NEW ROCHELLE, NY — New Rochelle City Councilman Jared Rice is promoting a “Justice for All March” Sunday at noon from City Hall, up North Avenue, down Huguenot Street, to Library Green. Attendees are encouraged to wear black.
Rice, along with New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson have been fanning the flames of racial anxiety in New Rochelle as a prelude to the 2015 City Council elections. Rice recently claimed that he has to deal with White Supremacists in New Rochelle on a daily basis.
In a recent tweet, Rice professes to be confused why anyone would connect the Black Lives Matter movement with being anti-police.
I'm still trying to figure out the connection between #BlackLivesMatter and being anti-police.
— Jared Rice (@CouncilmanRice) December 17, 2014
Maybe Rice should visit the Black Lives Matter website and read their List of Demands. Here are some excerpts:
…a national policy specifically aimed at redressing the systemic pattern of anti-black law enforcement violence in the US.
…anti-black police violence…
…release the names of all officers involved in killing black people within the last five years, both while on patrol and in custody, so they can be brought to justice…
…advocate for a decrease in law-enforcement spending at the local, state and federal levels.
These are excerpts but it does not seem all that hard to figure out the out the connection between the #BlackLivesMatter movement and being anti-police, where police are portrayed as either actively racist themselves or covering up for police officers who are.
It’s not even clear how Rice squares his pushing for more police overtime ($170,000 in this year’s budget) and the #BlackLivesMatter demand to reduce funding for local, state and federal law enforcement. The simple fact is that he cannot.
In another recent tweet, Rice professes to be confused why anyone would connect #JimCrowJustice with being anti-police.
@FreeVoterBlog shame on those who want to make this an anti-police movement. What we're really dealing with is a #JimCrowJustice system.
— Jared Rice (@CouncilmanRice) December 18, 2014
Rice has often promoted the book The New Jim Crow and spoken about its premise that the mass incarceration of young black men for drug crimes is the modern-day replacement for slavery and Jim Crow laws with police the instrument for that policy. That sounds more than vaguely anti-police.
The #BlackLivesMatter movement is an anti-police movement. There is no way around that fact. So, when you organize, promote or participate in an event specifically associated with the #BlackLivesMatter movement you are, de facto, taking an anti-police position.
There are plenty of valid points to be made with regard to the Trayvon Martin case (the impetus for the #BlackLivesMatter movement) and other cases since. Jared Rice is welcome to make them. No one begrudges Rice taking a principled position. But he wants to have it both ways — professing to support the New Rochelle police one moment and then promoting and participating in anti-police events the next.
Time for Mr. Rice to choose a side.
