Ray Lewis rips Black Lives Matter movement for ignoring black-on-black crime
Irony alert: Ray Lewis rips Black Lives Matter movement for ignoring black-on-black crime
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Former Baltimore Ravens NFL football player Ray Lewis talks to students at Frederick Douglass High School as Ravens C.J. Mosley looks on Thursday, April 30, 2015, in Baltimore. (Kenneth K. Lam/Baltimore Sun via AP) more >
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KMGH - Denver, CO
By Jessica Chasmar - The Washington Times -
Updated: 2:47 p.m. on Wednesday, April 6, 2016
A Facebook video of former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement for ignoring black-on-black crime has gone viral.
“I’m trying to figure out if black lives really matter,” an emotional Mr. Lewis said in the videoposted on his personal page Saturday. “The March murder rate rose by 29 percent, but we’re not rioting in the streets over black-on-black crime.
“I’m trying to figure out in my mind why no one is paying attention to black men killing black men,” he continued. “Why do we always find ourselves as the victims, and now we have the separation once again that we’re being victimized because of one bad white cop, two bad white cops, three bad white cops, killing a young black brother. But every day we have black-on-black crime, killing each other.
“I know black lives matter, because I’m a black man, but man, stop killing each other. Man, we got to put these guns down in Chicago.
Baltimore, Miami, man it ain’t that hard. You got to be OK with earning a living. It ain’t supposed to be easy,” Mr. Lewis said. “If we don’t change what we’re doing not only will our kids not have a future, but we might find ourselves extinct.”
As of Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Lewis’ video had been viewed more than 2.8 million times.
This isn’t the first time he’s called out the movement for focusing on the wrong issues.
“Remove the word ‘Black’ and say ‘Lives Matter,’ ” Mr. Lewis said in September, BET reported. “Stop sending mothers back home empty. You can never replace a mother’s child. If we want Black Lives Matter, let’s make it matter to us.
That’s the new call.”
Mr. Lewis has been accused of black-on-black homicides before.
He and two companions were charged with murder and aggravated assault in a double stabbing death growing out of an altercation after the 2000 Super Bowl in Atlanta. In mid-trial Mr. Lewis had the most serious charges dismissed in exchange for his testimony against Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting.
Mr. Lewis pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor obstruction-of-justice charge for giving police a misleading statement, and was sentenced to 12 months probation.
Mr. Lewis’s two friends were acquitted but nobody else has ever been charged.
Mr. Lewis reached settlements with the families of victims Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar.
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