Question

The first article is called the "The Truth of Black Lives Matter" by New York Times and the second article is called "New York Times Defends Folly of Black Lives Matter" by Jerome Hudson at breitbart.com. Please provide a half page summary for "The Truth of Black Lives Matter" and cite what the author is trying to argue. Also please provide a half page summary for "New York Times Defends Folly of Black Lives Matter" and cite what the author is trying to argue. I will provide the links to them down below just in case but I will put the articles here too. MLA format also please.

New York Times "The Truth of Black Lives Matter"

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD SEPT. 3, 2015

CreditAlex Nabaum

The Republican Party and its acolytes in the news media are trying to demonize the protest movement that has sprung up in response to the all-too-common police killings of unarmed African-Americans across the country. The intent of the campaign — evident in comments by politicians like Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsinand Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky — is to cast the phrase “Black Lives Matter” as an inflammatory or even hateful anti-white expression that has no legitimate place in a civil rights campaign.

Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas crystallized this view when he said the other week that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were he alive today, would be “appalled” by the movement’s focus on the skin color of the unarmed people who are disproportionately killed in encounters with the police. This argument betrays a disturbing indifference to or at best a profound ignorance of history in general and of the civil rights movement in particular. From the very beginning, the movement focused unapologetically on bringing an end to state-sanctioned violence against African-Americans and to acts of racial terror very much like the one that took nine lives at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., in June.

The civil rights movement was intended to make Congress and Americans confront the fact that African-Americans were being killed with impunity for offenses like trying to vote, and had the right to life and to equal protection under the law. The movement sought a cross-racial appeal, but at every step of the way used expressly racial terms to describe the death and destruction that was visited upon black people because they were black.

Even in the early 20th century, civil rights groups documented cases in which African-Americans died horrible deaths after being turned away from hospitals reserved for whites, or were lynched — which meant being hanged, burned or dismembered — in front of enormous crowds that had gathered to enjoy the sight.

The Charleston church massacre has eerie parallels to the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. — the most heinous act of that period — which occurred at the height of the early civil rights movement. Four black girls were murdered that Sunday. When Dr. King eulogized them, he did not shy away from the fact that the dead had been killed because they were black, by monstrous men whose leaders fed them “the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism.” He said that the dead “have something to say” to a complacent federal government that cut back-room deals with Southern Dixiecrats, as well as to “every Negro who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice.” Shock over the bombing pushed Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act the following year.

During this same period, freedom riders and voting rights activists led by the young John Lewis offered themselves up to be beaten nearly to death, week after week, day after day, in the South so that the country would witness Jim Crow brutality and meaningfully respond to it. This grisly method succeeded in Selma, Ala., in 1965 when scenes of troopers bludgeoning voting rights demonstrators compelled a previously hesitant Congress to acknowledge that black people deserved full citizenship, too, and to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Along the way, there was never a doubt as to what the struggle was about: securing citizenship rights for black people who had long been denied them.

The “Black Lives Matter” movement focuses on the fact that black citizens have long been far more likely than whites to die at the hands of the police, and is of a piece with this history. Demonstrators who chant the phrase are making the same declaration that voting rights and civil rights activists made a half-century ago. They are not asserting that black lives are more precious than white lives. They are underlining an indisputable fact — that the lives of black citizens in this country historically have not mattered, and have been discounted and devalued. People who are unacquainted with this history are understandably uncomfortable with the language of the movement. But politicians who know better and seek to strip this issue of its racial content and context are acting in bad faith. They are trying to cover up an unpleasant truth and asking the country to collude with them.

"New York Times Defends Folly of Black Lives Matter" by Jerome Hudson at breitbart.com

In a 743 word defense of Black Lives Matter, The New York Times editorial board couldn’t bring itself to sanction a single syllable shaming the grievance group for its growing number of transgressions.

“The Truth of ‘Black Lives Matter’ flat-out ignores that Black Lives Matter is based on a number of pernicious lies. Chief among them is that Michael Brown was executed by Officer Darren Wilson. If that were true, why did an Eric Holder-headed Justice Department investigation conclude that Michael Brown did not have his hands up when Officer Wilson fired the fatal shots? For this group, facts and truth don’t matter. Still, Black Lives Matter demands that Wilson be arrested.

The Times interweaves Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words and the purpose of the civil rights movement together in an effort to legitimize and beautify Black Lives Matter’s cause.

The truth, however, is much less romantic. Black Lives Matter is a disgrace to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement. To compare them is to bastardize 100 years of American history–and the legitimate hard-fought gains the movement proudly claims.

Martin Luther King, Jr., didn’t mince words when he stated his dream was that his children live in a world where they were judged by their “character” and not their “skin.”

I challenge The New York Times, America’s sanctimonious overseers, to present a King quote anywhere near the morally deprived neighborhood of “pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon.”

Would Rosa Parks stand with Houston area Black Lives Matter supporter Monica Foy, who said slain Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth had “creepy perv eyes” and deserved to be executed and shot 15 times?

How does The New York Times reconcile this incredible contradiction?

The admirable activists making the case for whatever problems of over-policing that do persist are at odds with a Black Lives Matter movement that is celebrated and seldom challenged for its habit of overindulging in generalities as it constantly convicts all of America as a devoutly racist place.

