By Ben Pensant

I’m sure I wasn’t the only impartial observer  green with envy last month as protesters in North Carolina vented their anger at the killing of yet another black man by looting shops, setting fire to cars, and killing yet another black man. Of course, as 26-year-old Justin Carr was shot by a fellow demonstrator his death provoked far less outrage than the police shooting of Keith Stott which inspired the protest in the first place. In fact, the courageous leaders of pro-segregation movement Black Life Matters are so dedicated to saving the lives of young black men they have a policy of ignoring young black men who aren’t killed by the police. So much so that, despite these deaths happening far more frequently, they are disregarded with the same evasive skill deployed by the Stop The War Coalition when asked to condemn Russia for bombing the shit out of Aleppo.

Which is a shame. Not because the life of a young black man killed by another young black man is worth as much as the life of a young black criminal killed by a cop. That would be absurd. No, the reason Carr’s death is worth remembering has nothing whatsoever to do with the travesty of a 26-year-old murdered while attending a peaceful protest. Because Carr took one for the team. Or, in the words of his own mother, “died for a cause”. What this cause is or how it was furthered by a black man dying is irrelevant, as is the fact that the real reason he died is because BLM protests tend to attract people who carry guns and shoot people. But only people who deserve it, obvs, as anyone whose heard those delightful ditties ‘Pigs In A Blanket’ and ‘What Do We Want? Dead Cops!’ will agree.

No, recognition from BLM is exclusively reserved for that smaller group: unarmed law-abiding citizens killed by trigger-happy cops. Or the larger number of young black men killed while committing a crime or in possession of a firearm. Luckily BLM are so opposed to labelling blacks as criminals they deliberately refuse to differentiate between black citizens and black criminals. The politics of identity has deemed them all the same and should a member of either demographic die at the hands of a police officer he or she is instantly labelled a victim of an overtly racist society that pays white cops to eat doughnuts, polish their sirens, and casually shooting black men on their coffee breaks. Of course, should any black man – criminal or otherwise – be shot by another black man the reaction is somewhat different: BLM simply pretend it didn’t happen, despite the fact it happens considerably more often. It’s highly impressive that a group so obsessed with the horrors of the past are such experts at forgetting stuff that occurs with depressing regularity in the present.

Indeed, it’s testament to how dedicated to stopping the tide of murder BLM are that they have no interest whatsoever in acknowledging the many socio-economic factors that lead to disproportionately large numbers of young black men turning to crime and killing each other. The only black lives that ‘matter’ are those snuffed out due to systemic racism and white privilege and should any black person be needlessly shot dead by another black person while attending a demo (such as Justin Carr) or taking an afternoon stroll with their baby (like Nykea Aldridge) then the silence from BLM and their supporters is as deafening as the silence from Jeremy Corbyn’s cheerleaders when asked how a commitment to fighting antisemitism squares up with a long history of defending antisemites like Steven Sizer or Raed Salad.

(The knowledgeable among you will have noticed that one of those is a Muslim and the other an Anglican. Which proves that our Dear Leader is just as dedicated to fairness when enabling religious hate-preachers as he is when politely declining seats on ram-packed trains).

So when self-hating black policeman Officer Jay-Jay Stalien took to Facebook to talk about his experiences working in Baltimore, shamelessly using facts and evidence to argue that the tragedy of young black men turning to crime and killing each other in greater numbers than the police ever could is a much bigger issue than the much-publicised but statistically rare instances of unarmed black men getting killed by cops, we owed it to ourselves as liberals to ignore him. As most of the media in this country did, which is why the majority of people reading this won’t have a clue who he is. And quite right too. We can’t allow the narrative to be controlled by black people – black cops, no less – who’ve seen communities destroyed by crime and might just know what they’re talking about. Especially ones who see the world as it is rather than how middle-class liberals would like it to be.

Far better to let regressive feminists like Lindi West tell black people what they should think by utilising hysteria, ignorance and ominous phrases like ‘state sanctioned killings’. Indeed, after San Frandiego 49-ers quarterback Colin Kopernicus refused to stand for The Star Spangled Banner in August, West didn’t merely defend his protest; she went one better by slamming the pre-match tradition as “a ritual celebrating a government that summarily executes men like him in the streets”. She understandably provides no evidence that black footballers are being routinely shot dead without trial at the behest of the White House, which makes sense as there isn’t any. But it’s nice to know that Lindi has such deep respect for African-American sportsmen that she thinks they’re “just like” armed criminals.

