Do black lives matter? Of course, don’t all lives matter? If you believe the Bible and the Declaration of Independence, what other conclusion is there? Without them, all lives may matter but what adequately answers “why?”

A front page P-J article (7-12) featured a timely discussion at Chautauqua Institution on Black Lives Matter (BLM), but what was discussed appeared to evade the very prickly side of the movement. “Hands up, don’t shoot,” spoken constantly at BLM marches, stemming from the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO alleges that Brown stood before Officer Wilson with his hands up and urging him not to shoot. That is false! It never happened, yet it spawned a narrative still repeated at protests today. I haven’t heard Black Lives Matter renounce that false narrative, have you? If a narrative is going to be credible, doesn’t it require truth?

A reporter spoke to a protester holding a sign saying, “No justice, no peace!” Answering a question, she blurted out, “F– the police.” She wore a Black Lives Matter t-shirt. She feels that there’s “No justice, no peace!” with the police, but has she really thought through what “No justice, no peace!” would look like without the police? Not only are F-bombs dropping on police at many protests, one hate-filled march on the streets of New York screamed, “What do we want?” “Dead cops!” “When do we want it?” “Now!” Still another group yelled at the gates of the Minnesota State Fair, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon!” Granted, judging the movement just by anecdotal evidence is unfair, but evaluating it at the source provides a fair assessment.

At Black Lives Matter events, it’s not uncommon to have the name of Assata Shakur invoked. Providing ideological inspiration for BLM, Shakur is a convicted cop killer who escaped from prison and now resides in Cuba. Go to the Black Lives Matter website and a quote by her is highlighted there. As BLM denounced the violence in Dallas, that doesn’t square with giving space to a female convict murdering a policeman? Aren’t there better role models for the movement to quote than a cop killer?

In the wake of the mass murders in Orlando, BLM’s finger pointed to “the hate-filled rhetoric of the conservative right” as the culprit contending “that this terror [was] completely homegrown, born from the anti-Black white supremacy, patriarchy and homophobia of the conservative right.” BLM continues, “Homegrown terrorism is the product of a long history of colonialism..white supremacy and capitalism.” How can a terrorist be merely homegrown when he pledges allegiance to ISIS, which is anti-capitalist, about as non-white and supremacist as you can get, and extremely hateful of the West with jihad mass murders to prove it?

The eyebrow of suspicion can’t help but be raised when looking underneath the hood of BLM. Hamaslinked CAIR (Council for American Islamic Relations) declared through their leader Nihad Awad, “Black Lives Matter is our campaign.” Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch writes, “Whether Black Lives Matter and its allies will accept Sharia is an open question, but in the meantime, subversion of the existing order, by both violent and peaceful means, proceeds apace. The murders in Dallas (regardless of the cosmetic condemnations from Black Lives Matter, which fly in the face of its incendiary rhetoric) reveal how all these allied groups will manifest their hatred and accomplish their goal of destruction.”

Unabashedly “Queer-affirming,” BLM’s statement about the family isn’t very friendly. “We are committed to disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ ” If the family isn’t disrupted enough already, the reckless post-modern Marxist philosophy of BLM applies the wrecking ball to finish the job. Being “Unapologetically Black” with “Black Families” and “Black Villages” for “Black Liberation,” BLM appears obsessed with everything being black than centered on unity through the color-blind creed of the Declaration of Independence. Everyone is included under the creed of the Declaration, but if BLM doesn’t approve your “color,” you’re excluded.

It should come as no surprise that Hillary Clinton embraces the movement saying, “We need to acknowledge some hard truths about race and justice.” If she wants hard truth, a recent study found that no racial bias exists in shootings by police. That study from Harvard conducted by distinguished economics professor Roland G. Fryer, who is black, prompted him to say, “It is the most surprising result of my career.” Other forms of physical contact by police, the study found, were greater for blacks and Hispanics than whites. That being said, the officers in blue rush to the scene of a crime, not the scene of a race. Hillary, though, seizes the latest crisis to propose more federal bureaucracy over the police. Needless to say, the Constitution doesn’t even permit that! Besides, how can she even be trusted with them?

No-nonsense Sheriff David Clark of Milwaukee said that if black lives mattered, BLM would be protesting at abortion clinics. As bad as the unjust use of force by police may be, it pales in comparison to the brutality of nearly 2,000 black babies being aborted every day. The daily occurrences of black-on-black crime statistically wallop the instances of abuse by the police. I can understand why Sheriff Clark says that it’s time to delegitimize BLM. Sheriff Clark, by the way, is black.

I want to understand and deal with the concerns and grievances voiced by black Americans, but addressing them through the regressive ways of the BLM is destructive. I see answers, instead, coming through churches and organizations working positively in cities to lead communities away from race-baiting politics, but towards taking personal responsibility, like Rev. Jessie Lee Peterson – author of The Antidote: Healing America from the Poison of Hate, Blame and Victimhood – does in developing young black men in urban areas through his organization called BOND (Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny) dedicated to “Rebuilding the Family by Rebuilding the Man.”

I see hope coming from two groups on opposite sides of a street demonstrating in Dallas: one for the police and other for BLM. Crossing over to the other side, they came together, embracing one another, and prayed for each other as a member of the police stood in the center of their prayers. How can we not pray and reconcile at such a time as this?

Leading the way during such volatile times, two policemen sitting next to each other – one black, the other white – each with an outstretched arm and an arrow written on an open hand pointed to the other saying, “This life matters.” Two other white policemen at a table on lunch break each held a hand of a 5 year old black girl, who approached them to pray for them, saying, in effect, “Your lives matter.”

With work still left to do, it took the Civil War for our nation to say unequivocally that “Black lives matter, too.” President Obama quoted from the Bible at the memorial service for the five slain Dallas officers. If he really believed what he quoted, he would absolutely come down on the side that says, “All lives matter, unborn lives too.”

The Rev. Mel McGinnis is a Frewsburg resident.