Another lie: the Times‘ assertion that unarmed black people “are disproportionately killed in encounters with the police” is simply not true and is not substantiated by facts.

It is “an indisputable fact–that the lives of black citizens in this country historically have not mattered,” the Times contends. Black Lives Matter, and the Times, for that matter, is tied to a tragic American past that no longer lends its evils to today.

In some sense, black lives do matter more than others. I am black. If I were unarmed and gunned down by police today, my story would warrant wall-to-wall press coverage. It’s hard to imagine the same outcome if I were white.

This is good and bad.

That America’s foremost news organs commit so much energy to covering every detail surrounding the death of black people–making them household names in the process–is evidence that we are far better off as a racially harmonized nation than we were 50 years ago. And that’s good. But this societal progress wasn’t achieved by decisive movements like Black Lives Matter.

It’s no accident then that 64 percent of black people prefer the phrase “all lives matter.”

Now for the bad. Such an intense focus on black lives has normalized a callous disassociation of a victim’s humanity if he happens to be white when killed by a cop. Or, as evidenced in Houston–if he happens to be a cop.

It’s as if we have all been shamed into nodding our heads in agreement that we must care less about police-involved shootings unless the victim is black.

The New York Times’ defense of Black Lives Matter also misses the point, and an opportunity. Their editorial came on the same day that slain Texas Deputy Sheriff Darren Goforth is being laid to rest. Their defensive editorial also coincided with this Chicago Tribune headline: “Chicago marks deadliest day by gunfire in more than a decade.” Yet neither far more relevant threats to black lives warranted a single mention in the Times’self-serving sermon.

The news stories on cities like Chicago, consumed by black-on-black carnage resemble Somalia more than America.

Yes, Social Justice Warriors. I just played the black-on-black crime card. Why? Because one can be both outraged and motivated to solve the vexing problem of black criminality while simultaneously acting to improve policing in one’s own community.

But Black Lives Matter wants fewer police in minority neighborhoods. Specifically, they want a “national policy specifically aimed at redressing the systemic pattern of anti-black law enforcement violence in the United States.”

This is just nonsense and borders satire.

The New York Times is concerned with parsing out the importance of recognizing the Black Lives Matter movement ahead of the fact that all lives matter–yet seem unwilling to recognize that one of the impacts of the movement has been to increase the threat against police officers. So if to just say, “All Lives Matters” is to “cover up an unpleasant truth” as the NYT claims, then you also have to admit that embracing Black Lives Matter with no acknowledgement of the associated violence against police is no less of an effort at concealment.

Neither The New York Times nor Black Lives Matter wants to broaden the parameters of the conversation about the vexing problems in black precincts. Both groups want a narrow conversation centered on inflated instances of racism.

If we talk about black poverty, should we also ask how 70 percent illegitimacy rates (90 percent in some inner cities) might contribute to our malaise? Or do we continue to pretend that the persistent problem of black poverty is the result of racism and discrimination alone?

Black Lives Matter is not a civil rights movement. When a Black Lives Matter spokesman says the phrase “All lives matter” is a “violent statement,” the group itself becomes an affront to our most sacred democratic principle: that all men are equal in the eyes of the law.

Thanks, but no thanks. I would rather not be lectured about the perils of civil rights suffrage and police oppression by an editorial board that’s whiter than a Coldplay concert.

What does it say about The New York Times‘ concern for black lives if they–in an editorial about how black lives matter–decided to completely ignore the countless communities suffocated by crime and a gang culture that sends infinitely more black bodies to the morgue than police?

Answer 1

Note: This response is in UK English, please paste the response to MS Word and you should be able to spot discrepancies easily. You may elaborate the answer based on personal views or your classwork if necessary. I have written the response in point form so it can be concise. Also, I have written the response in an objective manner.

(Answer) NYT: Uses quotes and has named sources that account for proper citations. For instance, “Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas crystallized this view when he said the other week that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., were he alive today, would be “appalled” by the movement’s focus on the skin color of the unarmed people who are disproportionately killed in encounters with the police.”

BB: Uses opinions of the journalist as opposed to reporting facts. For instance, “The Truth of ‘Black Lives Matter’ flat-out ignores that Black Lives Matter is based on a number of pernicious lies.”

NYT: Talks about the dynamics of the situation with “Black Lives Matter.”

BB: Talks about the dynamics of the NYT article.

NYT: The last paragraph of the article rightly justifies the movement. However, large movements tend to have members that form absolute opinions without accommodating the nuances of the situation. These attributes have not been acknowledged. For instance, some “feminists” have blatantly indulged in male bashing, while calling it feminism. It is possible for the noblest of causes to have misunderstood followers. Any flaws in the “Black Lives Matter”, the movement should be corrected through acknowledgement and not suppressed because of mere flaws in people’s undertakings.

BB: Fails to acknowledge that every large movement has a large number of people with their own opinions. Some individuals consider the complex layers of a problem and conduct themselves and their patronage to a cause in accordance. Some individuals, however, do tend to have misdirected actions that can dent the image of the cause and not the cause itself. If BB has issues with how certain individual have conducted themselves with the cause, they might as well learn to separate the essence of the cause from the mislead individuals. For instance, feminism will always be a good cause, despite the misled feminist who indulges in “male-bashing.” These individuals would need to be corrected in order to calibrate the cause. The cause, however, should perhaps not be suppressed.