Over at National Review, David French writes:
For a ‘Peaceful’ Group, Black Lives Matter Sure Does Love Cop Killers and Murderous Dictators
I don’t know how I missed it, but this sickening essay from Black Lives Matter has to be read to believed. Entitled “Lessons from Fidel: Black Lives Matter and the Transition of El Comandante,” it begins….
I’m not especially trying to pick on French here, but this gives me an excuse to gripe about something that I see too often these days.
Let’s stipulate that the essay in question is horrible. I don’t care one way or the other. What I do care about is that French attributes it to “Black Lives Matter.” But that’s not the case. It was written by a specific person, not by BLM as some kind of official position statement. It represents them no more than I represent Mother Jones.
Still, at least MoJo employs me and has some responsibility for what I write. You can’t even say that much about the author of the Castro piece. To the extent that there’s an “official” BLM organization, it’s here. This is the organization founded by Patrisse Cullors, Opal Tometi, and Alicia Garza. But pretty much anyone can set up shop under the BLM name, and the essay French links to comes from a Medium site called @BlackLivesMatterNetwork. It has posted a grand total of three pieces in the last two months. I have no idea who wrote them or who the site is associated with.
Condemn the piece all you want. But it’s not fair to use it to tar “Black Lives Matter.” They aren’t responsible for everything that’s tossed onto the web under the BLM banner.
UPDATE: It turns out that the official BLM site shared the Castro essay on its Facebook page. So it’s fair to call them out for promoting it.
My general complaint stands, however. If I write something, it means “Kevin Drum says,” not “Mother Jones says.” If David French writes something, it means “David French says,” not “National Review says.” Needless to say, this rule is for personal opinion/analysis pieces. News organizations are corporately responsible for editorial opinions and straight news.
