Black Lives Matter advocate says DUP MP ‘must recognise his role in an overall system of anti-black oppression’

The MP for East Antrim must turn his thoughts towards the “systemic oppression” which black people face, according to a Black Lives Matter advocate.
Lilian Seenoi-Barr, Director of Programmes at the The North West Migrants Forum taking a knee at the Justice for George Floyd rally held in Guildhall Square on Saturday, June 6Lilian Seenoi-Barr, Director of Programmes at the The North West Migrants Forum taking a knee at the Justice for George Floyd rally held in Guildhall Square on Saturday, June 6
Lilian Seenoi-Barr, Director of Programmes at the The North West Migrants Forum taking a knee at the Justice for George Floyd rally held in Guildhall Square on Saturday, June 6

Lilian Seenoi-Barr, director of progammes at the North West Migrants Forum, was responding to Sammy Wilson’s remarks about the movement.

Speaking to the News Letter, Mr Wilson had raised concerns about what he called the “wicked agenda” of anti-police action which some of NI demonstrators (some bearing signs reading All Cops Are B*****ds) were exhibiting at the weekend.

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Mr Wilson said of George Floyd’s death: “I’ve no difficulty at all with people expressing their abhorrence to the way that poor man was treated by the police in America. It wouldn’t be the first time it’d happened.

Ms Seenoi-BarrMs Seenoi-Barr
Ms Seenoi-Barr

“But this is no longer about some man who was killed by the police. This is politically driven...

“It’s been driven by people who have an anti-state motivation.”

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Protestors are unaware of ‘wicked anti-police agenda’ of Black Lives Matter: DUP...

Former Kenyan asylum-seeker Ms Seenoi-Barr was elected to chair the SDLP’s Derry and Strabane District Executive last year.

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She said: “I think It’s important for Sammy Wilson to recognise what Black Lives Matter really means before he makes such nasty comments.

“He is completely missing the point and denying or oblivious to the realities of black people.”

She said that it would be “an uncomfortable experience” for people like Sammy Wilson to “grapple with his own role” in an overarching social order of “systemic oppression”.

“But it’s also an essential education, no matter where you are in your journey,” she continued.

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“Black Lives Matter speaks out against the police brutality and systemic racism that caused the recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade and Breonna Taylor, as well as the thousands of violent incidents that happen to Black people that aren’t recorded, aren’t reported or aren’t afforded the outrage they deserve here in Northern Ireland.”

She said black people “are twice as likely to be killed by a police officer while unarmed compared to a white individual”.

She concluded: “How great would it be if he could actually inform himself about the movement and what it stands for?”

She was pressed specifically on the anti-police signs at the weekend demonstrations in Belfast and Londonderry, the call to “defund” the police, and the fondness which US Black Lives Matter founders have for a wanted terrorist (see below), but she did not address these points directly.

WHAT DO THE STATS SHOW?

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A massive database of fatal police shootings in the USA, put together by the Washington Post, shows of all the 5,400 people of all races fatally shot by police from the start of 2015 to now, 5,049 were armed, whereas 351 (or 6.5%) were listed as unarmed.

Of the 2,468 white people who were shot and killed, 145 (or 5.8%) were unarmed.

Of the 1,291 black people who were shot and killed, 122 (9.5%) were listed as unarmed.

However, although more white people than black people were shot and killed black people make up a disproportionately large church of the statistics, representing roughly a quarter of fatalities whilst making up only around 13% of the US population.

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It should noted – these figures are for fatal shootings only. There are many other instances of police having killed people without firing a shot, but these are not part of the Washington Post’s database.

CALL TO ‘DEFUND THE POLICE’:

Black Lives Matter began in 2013 in response to the fatal shooting by a Hispanic-German man of a black teenager, Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed.

Its official website refers to people who were acquitted of crimes as “murderers” in spite of the verdicts (such as the shooter of Trayvon Martin, and the policeman who fatally shot Mike Brown in Ferguson in 2014; a Justice Department investigation found the evidence supported the policeman’s account that Brown, who had just robbed a shop, had tried to wrestle his gun off him).

On May 30, the Black Lives Matter website said: “George Floyd’s violent death was a breaking point — an all too familiar reminder that, for Black people, law enforcement doesn’t protect or save our lives. They often threaten and take them...

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“We call for a national defunding of police. We demand investment in our communities and the resources to ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive.”

Among the people to speak out against this is the founder of TV show The Wire, David Simon.

The show, often referred to as the greatest ever made, follows the illegal drug industry in Baltimore – those who sell drugs, use drugs, and the police who are meant to stop them.

He said: “No one has less regard for drug war than me. It militarized police/destroyed communities.

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“But 100s of young black men have been killed by Baltimore police since 1970s, and about 10,000 young black men slain by other young black males.

“Collapse of the deterrent to that matters.”

FOCUS ON US-BASED FOUNDERS:

Co-founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, Patrisse Cullors and Alicia Garza, have both cited an individual who sits on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorists list as having inspired them.

In a 2015 interview with fashion magazine Cosmopolitan, Ms Cullors was asked: “Who are some leaders that inspire you?” to which she answered “Assata Shakur.”

And in a piece for The Feminist Wire in 2014 (during which she lamented the position of “straight cis Black men in the front of the movement”), Ms Garza spoke of Assata’s address ‘To My People’, describing it as “powerful” and saying she uses it in her organising work.

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Shakur’s address in question talks of her issuing a declaration of “war” and at one point Shakur says: “For every pig that is killed in the so-called line of duty, there are at least fifty Black people murdered by the police.”

Also known as “Joanne Deborah Chesimard”, Shakur (a relative of rapper Tupac Shakur) was the first woman ever to be entered on to the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, where she remains today.

She is at large having been sentenced to life for her role in the killing of a policeman in 1973 (according to the FBI, Shakur and her colleagues were part of a “revolutionary extremist organization known as the Black Liberation Army” and they opened fire on two policemen, wounding one and killing the other “execution-style at point-blank range”, after being stopped for a traffic violation).

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