Black Lives Matter Complains, then Does the Thing It Complained About

Last week, the Black Lives Matter chapter in Minneapolis was up in arms over the use of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag by a non-profit called Better Ed. The conservative education-policy group printed the hashtag and a black-fist image on mailers drawing attention to the achievement gap in Minneapolis and St. Paul public schools. The local Fox affiliate reported:

… the appropriation of the hashtag and fist image by an organization that has no people of color on its staff [has] drawn the ire of activists associated with Black Lives Matter…

Much of that ire came from University of St. Thomas law professor Nekima Levy-Pounds, who faces charges in connection with an unlawful protest by Black Lives Matter at the Mall of America on December 20. One of her tweets appears below.

Please don’t come at me like that.@Better_Ed You already know the answer. Stop misappropriating #BlackLivesMatter w/out permission.

— Nekima Levy-Pounds (@nvlevy) March 12, 2015

This week, Black Lives Matter has appropriated a hashtag created by the Mall of America for marketing. From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

A Mall of America social media campaign urging shoppers to share some of their favorite experiences at the Bloomington megamall was quickly hijacked by supporters of the group Black Lives Matter.

What began as a few messages reminiscing about Camp Snoopy on Twitter spiraled into an outlet for demonstrators and their supporters to commandeer the hashtag #itsmymall.

Double-standards have become a trademark of the Black Lives Matter movement. The manic transition from violating the Mall of America’s property right by staging the December protest, to claiming a property right over a hashtag, to then appropriating the mall’s hashtag for their own purposes is enough to trigger whiplash in a rational observer.