
Tim wrote: Which was after Joshua’s comment on a fringe individual. It was in defense of “fringe” elements. You changed it from Joshua’s individual to 10%. I met Joshua’s burden when I pointed out several hundred.
You changed the bar from singular (which I pointed out was wrong) to 10%. I can point you to class on deductive reasoning if you’d like, though I’m not sure you’d comprehend it.
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Hey dumbass: Just because a comment comes after another doesn’t mean it adopts the reasoning of the prior comment or is in defense of it. Especially since I didn’t reply to Joshua’s comment; I replied to yours. My reasoning stands on its own; it’s pure numbers– a viewpoint being chanted by 10% of a group is a fringe viewpoint.
And by the way: Joshua’s use of the word individual is probably a typo; it’s far more likely he meant to pluralize it and type “individuals”. Now see– this is a comment in defense of another comment, although it doesn’t “adopt” any reasoning. So, congratulations– you seized on a likely typo and can declare victory. Kudos.
1% might be fringe. 10% is a minority. You changed the numbers to suit your point and to diminish mine. Own it.
You lefties continually state that the Republican party is a bunch of racists. The ADL put the number of neo Nazis at 9%. According to your logic, that is fringe. You should denounce anyone who says Republicans are racist.
That will never come out of your mouth.
So you get to set the numerical threshold about what’s fringe and what’s minority, huh? Funny… I don’t recall you being appointed to that authority. Care to produce your bona fides, there Mr. Bureau of Standards? I thought not…
Yes, Neo-Nazi’s at 9% would be a fringe. However, those aren’t the only kinda racists in the Republican Party and the GOP seems perfectly happy to align themselves with them in order to try to overturn an election and the Trump goes around calling them fine people. So while the Neo Nazi contingent is indeed fringe, no, I won’t be denouncing calling the Republican Party racist. There’s more ways to be racist than being a Neo-Nazi, pal.
Thresholds are subjective. You should have kept your mouth shut from the beginning. Suddenly, you were the expert? I was simply making the case the BLM was not a fine organization. There are many more examples, but you re defend their positions with your race colored glasses. Everyone is a racists to a leftist – except for minorities they can’t be racist (what wacky logic). You’re a fool, pal.
I never claimed to be an expert on what constitutes a fringe, but I submit a reasonable definition is something with 10% support. You weren’t making any case; you harped on a probable typo to challenge Joshua and then attributed his argument to me.