Should Obama Have Treated Black Lives Matter Like the KKK?

The easiest shot in basketball is the uncontested layup. That is what President Trump had last Saturday. An uncontested layup. Violence had erupted in Charlottesville, and Trump had the opportunity to denounce the racism that was at the center of the violence. He did not have to support affirmative action. He did not have to support immigration reform. He did not have to support hate crimes legislation. All he had to do to win the day was denounce racism.

That is not to say that there would not have been detractors had he clearly denounced racism. Indeed, some would talk about how his administration made such supremacist groups more powerful. But for a day or two such complaints would seem petty in the face of a denunciation from a president who is certainly good at putting down others.
Of course he did not do that. His reluctance to mention white supremacists, Nazis, or KKK by name is in stark contrast to his call of President Obama to denounce Muslim terrorist by name. The omission is clearly not missed by those of us of color. Talk about a layup that was front rimmed!!
I am glad he got around to doing so on Monday. But it truly is a day late and a dollar short. Am I supposed to believe that now he is serious about racism? Why should I not think that his real attitudes towards racism were revealed in his original hesitation to denounce it?
But some of Trump’s defenders have embarked on a bad strategy. They are trying to make a parallel between Trump on KKK and Obama on Black Lives Matters (BLM). They argue that just as Trump should denounce the racist elements in Charlottesville, so too Obama should have denounced BLM after the shooting of the police in Dallas. This attempt is misguided, and I hope it will soon stop.
I have been a critic of BLM in the past and plan to criticize them more in the future. But today is not the day for that critique. They are not the ones guilty in Charlottesville. And despite their shortcomings, they are not in the same league as the white nationalists who descended upon Charlottesville.
In the most basic sense, there is a key difference in purpose between white nationalists and BLM. White nationalists want to varying degrees some version of a white nation. BLM wants to correct social injustice done to African-Americans. Regardless of the tactics both groups use, it is clear that there are distinctive goals with different levels of moral value.
For example, Richard Spencer, a well-known figure in white nationalism has advocated for a white ethno-state in North America. The manifesto of Vanguard America indicates a desire for a nation exclusively for white Americans (The manifesto was taken down soon after I wrote the article). Another leader, Matthew Heimbach, has attempted to start a ”white only” student group. White nationalism is fairly decentralized and so it is not fair to connect this type of attitude towards exclusion with all white nationalism. But there is enough of this sentiment that it is reasonable to assert that exclusion of non-whites is a critical part of this movement.
BLM can be fairly characterized as overly focused on issues that concern blacks. But looking at the principles of the official organization, I do not see an attempt to create a black nation. I see attempts to protect and establish a black community. Feel free to critique the methods and approaches of BLM. On a different day when it is appropriate, I will engage in that critique. But this is not a black version of the KKK.
Another way these two groups are distinctive from each other is their track record. We have a long history of the effect of white nationalism in our society. Thousands of blacks were lynched due to this push for a white nation, and a history of terrorism is also a by-product of it. So we know what happens if white nationalists get a great deal of power.
Of course, this is not to say that if BLM gained a great deal of power that they would not oppress others. We do not know that yet. Given our nature of human depravity, I hope that no single group gains too much power. But if the day comes where BLM activists begin to abuse their power, then we should call them out on it.
But we already know what white nationalists will do with too much power. When individuals try to link BLM to KKK, they are implying that BLM wants to murder and enslave as much as the KKK. But that is an ahistorical claim given the awful history of white supremacists in comparison to perhaps a few decades of potential misdeeds of black activists.
If one is still inclined to link BLM to KKK, please consider the foolishness of those who say that Trump is like Hitler. Is it not true that we automatically lose respect for those who violate Godwin’s law? So too will people fail to respect those who tie the evil deeds of the KKK to BLM.