Sasha Johnson of Black Lives Matter is a dangerous extremist but someone whose right to free speech I have always supported wholeheartedly. How I wish those on the left showed we conservatives such consideration. Last night she was shot in the head and it should go without saying that my prayers are for her and her family as she battles for survival. I hope so very much that she pulls through, as she is a young woman and a mother and has much to live for. However…
Sasha was shot in the head in South London. Social media is still rife with calls saying that this was an “assassination” attempt and her branch of BLM, a political party, the Taking the Initiative Party (TTIP) immediately claimed that Sasha had suffered many threats and that the attack was politically motivated.
The irony of folks from an organisation which had called for the defunding of the Police, demanding that Police catch the assailants as a matter of urgency is very real but those who point it out will not be thanked for doing so.
But was this a political attack? One friend of Sasha’s who was with her last night claims that this was part of a gang conflict and that the drive-by shooting as a late-night party took place was not targeting Sasha, it was just a random attack. If so, this may, sadly, be just another chilling stat in the column marked black on black gun crime in London.
As a person of colour in London, and especially as a black rather than Asian person, you are far more likely to be one of the c120 people a year murdered in the capital by non-Policemen than you are to be killed while in Police custody (almost nil). Last year, 31 folks were murdered in gang related crime. More than half of London’s murder victims are black and, sadly, blacks are also well over-represented among the perps as well.
For young folk like Sasha, the stats are brutal. In London last year, 72% of killings of youths under 25 years old involved black victims. Most people in London are white. Met boss Cressida Dick said that black people were four times more likely to be a victim of violence than white people and eight times more likely to be a perpetrator. Those are just horrific numbers and there is a real problem there. Why is it happening?
This is not to take away from the tragedy of what has happened to Sasha merely to point out that Police brutality is not the biggest cause of violence and death towards folks of colour by a long chalk, whatever Sasha and her colleagues claimed and the media dared not challenge.
At this stage, while the Police have said that specific threats to Sasha were not credible and that this was not a politically motivated attack, it is perhaps best not to rule anything out until the assailants are caught, irony of ironies, by the Police Sasha herself compared to the Klu Klux Klan and wishes to dissolve. Perhaps those all over social media calling this out as an assassination by white supremacists might just hold back for a while. Such fake news claims can have bad consequences and cost lives.
Meanwhile, pray for Sasha and her family.
Postscript: the Met has now said the attack was carried out by four black males. It was a gang attack once again highlighting that black on black gang crime is a far greater threat to the black community than Police brutality, whatever Sasha, the BBC et al want us to believe. Naturally, there have been no apologies from those like pro race baiter Diane Abbott who said, at once and without proof, that Sasha’s attack was a politically motivated one so stirring the pot of division.