#BLACKLIVESMATTER RESPONDS TO ALLEGATIONS

Black Lives Matter

For Immediate Release 
Press Contact: Chinyere Tutashinda
chinyere@mediajustice.org

FOX Pundits Further Tensions and Put Black Lives at Risk

September 2, 2015 -- This statement is in response to the shamefully false allegations about the Black Lives Matter Network by FOX pundits and other right-wing TV personalities. This is an official statement and should be attributed to the Black Lives Matter Network, including our 26 Chapters nationwide.

Instead of reporting the news, FOX pundits and other right-wing TV personalities are making false accusations that put Black lives at risk. Those responsible for these distortions are not actual journalists. They are TV personalities sensationalizing tragedy to further their own agenda at the cost of reason, justice, and the democratic rights of Black people everywhere to demand an end to police violence and mass incarceration.

This is a typical Right Wing reaction to the growing influence of a movement for Black lives. There is no real story here, except the same old unsavory attempt by sensationalist right wing media to delegitimize a grassroots racial justice movement that is growing in power and influence.

Don’t be fooled. We’re targeting the brutal system of policing, not individual police. The Black Lives Matter Network seeks to end the system of policing that allows for unchecked violence against black people. Right-wing portrayals of this as targeting of individual police are deliberate distortions to derail growing public debate about white supremacy, the ongoing epidemic of violence against black people, and the need to end institutionalized racism in the policing and criminal justice systems.

The Black Lives Matter Network is a love group. We seek a world in which ALL Black lives matter, and racial hierarchy no longer organizes our lives or yours. This is a vision of love. As Black survivors of White supremacy, our hearts go out to all victims of violence. We know all too well the pain and suffering of losing loved ones to interpersonal and institutional violence. That’s why we call for an immediate end to the centuries of brutality against Black people by the police and by white vigilantes. We also demand economic policies that rebuild Black families and communities destabilized by violent and regressive rules that make the 1% wealthy and impoverish or indebt the rest of us. These are demands of love.

The ‘Black Lives Matter’ Network was launched in 2013 as an online call to end unchecked police violence against Black bodies, and an offline response to a society that systemically devalues Black life.