MSNBC’S Joy Reid says there is “zero evidence” that the Black Lives Matter movement ever advocated for violence.
“There is absolutely zero, none, zero evidence that Black Lives Matter has ever pushed for anything violent, pushed for anything violent to happen to police,” she said Thursday night after the final presidential debate of 2020.
“They have never advocated violence against police,” she added.
There are tens of thousands of data points that say otherwise from this leftist conflict monitor: https://t.co/L45HNGF52k https://t.co/qwB2diRYmU
— Joy Pullmann (@JoyPullmann) October 23, 2020
Instead, Reid attempted to defend the movement by claiming they simply want racial justice, failing to mention the violent and reckless means by which some people have advocated for it.
“Black Lives Matter is about one thing: stop killing black people just because you pulled them over for parking or moving violation,” she said. “Just stop killing black people.”
“For [Trump] to traffic that again tonight was not only desperate, it was also stupid because he also wants black men to vote for him,” Reid said.
Studies and video footage from the period after George Floyd died in Minneapolis, which sparked hundreds of protests and riots across the nation, however, show that Reid may have been living under a rock over the last six months and that her perception of the movement is completely wrong.
Not only do reports from September suggest that up to 95 percent of this summer’s riots across the country are linked to BLM activism, according to data collected by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), but included in this data was the fact that more than 1 in 20 of U.S. protests between May 26 and Sept. 5 involved violent actions such as rioting and looting.
At least 47 people have died in riot-related circumstances, stemming from the actions of a movement which “has never pushed for anything violent,” according to Reid.
Over the last six months, rioters, posing under the guise of racial justice and change, “have burned down minority businesses, destroyed minority neighborhoods, killed a black police chief, desecrated civil rights monuments, launched deadly occupations of downtown centers, and set fire to churches” in multiple cities across the nation.
The damage inflicted by these riots is estimated to cost an inflation-adjusted $1.2 billion, much of which will come from taxpayer dollars “in the form of overtime and hazard pay for police and EMTs, emergency room visits, destruction of public property, and more.”
In California, members of the so-called “peaceful” movement which Reid claims “never advocated violence against police” blocked the emergency entrance of St. Francis hospital where two wounded police officers who were ambushed while on a patrol were recovering, chanting “We hope they die” and “Y’all gonna die one by one.”
Rioters were often caught on camera harassing police officers, throwing projectiles at them, and wishing for their death.
Evil #BlackLivesMatter and #Antifa cheer that a Patriot Prayer and Police supporter got killed tonight.#PortlandProtests #PortlandRiots pic.twitter.com/AOvSKt66uW
— Common Sense NPW (@CommonSenseNPW) August 30, 2020
Reid’s claim that the people involved in BLM are peaceful is also a narrative often peddled by the mainstream media including her employer MSNBC. When riots erupted following Floyd’s death, MSNBC reported it was “mostly a protest” as buildings burned in the background.
“This mostly a protest. It is not, generally speaking, unruly. But fires have been started,” said one MSNBC reporter during a riot in Minneapolis.
"This mostly a protest. It is not, generally speaking, unruly.
But fires have been started."
MSNBC reporter says protests in Minneapolis are not "generally speaking, unruly" as buildings burn in the background. pic.twitter.com/IzzEmKgxhM
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) May 29, 2020
