In early April, The National Rifle Association (NRA) published a dangerous “recruitment” ad to its YouTube channel, during which the organization takes shot at the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and makes a call for violence in opposition to its resistance. Late last month, the video began making its rounds again, and well, BLM isn’t having it.
“They use their ex-president [Barack Obama] to endorse the resistance, all to make them march, make them protest, make them scream racism, and sexism, and xenophobia, and homophobia; to smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports; bully and terrorize the law abiding—until the only option left is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness,” TheBlaze’s Dana Loesch states in the controversial video. “The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom is to right this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth.”
In collaboration with other civil right organizations and the families of police brutality victims, the Los Angeles chapter of the Black Lives Matter Global Network filmed a call-to-action of their own, valorously throwing the NRA’s rhetoric back at them.
“They use their new president to enact a ‘law-and-order administration, all to make them shoot first, to make them ask questions later, make them scream, ‘I thought he had a gun in his hand’ and ‘I feared for my life’ and ‘he matched the description of a suspect’ and ‘she was threatening us’ … until the only option left is for black people to disrupt the systems that keep us oppressed and build the kinds of communities in which we want to live,” Funmilola Fagbamila, professor of Pan-African studies at Cal State Los Angeles, says in the potent response. “The only way we stop this, the only way we save our communities and our struggle for freedom is to fight this violence with the raised clenched black fist of resistance.”
The video includes family members of Keith Bursey, Charleena Lyles, and Kisha Michael, who were all killed at the hands of police.
“We’re talking about our lives here,” Fagbamila continues. “When the NRA issues a public call to their constituents inciting violence against people who are constitutionally fighting for their lives, we don’t take that lightly. We know that we are not safe, but we are not scared either.”
Watch the stirring clip below.
