Do Black Lives Really Matter?

Do Black Lives Really Matter?—yes but it depends on who you are!

Published to public media, December 10, 2020

Below photo: Don DuPay and his infant son Lee. Circa 1982, Portland, Oregon. 

Black Lives Matter, according to most descriptions of the group is a “decentralized political and social movement advocating for nonviolent civil disobedience in protests against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against black people.” The group began, on social media, as a response to the unjustified and callous 2013 murder of Travon Martin, and the later acquittal of his murderer, George Zimmerman with the hash tag, #BlackLivesMatter. 

In my opinion, however, the organization Black Lives Matter has slowly morphed into a joke—a hypocritical and perfidious joke, both nationally and locally. I know I am not the only person to believe this. There are thousands of us who see through the hypocrisy of the current Black Lives Matter, and are fed up with it. But we also cannot discount why Black Lives Matter came into being. One expert, Professor Daniel Nagin, explains it best: 

"The Black Lives Matter Movement has to be understood in the context of the historical legacy of the ill treatment of blacks by the police and the criminal justice system and American political and social institutions more generally. That legacy is a fact. The Movement, I think, is a reflection of and reaction to that legacy. I don't think people should be surprised by it, and its part of why people should listen to the Black Lives Matter position. At the same time getting people to listen has been greatly complicated by the lethal ambushes of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge."

So, while the group began for many important and undeniable reasons, it has morphed into something that is not in fact doing much to help black people who are victims of violent crime. Do I seem conflicted about Black Lives Matter? That is probably because I am.

The San Francisco-based director of communications for Black Lives Matter, Shanelle Matthews, is quoted as saying that the more than 30 chapters of Black Lives Matter work for the most part autonomously, but with the goal of supporting and rebuilding “the black liberation movement and to affirm the lives of all black people.” But what does that actually do to help black people? And does this mean that each chapter has their own set of rules, values and practices?

Like many good ideas, the Black Lives Matter movement, which claims to be leaderless, has disintegrated and fractured into violent radical factions. There is an old saying: “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business and ends up a racket.”

A racket is another word for a criminal enterprise where money is central to everything.

Case in point—Tyree Conyer Page, aka Sir Maejor Page, a 32-year-old Albino black man, acted as a founder and leader of a Black Lives Matter group in Atlanta that he called Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta. Though he never completed the proper paper work for it to be a real Black Lives Matter nonprofit, he told people that everything was in order and began begging people for money. The fact that this young man used an alias automatically pinged my radar as a former police detective that he might not be the most moral or honest individual.

In quite a Trump-like manner, Page solicited donations nationally for Black Lives Matter of Grater Atlanta, claiming he needed the money to help people of color. Then later, Page shamelessly and systematically stole $200,000 in cash via bank transfers, which in his capacity as a leader of what he claimed to be a Black Lives Matter chapter, then became a federal offense.

With the stolen funds Page lived large, going on numerous sprees. He bought a house in Toledo Ohio, expensive tailored suits, jewelry, a home security system for his new house, a pistol and two rifles, dinners and drinks out with his friends, and other forms of “entertainment.”

GoFundMe announced several days after Pages arrest that anyone who donated to the Atlanta chapter could request a refund after federal charges were brought against Page.

Page’s stupidity is only surpassed by his incredible naivety. Did he really think no one would notice that $200,000 was missing from the Atlanta Black Lives Matter office that he operated out of? The FBI was ultimately tipped off about Page’s theft, meaning someone snitched on him. Was this person a family member, an ex-girlfriend, former friend, or perhaps another Black Lives Matteractivist who knew his habits and propensity to steal?

Page was arrested at his ill-begotten residence and hauled off in handcuffs, stuffed into the back of an FBI sedan, and charged with wire fraud and two counts of money laundering. He did not resist and was arrested without incident.

