Black Lives Matter Challenged By A$AP Rocky, Jesse Lee Peterson, And Charles Barkley
Black Lives Matter has been challenged by A$AP Rocky, Jesse Lee Peterson, and Charles Barkley, adding to the list of African-American notables not buying the protest group’s condemnation of “all lives matter.” Other high-profile personalities who have not toed the BLM line are Dr. Ben Carson, Janet Jackson, and Ray Lewis.
According to the Guardian, rap star A$AP Rocky spoke to the New York hip-hop radio show The Breakfast Club on July 20, 2016, regarding a 2015 interview with TimeOut New York showing him to be unconcerned about police violence against African Americans. Insisting that it shouldn’t take police shootings to focus attention on discrimination against black people, he made the following clarification.
“I just get upset, and what I was really trying to say there was, like, yo, I just, I hate when the bandwagon stuff start. I mean, how come, you know, black lives only matter when a police take ’em, when a police officer takes it? And it should be like, black lives, it should matter when a black life take it. You know what I mean? It should always matter. All lives matter!”
“Black Lives Matter is a racial, radical, evil organization. They are worse than the KKK. Black Americans who are suffering are not suffering because of racism. They are suffering because they are growing up without fathers and mothers in the homes. These kids are being made angry in the home about that. Rather than deal with that anger, they go out into the community and they have people like Jesse Jackson, the NAACP and Barack Obama and others telling them, ‘It’s the white man.’ When you are already angry, it’s hard to believe the truth.”
According to USA Today, TNT basketball analyst and Hall of Famer Charles Barkley told ESPN’s Dan Le Batard Show on July 12 that there is blame to go around when it comes to the relationship between the black community and police. He denounced the convoluted logic behind the way BLM protesters conduct themselves.
“The cops have made some mistakes, but that doesn’t give us the right to riot and shoot cops. We need the cops, especially in the black community. We as black people, we’ve got to do better. We never get mad when black people kill each other, which that has always bothered me … I’ve always said if we as black people want more respect, we have to give each other respect. You can’t demand respect from white people and the cops if you don’t respect each other. We’ve got to do better as black people. The cops have made some mistakes, but there’s a lot of blame to go around. But I’m not going to get on TV and yell like all these other idiots.”
“Black lives matter, white lives matter, Asian lives matter, Hispanic lives matter. That’s anti-American and it’s racist. Of course black lives matter, and they matter greatly.”
Giuliani said only a small number of African-Americans will die at the hands of the police, whereas the majority of African-Americans killed will die at the hands of a civilian, “most often another black.” He urged people to take a different route than that advocated by Black Lives Matter.
“If you want to deal with this on the black side you’ve got to teach your children to be respectful to the police. And you’ve got to teach your children that the real danger to them is not the police, the real danger to them, 99 out of 100 times… are other black kids who are going to kill them, that’s the way they’re going to die.”
An Inquisitr report notes Republican politician Dr. Ben Carson, pop idol Janet Jackson and former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis favoring the more inclusive “all lives matter” or “lives matter” versus Black Lives Matter.
[Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]
