“Dark Underbelly” of the BLM Movement- Part 1

By Israel Sullivan

This is the first in a series of four articles exposing the Black Lives Matter organization, underreported by “MainStream Media”.

Have you ever heard of a Pogrom?

If so, you probably picture a band of 18th-Century Cossacks riding through the Polish countryside on horses to loot and burn Jewish villages, or shtetls, killing women, children, and anything else that moves. 

Replace the 18th-Century Cossacks with young 21st-Century Americans, the horses with cars, and the Jewish shtetls with the Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles on the night of May 30th, 2020. 

The locals are calling it the “Shavuos Pogrom.”

In what is a widely underreported event, protesters from the Black Lives Matter group of Los Angeles purposely met in the oldest Jewish neighborhood in the region to destroy Jewish businesses, schools, and synagogues. In all, they managed to loot a large number of stores, three Jewish schools, and five synagogues. The next day, locals woke up to scrawled graffited images reading, “Fuck the Jews,” “Free Palestine,” and, perhaps scariest of all, “Kill the Jews!”

On the night of May 30th, while the rioters looted and burned without the intervention of the local police, they chanted, “Fuck the Police and kill the Jews.”

It’s not a far cry from 18th-Century Poland, is it?

And lest you think that this was perhaps a small group of people who took advantage of the BLM protests to steal valuables and really had nothing to do with them, let me show you how that is not the case.

The “protest” was organized by BLM-LA’s leader, Mellina Abdullah, who has on numerous occasions said incredibly Anti-Semitic things, as well as endorsing and defending multiple outspoken Anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan. It was clear why she decided to hold the looting in LA’s oldest Jewish neighborhood, rather than anywhere else in the vast city, when she made claims to the area’s “white affluence:” “We’ve been very deliberate in saying that the violence and pain and hurt that’s experienced on a daily basis by black folks at the hands of a repressive system should also be visited upon, to a degree, to those who think that they can just retreat to white affluence.” Never mind the fact that the majority of people affected were small, non-white business owners, most of whom sold non-resellable goods like bread, food, clothing, or medicine. 

But Abdullah’s deliberate Anti-Semitism doesn’t end there. She has often been seen speaking at Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan events, praising him and others. Farrakhan has repeatedly said that, “Those who call themselves ‘Jews,’ who are not really Jews, but are in fact Satan,” praised Hitler by claiming, “Hitler was trying to destroy the international bankers controlling Europe” and often simply refers to Jews as “termites.” 

This sort of language hasn’t stopped Abdullah from praising and even defending Farrakhan. Abdullah’s daughter, Thandiwe,  has also hopped onto the hate train, claiming that the Jews have committed, “Genocide” against Palestinians in the Middle East. 

Again, Mellina Abdullah and her ilk or not isolated actors choosing to be racist in isolation. Mellina is the official head of BLM Los Angeles and a Professor of Pan-African studies at CalState. She has officially cemented the relationship between BLM and Nation of Islam, saying, “Minister Farrakhan was calling on folks not to spend their dollars with the White corporations that keep us oppressed, and so we partnered with the Nation and helped to amplify that call.”

What does all of this add up to?

Well, very little, in the eyes of the National Media. In a Front Page Magazine article, author Daniel Greenfield wrote that, “The media repeatedly described Abdullah as an activist against police violence while ignoring her affinity for a racist black supremacist hate group whose leader has described Jews as satanic and subhuman.” He goes on to say that it is scary how underreported the events that took place on the night of May 30th are. That is why I am writing this article for my local community here in Santa Barbara. I want the people here to know that Black Lives Matter, the organization, is far from perfect and should be scrutinized more harshly for harboring such Anti-Semitic characters as Mellina Abdullah.

Please join me over the next few weeks as I explore the BLM charter and what it actually stands for, my clashes with BLM protesters in the Santa Barbara City Council, how BLM can adversely affect this community, and, finally, what you can do about it.  

Relevant articles:

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/jewish-business-describe-vandalism-looting-of-businesses-in-la-630089

https://www.timesofisrael.com/la-jews-take-stock-after-george-floyd-protests-batter-local-institutions/

https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2020/6/21/jewish-businesses-in-los-angeles-ransacked-in-riots-but-only-israeli-and-jewish-media-care

https://cms.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/american-jews-must-stand-structurally-anti-semitic-caroline-glick

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/victim-culture-tears-up-jewish-moral-norms/