Looking into this man’s background, not surprisingly, Page has a criminal record—which includes the serious offense of impersonating a police officer. In other words at one time, Page was a cop wannabe. Impersonating a police officer is not a common offence but does occasionally occur among the mentally ill population or among flagrant, not-too-smart criminals.

Page, in my opinion is an unintelligent grifter, thief and liar. He is not the kind of individual that any black or white person should look up to, admire, or emulate.

The local Portland Black Lives Matter chapter began with a rally June 1, 2020, at Revolution Hall, in my opinion an inappropriate name for the great old Washington High School. The original activists were Devin Boss and Darren Golden. Within a few days both were deposed and tossed out by other young people seeking control of the organization. The power struggles, subplots and personality conflicts began the inevitable disintegration of the movement with disagreements on protest tactics, values, methods and who should be in charge.

Two splinter groups of this Black Lives Matter chapter began fighting for control. One group wisely wanted no violence or destruction, as a part of their activism and to resolve conflicts peaceably, and the other splinter group wanted to break windows, start fires and loot stores, claiming that America owes them and violence is their right.

What did any of this have to do with black lives Mattering? Nothing, in my opinion.

The loss of nuanced and balanced leadership of this Black Lives Matter chapter was self-fulfilling because of the immature behavior of the leaders, and their inability to respect each other and get along. Many protesters and other activists, such as anarchists, often espouse the belief that leaders will destroy the movements’ purpose. They say words to the effect that: “We don’t want leaders.” And “We don’t want anyone telling us what to do.” Because of this childish and youthful belief, there is no real structure to these kinds of groups and they fall into chaos and dissolve, having accomplished nothing to very little.

                                                ***

As the black-clad white anarchists have taken over the nightly Portland protests, at one time stabbing a black Trump supporter, and then later murdering a white Trump supporter, the local Black Lives Matter chapter begun by Devin Boss and Darren Golden lost control of much of the narrative of what they were trying to get across, at least in Portland.

The way these white kids have co-opted the Black Lives Matter movement, in Portland, wanting to become what many consider nothing more complex than White Saviors was justifiably criticized by Portland activist Andre Miller, who bitterly complained: “They can take off their masks and go to work the next day maintaining their anonymity and I am still a black man whose face the police recognize.” Miller made a very good point in his observation.

Miller, a volunteer with the Boys and Girls Club and Keep Oregon Well, became a vocal presence in the Black Lives Matter movement in the early days of the protests in Portland, until such time that being on the frontlines nightly, Miller was shot in the head in July of 2020 with a rubber bullet and seriously injured, having to take time off to recover.

Unfortunately, however, in July 2020, Miller also shot himself in the foot, so to speak, by apparently getting drunk in a South Carolina airport while trying to return to Portland from a Washington DC march in support of black lives. This resulted in a tedious 25-minute debacle in which his teen son and “fiancée” begged him to calm down while he kept repeating: “I don’t give a fuck! I’m mad! I’m mad!” Miller claimed he had been assaulted by a female airport employee, who after touching his arm, told him he could not board the airplane with the alcoholic drink he held in his hand. The woman appeared to be approximately five foot two and about 125 pounds, much smaller than the sturdily built, much taller Miller.

After several employees and Miller’s girlfriend/fiancée and teen son begged for over ten minutes that he calm down, Miller continued to refuse to stop yelling and stomping around the airport. Miller finally got what he seems to have wanted and was arrested, while announcing to the patient, tired looking airport police officers that he was from Portland, Oregon and an activist.

During the pitiable drama Miller unwisely live-streamed the entire incident on Facebook and ended it by petulantly demanding that his supporters donate money to his GoFundMe accounts because he would now need money. By doing all of this, Miller continued to publically dilute the integrity of leadership of young activists, who attempt to fight for black lives in Portland but cannot seem to sustain a mature and committed effort at real leadership and real advocacy.

If the original intention of Black Lives Matter in Portland’s chapter was to show that black lives actually do matter and if actions speak louder than words, then their efforts have been a monumental failure and waste of time.

