On Sunday, Black Lives Matter activists took advantage of a misunderstood confrontation between an armed black man and police in the Englewood suburb of Chicago. A Black Lives Matter protest became “very hostile” to police and an organized band of rioters and looters went through Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, damaging and looting stores. On Tuesday, Englewood residents stood up to Black Lives Matter activists, saying they did not represent locals and were giving the neighborhood a bad name. The locals succeeded in ousting the opportunistic activists from in front of the police station and drawing attention to their duplicity.
Duane Kidd, a 42-year-old lifelong resident of Englewood, stood up to the protesters. “None of these motherf*****s are gonna be here tomorrow. That’s why I got a problem,” he declared, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Roughly 75 protesters joined a rally organized by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Black Lives Matter, South Siders Organized for Unity, and Liberation and Good Kids/Mad City. Kidd claimed that the residents of his South Side neighborhood did not receive any prior notice of the rally, and argued that Englewood residents would bear the brunt of the destruction if the protest devolved into a riot.
“They didn’t let the community know. They didn’t put flyers on people’s doors,” the local black man said. “If they would’ve gotten something incited with the police, who’s gotta deal with it tomorrow? The community. Not them. They’ll be somewhere sipping sangria somewhere. I’m telling you like it is.”
Darryl Smith, president of the Englewood Political Task Force, joined Kidd’s counter-protest against the Black Lives Matter opportunists.
“If your issue is with the police, take it to 35th and Michigan [where the Chicago Police Department headquarters is located]. Don’t come in Englewood with it,” Smith told reporters. “If the people on 56th Street want to come over and protest the police, they can do it. But no one from the North Side or Indiana or any place other than Englewood can come here and do that.”
Smith castigated the protesters with a microphone, noting the duplicity of the “Black Lives Matter” slogan. Black lives matter, it seems, only when the police are at fault, not when a black man, woman, or child is murdered by a black criminal.
“Y’all don’t come out when a kid gets shot. Y’all come out when it’s got something to do with the f—— police,” the local leader declared, scathingly.
“If you ain’t from Englewood, get the f–k out of here,” Smith added, according to Fox 32.
Rally organizers moved the gathering away from CPD’s Englewood station toward Ogden Park, a block south. The hour-long protest featured dancing and chants attacking Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D), the CPD, and the police budget.
Black Lives Matter activists have taken up the cause of 20-year-old Latrell Allen. Police claim Allen fired a gun at officers before the cops shot back, wounding him. Allen faces two counts of attempted murder and one count of unlawful possession of a weapon. CPD leaders said that misinformation about the shooting sparked the tensions that ultimately led to looting in downtown late Sunday night and early Monday morning.
Police said they dispatched 400 officers to respond to the looting. They arrested 100 people amid the riots, which injured 13 officers.
Yet a Black Lives Matter organizer defended the looting as a “reparation.”
“I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci’s or a Macy’s or a Nike because that makes sure that that person eats. That makes sure that that person has clothes,” Ariel Atkins said at a rally, The New York Post reported. “That’s a reparation.”
“Anything they want to take, take it because these businesses have insurance,” Atkins added.
She also denounced Rev. Jesse Jackson, who condemned the “pillaging, robbing & looting” as “humiliating, embarrassing & morally wrong.”
“Jesse Jackson has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter,” Atkins declared. “Jesse Jackson was not there for the creation of Black Lives Matter. Jesse Jackson can keep his opinions to himself.”
Atkins cannot so blithely dismiss the criticisms of Englewood locals who noted the Black Lives Matter hypocrisy.
Riots spread across American cities, and left-leaning journalists and politicians have whitewashed them, claiming they are “peaceful protests.” Yet the destruction cannot be denied. The riots have destroyed black lives, black livelihoods, and black monuments. At least 22 Americans have died in the riots. Many black leaders and celebrities have condemned the Black Lives Matter organization for refusing to focus on the many black lives snuffed out in black-on-black crime.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member