"Say their names," call protesters across the nation who carry signs emblazoned with the identities of several victims of police brutality, vigilante violence, and murder by police officers. This refrain by Black Lives Matter and other activist groups have drawn national attention to the shocking, tragic deaths of several black Americans but totally ignores thousands of others that occur every year, including children, gunned down in the street just in the month of June.
The protesters screaming, "Black Lives Matter," whether they are affiliated with the Marxist political group or just calling for police reform and pulling down monuments dare their detractors to disagree. After all, if you don't subscribe to everything said by a group chanting, "Black Lives Matter," you must not believe that to be true, right?
Retailers, entertainment entities, celebrities, athletic organizations, and politicians have dutifully fallen into this trap, issuing apology after apology for contributing to "systemic racism," and having "white privilege." Our political leaders bow in the Capitol, mysteriously donning Kente cloths as a staged attempt to achieve racial penance.
While protesters camp out in our city parks, harass police officers attempting to keep the peace, and enjoy the taffy-soft submission of leftist mayors and governors across the country, U.S. cities are experiencing a dramatic uptick in violent deaths. But as hundreds of Americans perish within our own borders each week, the protests focus only on the deaths that help advance the cause of defeating the entirety of law enforcement within the United States.
And they're not losing. Hundreds of members of the NYPD have chosen to retire as Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo cowed to the mobs and refused to back up the police department, further promising to gut the budget. NYC additionally disbanded a unit of more than 500 plain-clothed police officers specifically tasked with curbing violent crime at a time when the city is seeing dramatic spikes in murders, burglaries, and other violent attacks. The Minneapolis city council unanimously voted to disband their entire police department and other cities have promised much the same.
With no back up from leaders in their own cities and looming congressional action promising to destroy much-needed protection, police have understandably retreated. And as police remain sidelined and protesters remain unsatisfied, black Americans are dying in record numbers across the country. But, it seems, their deaths warrant no protest, no call to action, no demand that city leaders and congress do anything. The violence overtaking American streets simply does not fit the political narrative in which police are the bad guys and white people are all racists. So the dead remain nameless to a movement which claims righteously that "Black Lives Matter." Here are five black children who died violently this month who will remain unmentioned by social justice protesters who are distracted by culling statues and demanding bands change their innocuous names.
1. Sincere A. Gaston, age 1, Chicago, Illinois
Sincere was traveling with his mother in his car seat on Chicago's South Side when bullets from an unknown assailant fired on the car hitting the small boy in the chest and wounding his mother. Sincere was pronounced dead at the hospital. He was just months shy of his second birthday.
"This is happening far too often,” Chicago Police Department Chief of Operations Fred Waller said. “When is this going to stop? When are we gonna say enough is enough?" Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot expressed outrage over the "gun violence" that resulted in the infant's death but did not address how she would empower police to catch the vicious child killer(s). She has stood firm in her intent to overhaul her police department as a response to protests across the country.
2. Shaniya Gilmore, age 3, Baltimore, Maryland
Shaniya, her mother, and her unborn baby brother were all killed in Southwest Baltimore in a shooting incident which seemed to be deliberately intended for the young family. A videotape obtained from the scene of their deaths shows Shaniya's mother, Shaiand Miller, who was eight months pregnant, follow another car to a street where an unknown assailant fired three rounds directly into the parked vehicle. Miler's boyfriend is currently being held for the crime. He had previously been charged with neglect in an incident involving his step-daughter, Shaniya.
3 & 4. Jasean Francis, 17, and Charles Riley, 16, Chicago, Illinois
The two teens and another friend were on an errand to buy candy in Chicago when they encountered Laroy Battle in an alleyway and inquired how tall he was. Battle, 19, reportedly responded to the boys' inquiry by firing on them, striking Francis and Riley multiple times. Their friend was able to escape the attack but Francis and Riley both died of their injuries. Battle was arrested after police obtained a videotape of the incident and the suspect's attempt to dispose of the gun.
"He was a kid," Francis' aunt Latonya Pettit said. "Liked video games, snacks. That was his thing. He would walk into this hospital gift shop daily and purchase snacks."
The motive for Battle's attack on the teens is not known but he had previously been convicted for aggravated, unlawful use of a weapon. He was out on probation at the time of the attacks.
5. Brandon Hendricks, 17, The Bronx, New York
Hendricks had just graduated from James Monroe High School last week where he was a promising basketball star. His body was found in the early hours on Sunday morning by police responding to shots fired in his Bronx neighborhood. Shot through the neck, Hendricks was deceased by the time officers discovered his body.
"I’ve never met anyone who had anything bad to say about him," Hendricks' basketball coach Nigel Thompson said. "He was a remarkable basketball player. Incredible handle and quickness. He was our leader on and off the floor for the past 2 seasons." Thompson went on to say that the teen was an exemplary student of Geometry. Hendricks was set to attend college this fall.
Because of a lack of political relevance in the current climate of protest against the police, the deaths of these five black children will not be painted on anyone's sign as they march through city streets. Their violent deaths do not warrant the attention of a mob who claims that "black lives matter," because they weren't killed by the right kind of person.
Despite the violent deaths of thousands of black Americans each and every year, protesters are not seen in the neighborhoods where these crimes generally occur. There are no protests against unmitigated crime that ravages black communities on a daily basis, nor the needless slaughter of children happening in our own streets.
Until they say ALL their names, Black Lives Matter protesters prove they are only interested in black lives taken by their political foes. Justice for a select few that satisfies an excuse to instill chaos and Marxism is injustice for the names these activists refuse to say.
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