Of the pushing forty homicides, so far this year in Portland, 90 percent of which the victims were black, not once has Black Lives Matter activists showed up to protest any of these crimes committed by other black Portlanders, or demand the murderers be identified and prosecuted. Instead the members of Portland’s Black Lives Matter chapter honor the “no snitch rule” of the streets. 

This means the black residents in Portland who know about black on black homicides never, ever talk to the police about what really happened. They maintain their own code of silence—their own thin blue line, so to speak.

This cowardly nonsense allows callous, ignorant murderers to daily walk the streets of Portland and be protected in the communities where they kill. 

*When black on black murder happens in Portland, the local communities are silent. Mayor Ted Wheeler is silent. The Governor of Oregon, Kate Brown is silent. The other politicians on City Council are silent, and the streets are silent. This pattern, beginning as far back as 1961 when I first signed on with PPB, up until today in 2020 has continued, for over 60 years this deafening silence has continued!

The only people in Portland who speak for these murdered black people are the homicide detectives of the Portland Police Bureau!

It is ONLY when a black man or woman is killed by a white police officer that we can expect riots in the streets, looting and absolute chaos with assaults, arson, and even murder.

Where is the morality in ignoring the murder of a black man by another black man? How do black activists and specially Black Lives Matter activists reconcile this hypocrisy and expect to be taken seriously by other Portlanders, namely other white Portlanders, when the murder of their own people by other black individuals seems to mean so little?

When the black population in Portland hovers at a little less than 5.8 percent, how is this allowed by anyone?

I will quote a black friend of mine, a brilliant African American person I have tremendous respect for who recently said of Portland: “Our house is burning from the inside out and no one has the courage to address the no snitch thing. It is crazy as hell that we would allow murderers to walk among us.”

Don’t Shoot Portland, a 5013c nonprofit run by Teressa Raiford, also never shows up at any shooting unless the shooter is a white police officer and the person shot is black. Instead Don’t Shoot Portland solicits funds for “Arts and Education.”

“Please continue your support. Give today,” their web page says. If art and education help black youth in Portland make better decisions and avoid crime, then that is one good thing she is doing with Don't Shoot Portland. But Teressa Raiford has also supported the no snitch rule, with her silence, and her documented associations with former and current "gang members." And she has never demanded the outing of those shooters of other black men in Portland, nor does she not seek justice, in conjunction with the Portland Police Bureau, for the victims of these black on black murders.

The truth is both Black Lives Matter and Don’t Shoot Portland are, among other things, blatant anti-police, anti-establishment organizations whose real occupation seems to be begging for money and engaging in the “poverty pimp hustle” that seems to be their primary motivation. Who gets the millions? Where does it go? How does it help black lives? 

Do I seem overly cynical and jaded to you? Do you wonder why I might feel the way I do, about Black Lives Matter and Don’t Shoot Portland?

Below photo: Don DuPay and his son Lee, the day he graduated from high school, June, 2000. 

The answer is simple. I have skin in the game. My grown son is black. My ex-wife is black. My five living grand daughters are black, and my one deceased granddaughter Royale was black when she was alive. And I have step daughters and countless cousins in the family, also black.

I even have black friends, too. Shocker eh?

The reality is that I have black family members that I dearly love. It hurts my heart when I see black folks in Portland, mostly young black men, full of promise and potential, being killed and their murderers are then allowed to walk back to their respective communities unpunished. 

Then with those in the black community in Portland always willing to point a finger at law enforcement for their mistakes, they are rarely willing to break their own thin blue line, their own code of silence and tell PPB homicide detectives what they know, so many of these murders go unsolved, sometimes for years. 

This is wrong and it’s about time it changed. If black lives really do matter, this dynamic of silence must change. However, I doubt it ever will—or until such time that black lives actually begin to matter to all black people, regardless of the skin color of whoever took those lives!