Awhile back, I made the mistake of using the hashtag #blacklivesmatter a couple of times on Facebook.
Ever since, some people have believed I support the movement, which has developed into a controversial organization by the same name: Black Lives Matter (BLM).
I do not “support” the movement. I critically engage it because I affirm the sentiment that black lives indeed matter.
But what about the movement? What is behind it? Is it really made up of Marxist radicals who want to overthrow America? Does it have connections with witchcraft? And if so, should Christians really be using the slogan? Doesn’t using the slogan align oneself with the movement and, therefore, with demonic influences?
I’m going to address all this and more in this month’s Cultural Analysis: Thinking Through the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Before we begin thinking through the modern movement, however, I think we need to start by getting a better grasp on why “black lives matter” is even a thing. Here’s a short video to get us going:
Throughout the history of America, black lives have not actually mattered. Black people were enslaved for a significant part of the building of America. Black people were originally counted as three fifths of a human within the constitution—and that was considered generous.
Thomas Jefferson, who penned the famous words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” clearly did not envision black people to be a part of that group of “all men.” He owned slaves. The unalienable rights did not include their freedom.[1]
After slavery, many black men were essentially re-enslaved as crop dusters. They were ostracized within society and viewed with suspicion by everyone.[2]
Laws were put in place making it difficult for black people to get home loans. Owning a home is the primary way people have been able to build wealth in America. Therefore, black people have generally had a more difficult time building wealth. As a result, they have generally been held to a lower economic status.
Of course, there are exceptions. Black athletes and celebrities have all been able to make big bucks. But it wasn’t easy.
Then there came the issue of mass incarceration. Prisons would be paid by the number of prisoners they held, and particularly, by how many people were on death-row. Hundreds of black men were held on death-row under false accusations. Unfortunately, many died without justice as a result.[3]
All of this demonstrates the devaluation of black lives throughout American history.
Two great resources to understand these dynamics better are (1) Equal Justice Initiative with Bryan Stevenson and his book Just Mercy, and (2) Phil Vischer’s two-part YouTube series on Race in America (Part 1, Part 2). You may also want to read Jemar Tisby’s book The Color of Compromise to get a grasp on the history of racism within the church in America.
There is also the issue of police brutality. While there are many good, wholesome law enforcement officers, the relationship between black people and law enforcement has been fraught with conflict and prejudice. Black people have historically been pulled over more often, frisked without warrant, treated inhumanely, and outright killed in encounters with police at a higher rate than most other people—especially white people.[4]
Things might look differently today, but there are attitudes embedded within each of us that have been shaped by the history.
If you, like me, are not a black person, you probably never realized how devalued black people have been in America. At least not until you started hearing about “black lives matter.” You probably never noticed how few black inventors, authors, teachers, and businessmen were mentioned in your history books. You didn’t realize that many of the white people mentioned as inventors were merely the ones who patented the invention and not the one who actually invented the idea or product.
But if you are a black person, this has probably been something you’ve noticed and have heard talked about all your life.
[I’m going to give an aside here and say that it’s not fair to talk about the devaluation of black lives without also talking about the devaluation of native American lives. That’s another conversation that also needs to be addressed, but in this article, I’m going to focus on the “black lives matter movement.”]
Now, with this overview of history as the backdrop, let’s walk through the modern movement of Black Lives Matter and see if we can understand their aim and gain clarity on how Christians ought to engage it.
I’m going give an overview of the movement and its organization, linking to articles and resources that explain things in a little more depth. Then I’m going to take a deeper dive into two primary facets of this conversation I believe Christians need to think more thoroughly through. These facets are (1) BLM’s connections with witchcraft, Marxism, and Critical Theory and (2) white conservative Christian’s opposition to BLM but support for Trump.
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