Similarly, Rebecca Carol is another Guardian columnist who refuses to let busy-bodies like Stalien derail the narrative with inconvenient truths. Referencing Claudia Rankin – the well-respected academic and recent recipient of the Macarthur Fellowship ‘Genius Grant’ – she recently wrote of black Americans: “We matter enough to sell out concert stadiums and win prestigious awards touting our intellectual prowess…But we don’t matter enough to keep us from being murdered by police”. Much like West, Carol strikes a blow against those who generalise all blacks as criminals by using the blanket terms ‘we’ and ‘us’ to inadvertently generalise all blacks as criminals. She then quotes Rankin’s words about “trying to change the discourse of black people being equated with criminality and murder” despite the fact that in the same article Carol equates black people with criminality and murder.

Indeed, neither she nor Lindi ever refer to criminals from other US demographics who also have a habit of being shot by the police, such as young white men, twice as many of whom were shot by police than blacks in 2015. They wisely swerve statistics such as this in the same manner they avoid the sad fact that young black men commit a disproportionately high number of violent crimes in the US. So disproportionately high that the number of black men shot by police is actually remarkably low in comparison to their criminal counterparts in the white community. Because as we know, the ideology espoused by Carol, West, and BLM is not intended to help black communities by tackling these problems. The left lost interest in empowerment and self-determination years ago: it’s entitlement and victimhood all the way nowadays. Even thinking about the real issues is to be discouraged at all costs.

Drugs, poverty, gun culture, unemployment, lack of education…these are problems that can only be solved if you ignore them and look for someone else to blame. Preferably someone with a badge, a gun, and a car with a flashy light. Even discussing the historical injustices inflicted upon black people over centuries is tricksy, much like the shitty hand played to them by successive Democrat and Republican governments. Because the last thing us liberals want to do is to offer clues or evidence as to why so many black communities are blighted with crime. The agenda has decreed that racist cops randomly kill black people because Washington, the CIA, the Zionists and the Illuminati tell them to and we’re bloody well sticking to it.

See, it’s far easier for journalists, activists, rich pop stars and deluded actors to spin an official line no matter how counterproductive and harmful it is to the communities they’re supposed to be supporting. Because the day SJWs start treating black people as an autonomous group of diverse individuals with their own minds  – as opposed to a homogenous bloc defined entirely by their skin colour – is the day we might as well give up and vote for Trump. So god bless Hilary Clinton for her dedication to peace, equality and securing black votes by cynically indulging BLM and their quasi-Stalinist agenda. I’m sure every American is proud as punch to know that voting for such an honest, down-to-earth individual with a flawless record for truth and transparency is the only way they can ensure that the 46th POTUS isn’t a deranged, tax-avoiding bullshitter with a penchant for praising dictators and Tweeting about sex tapes at four o’clock in the morning.

And I’m certain every black American is thrilled that Hilary sees them as so pivotal to her campaign she’ll even utilise an illiberal militant movement she would ordinarily avoid like the plague in order to win their support. My, it’s almost as if she senses that the neglect and disdain with which her party, the GOPs and the rest of the political establishment have treated huge swathes of the American public is about to bite them on the arse. An arse which will be bruised and bloodied beyond recognition should a politically illiterate, ageing playboy with a mouth like an orange balloon knot be allowed to sink his teeth into it.

But this is of little interest to BLM. Hilary’s endorsement keeps the useful idiots on side and should Trump win no-one is going to complain about a free pass to fight fascism by waving banners, assaulting journalists, and shooting innocent people. Indeed, Hilary is so keen to go to the wall for BLM she’s made a clear choice to forgo the two minutes of mouse-clicking needed to access the reams of hard evidence that casts serious doubt on BLM’s claims and ideology. Because as all good regressive leftists know, to show solidarity with a group you have to ignore all the bad stuff. Then when the bad stuff becomes too big to ignore you simply claim it’s not true. Then when it’s proven to be demonstrably factual you decide that actually the bad stuff isn’t that bad after all, accuse your opponent of racism then abandon the debate to wallow in the smug glow of victory. It’s a tactic that works a treat for Corbyn supporters commenting on his proven support for Hamass. And the lovely thing is it requires little to no knowledge on any given topic, which is handy for all those die-hard Momentum members who think Hezzbolla are social workers and Israel invented Shakira Law.

