School District’s BLM Flag Display and Assemblies Are Wrong

The South Burlington schoolboard’s decision to fly the Black Lives Matter (BLM) flag in
February and hold BLM assemblies is lamentable and must be reversed. According to its
platform, BLM is “an ideological and political” organization that seeks to “assert [its own] clear
vision” of “a complete transformation of the current systems.” BLM and its supporters have
every right to advocate for BLM’s agenda, but it is not the board’s place -- speaking for all
community members -- to endorse political organizations and impose their ideology on all
community members.

BLM’s “radical” (its word) agenda includes support for boycotting, divesting, and
sanctioning (BDS) Israel (many of whose Jews are Black) with the goal of destroying Israel. With
dozens of despotic governments around the world, BLM’s targeting of Israel -- the Middle East’s
only liberal democracy and the world’s only safe-haven for Jews -- reveals BLM’s anti-
Semitism. BLM has also expressed support for Louis Farrakhan, who called Hitler a “very great
man,” blamed Jews for 9/11, called Judaism “Satanic,” and compared Jews to termites.

We’ve seen this before. BLM is entitled to spout its anti-Semitism, but it is not the role
of a government school district supported by our taxes and which our children must attend to
endorse it.

BLM not only advocates odious political causes, it also calls for violence, especially
against police. BLM glorifies convicted and unrepentant cop killers like Joanne Chesimard and
BLM demonstrators chant “pigs-in-a-blanket (police in body-bags) fry-‘em-like- bacon” and
“What-do-we-want? Dead-Cops. When-do-we-want-them? Now.” While it’s BLM’s right to
express hateful ideas, the FBI says that BLM has inspired a spike of attacks against officers
(including minority officers), including multiple assassinations. The board’s BLM endorsement
is a slap in the face to all officers and the families of the innocent murdered officers, including
Chesimard’s victim.

Evidence of BLM’s premise -- systematic unjustified police violence against Blacks -- is

absent. Anecdotally, in some of the recent publicized incidents, officers were tried and
convicted. Justice cannot bring the innocent victims back to life, but the perpetrators will be
punished, deterring future wrongdoing. In other publicized incidents, officers were exonerated,
often supported by subsequent FBI investigations, and no procedural defects have been
identified. Though exonerated, these officers have seen their careers and lives ruined.

Statistically, the most authoritative study, by a (black) Harvard researcher, found no

racial differences -- police are no more likely to shoot non-whites than whites. Further,
police kill twice as many whites as blacks; blacks are more likely to kill police than vice-versa;
and minority officers are more likely than white officers to fire at blacks. You don’t need to
believe these statistics to understand that the board’s role is to administer schools and provide
an excellent education, not to endorse political organizations on behalf of all SBSD constituents.

BLM’s toxic mix of victimhood, white guilt, and entitlement is antithetical to the
teachings of black luminaries like Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther
King, and Shelby Steele. Steele observes that these ideas have damaged black families more
than institutional racism ever did.

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 Data examined by the distinguished scholar Thomas Sowell, who is black, confirms
Steel’s observation. Dr. Sowell compared 1960 data on black single-parentage and rates of
crime, marriage, drug use, and labor participation with data several decades later and found
that by these measures blacks were worse off. This is remarkable because 1960 predates the
full swing of the civil rights era, which, while not eradicating white racism -- or for that matter
anti-Semitism -- pushed it into the shadows.

If you doubt the monumental civil rights advances over the last 65 years, consider the
thousands of non-whites -- including Africans -- who immigrate to the U.S. annually, and the
millions more who would like to. If the U.S. is as racist as BLM suggests, they would not be
longing to come here.

BLM-style victimhood, white guilt, and entitlement -- not white racism -- explain the
tragic deterioration found by Dr. Sowell. The board’s BLM endorsement encourages these
pernicious phenomena, hurting the very minorities it purports to help. The board must cancel
the BLM flag display and assembly and refrain from further endorsements of political groups.

Claudia Berger and Sheldon Katz

South Burlington