Editorial: Black lives and police officers

This past week’s trauma is no secret.

Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Minneapolis were both killed by officers who, in the video evidence, appeared more adrenaline-driven than “protect-the-community”-driven; and then there were the five innocent, community-serving officers shot down in Dallas, Texas, by a vindictive, violent veteran black-male sniper shooter.

Those who prioritize evidence feel outraged by the injustices of all three of these cases, in which innocent lives were taken from us. This is why we’ve seen Black Lives Matter representatives decry the Dallas shooter, and this is why we’ve seen police officers stand peacefully with protesters and oversee the safety of demonstrations across our country’s cities this past weekend.

Our Opinions Editor, David, can attest to the existence and merit of these peaceful demonstrations – he spent the weekend in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, alongside two major marches: one framed around numerous political concerns, the other around a Black Lives Matter march.

So, now that we’ve highlighted the similar sentiments of Black Lives Matter, police and demonstrators across the country, we want to address recent reactions to Black Lives Matter — reactions we find factually inaccurate and negatively consequential.

There are a myriad of different reactions we could highlight, ranging from various memes to a former Illinois congressman’s “Real-America-is-coming-for-you,” anti-Obama tweet. However, we feel a solid example to focus on came from Tomi Lahren in response to the Dallas shooting. The media personality and host of “TheBlaze,” tweeted: “Meet the new KKK, they call themselves ‘Black Lives Matter’ but make no mistake their goals are far from equality. #Dallas #bluelivesmatter.”

She tweeted that hours after the Dallas shooting and later deleted it. We’ll give Tomi the benefit of the doubt and assume she deleted this tweet after discovering that the Dallas shooter, according to the Dallas Police Department, had no connections to Black Lives Matter or the protest he fired upon.

Nonetheless, deleting the tweet after the fact doesn’t take away from how potent her reaction was with such little evidence. When this story first broke, and by the time Tomi delivered her reaction, all we knew was the sniper shooter suspect shot 11 officers, fatally shooting five and wounding the others, during a Black Lives Matter march.

That Tomi’s immediate reaction to this was to equate the movement to a historically racist, monstrous, deplorably violent group and further pin them as anti-equality and anti-cop — and that her tweet received more than 2,000 likes and 1,000 retweets — signifies how many Americans hold a twisted view of Black Lives Matter altogether. It would be wrong to dismiss these individuals as morally lacking. The day we devolve to pure character attacks is the day rational solutions-based discussion dies. We need to, instead, vigilantly stand by and argue the evidence.

Even if the shooter were wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt, which he wasn’t, his actions wouldn’t represent the movement any more than the “bad cops” represent cops at large. You’re always going to have trolls or bad actors on both sides.

If protestors can stand side-by-side with cops while staring down the forces of institutionalized racism and implicitly biased police brutality, then we can all take a minute to hold our breath and understand what this massive 3-year-old movement that has transformed racial discussions in our country actually stands for without arrogantly dismissing it as violent and irrelevant.

We need to talk. We need to listen. We need to stand against violence and prejudice. Together.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown answers questions during a news conference, Monday, July 11, 2016, in Dallas. Five police officers were killed and several injured during a shooting in downtown Dallas last week. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)