The recent violence and property destruction in Milwaukee is the result of of a false ideology embraced by President Obama and Hillary Clinton and this episode also further exposed the extent of media bias on this charged issue, according to best-selling author Heather Mac Donald.
Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and is author of the New York Times best-seller “The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe.”
On Saturday, violent protests broke out after a Milwaukee police officer shot and killed 23-year-old Sylville Smith. Smith was running from a traffic stop and in possession of a stolen gun. He was deemed a threat to the officer’s life and the officer opened fire.
Multiple businesses in Milwaukee were set on fire by angry protesters and several police vehicles were also damaged. More violence took place on Sunday night, yet all of this warranted far less coverage than the national media devoted to police-involved shootings in Ferguson, Baton Rouge or Minneapolis.
Mac Donald thinks she knows why.
“I think the media is simply starting to cover up the effects of the Black Lives Matter movement,” she said. “I think the media now is looking the other way and is almost trying to normalize that level of violence.”
When the media did cover the story, some of the reporting was discovered to be altering the facts. CNN received intense criticism for selectively editing comments from Smith’s sister, Sherelle. The CNN story depicted her as calling for peace, leaving out her plea Saturday night to burn down the suburbs.
“It’s appalling. It makes it perfectly clear what their agenda is, and that is to promote a one-sided story that white racism is the biggest force affecting social relations today,” said Mac Donald.
“I think the whitewashing of this woman’s statements is an absolutely illuminating example of what is the reality of the media and their one-sided view of American society,” she added.
She says what’s even more alarming is that the actions of Black Lives Matter demonstrators and the media only make additional violence more likely.
“What we’re going through now is an ideological war on the cops. Unless that rhetoric changes, you’re going to see more black lives lost because cops are backing off proactive policing under this non-stop assault that they’re racist,” said Mac Donald.
“These riots are, along with the assassination of police officers, the results of this campaign of hatred that has been launched against the police by Black Lives Matter activists and, sadly, by President Obama and by Hillary Clinton,” said Mac Donald.
Another divergence from past incidents is how prominent politicians responded to the violence. President Obama and Hillary Clinton have said and written nothing while Donald Trump went to Milwaukee and delivered a law and order address in support of police that also blamed failed liberal policies for the crushing poverty in many black neighborhoods.
“I thought the speech was powerful, especially his acknowledgement that there is a false narrative about policing and his recognition that that narrative itself has consequences,” said Mac Donald.
Meanwhile, she is horrified by the silence from Obama and Clinton.
“This is anarchy. It cannot go uncondemned by the political leaders. For Hillary Clinton and President Obama to stay silent about this is just a complete dereliction of their responsibilities towards this country,” said Mac Donald.
She says it’s also hypocritical, as evidenced by no one getting violent in the wake of four homicides in Milwaukee in the 48 hours before the Smith shooting.
“The Black Lives Matter activists could not care less about the dozens of black children gunned down in drive-by shootings last year by black thugs. The only time they move themselves to take over intersections, scream at cops, hurl invectives, is in those rare instances when a police officer shoots somebody who’s black, overwhelmingly when confronted by someone who is armed and dangerous,” said Mac Donald.
She says the statistics bear this out. She says a much higher percentage of black Americans die by gunfire than whites or Hispanics but only four percent of them die from a police shooting. In comparison, she says 12 percent of whites and Hispanics die from police shootings.