Of course, in this multi-media world it’s important to remember video evidence of something does not necessarily mean that what is on the video actually happened. Unless of course that video appears to show an unarmed black man being shot by police purely because he was black in which case that is always what happened. Even in those cases where it looks suspiciously like the unfortunate black man was actually shot because he was in the process of committing a crime, resisting arrest, or waving a gun. Because as all intelligent liberals know the full story is often far more complex than a thirty-second clip.

Take the recent video of a teenage boy in Romford being assaulted by a gang of bullies. Like most decent people my initial reaction was one of horror and sadness. Yet on further inspection I noticed one of the assailants was black which immediately set alarm bells ringing. How quick had I been to condemn these thugs without looking at the bigger picture? For all I knew this young black boy was the victim of racist abuse. At this point I realised the supposed victim was also clad in a hoodie and holding a mobile phone. So as well as potential racist abuse it became disturbingly clear that something much darker was also at play: white privilege and cultural appropriation. Shudder.

Sure, no-one deserves to be punched in the face and kicked while concussed on the floor. But you have to wonder if this would have happened at all if the ‘victim’ hadn’t flaunted his white privilege by brandishing a Samsung. Or worn a fashion item historically associated with black youths. All things considered, is it any wonder he ended up in hospital? As principled liberals like Georgie Galloway and Lorry Penny implied at the time of the Charlie Hebdon massacre: if you kick the hornet’s nest, don’t complain when you get stung. Needless to say, the ‘bullies’ have now been arrested while the white ‘victim’ remains at large. Surprise, surprise. So a young man from an oppressed minority ends up in jail even though it was his white aggressor’s problematic behaviour that provoked the ‘crime’ in the first place. Sickening.

Ditto the recent video of an elderly homeless man knocked to the ground by a flying kick from a young gentleman in London. As soon as I noticed the young man was black I knew there was more to this than meets the eye. And sure enough, the ‘innocent’ homeless man can clearly be seen laughing just before his malnourished frame is booted out of shot to much hilarity. Who’s to say he wasn’t chuckling at fond memories of Love My Neighbour or The Black & Blue Minstrel Show? How do we know his mirth wasn’t inspired by casually reminiscing about the Steven Laurence murder? What if the presence of these law-abiding young black men had stirred ‘hilarious’ recollections of the slave trade and Apartheid South Africa? The truth is we don’t know. But these explanations are easily more convincing than the MSM narrative that a nasty little thug who thinks it’s funny to assault people older, weaker and poorer than him is a nasty little thug no matter what colour he is.

Because anyone can see that if this tramp hadn’t shoved his white privilege in this oppressed young man’s face he wouldn’t have got clattered, and could have spent the night sleeping in a bin with a belly full of pigeon feet instead of lying spark-out on the pavement with shattered ribs. We have no way of knowing he wasn’t asking for it and frankly, it’s not our job to treat POC as equals and hold them to the same standard as everyone else. As middle-class BLM activist and YouTube sensation Trev Melvin brilliantly put it last month: “A homeless, poor white male still has more privilege than I will ever have, regardless of the money that I make”. Couldn’t agree more Trev. And the sad fact is that once this flea-ridden hobo recovers from his ‘ordeal’ he’ll be free to return to his imperialist ways, weaving his vomit-encrusted beard into dreadlocks just to rub it in. Meanwhile the poor sod who nearly killed him to amuse his friends spends his golden years in jail, another victim of the systemic racism that infests this nightmarish post-Brexit Britain we have the nerve to call ‘Great’.

All of which begs the question: where is our spirit of protest? Where is our principled opposition to the neo-liberal nightmare? Where is our insanely entitled hate group whose recently published List Of Demands is an uncompromising plea for segregation and special treatment that reads like a Marxist manifesto written by a toddler who’s just dropped a Cornetto?

Well, I may have some answers. For there are encouraging signs that the UK has rediscovered its protest mojo too, inspired by BLM demos across the pond and the principled scenes of violence and looting that invariably accompany them. And while it would be fantastic if more black men were shot dead by police in Britain, the sad fact is, due to there being much less crime and far fewer guns over here we don’t have quite as many excuses to riot and smash up property. However, that hasn’t stopped some exciting new movements taking the agit-bull by the horns. Trust me, something is stirring on the British left and in the coming weeks I will explore this bold new future.

Buckle up, comrades.