Black Lives Matter Canada Doesn’t Want ‘Police Only’ Float At Pride Parade — It’s Not About Segregation, Stop Twisting The Story

Black Lives Matter Canada didn’t say it doesn’t want police at the upcoming Pride parade. It proposed a solution of unity. Not segregation. Get the whole story.

Via Twitter, droves of commentators appear to have the wrong idea about Black Lives Matter Canada and its attempt to rid the Pride parade of its police float.

Is it possibly because only 40 percent of news readers actually read beyond an article’s headline? This is a statistic reported by the American Press Institute.

That means the majority — the other 60 percent of people spreading news — is distributing an uninformed conclusion based on incomplete data, by their own unwillingness to read more than an “attention grabber.”

Don’t you think it’s time to stop twisting the story?

@Nero Did you hear about BLM wanting Vancouver police to not march in the Pride Parade? BLM wants segregation. https://t.co/Qs72uUvpbB

— Dat Ghoul (@der_marionette) July 18, 2016

Black Lives Matter Vancouver and Black Lives Matter Toronto do not want police floats in the Pride parade, correct.

However, this is what you might not have read, only sentences further into the CBC reports.

These Black Lives Matter organizations offered a solution — not of segregation, but of unity.

Instead of insulting Black Lives Matter by including a “police only” float in the Pride parades, the organization proposed that the float be transformed into a “public service” float.

That means the float will include firefighters, emergency medical technicians, police officers, and others — not just policemen.

@VancouverPD Hold you head up high and go to the Pride Carnival. BLM should quit and shut up and go away. Have a good day. Rather Police go

— Karen?? (@Calopumi) July 18, 2016

This is why it’s important to continue reading beyond a title, yes?

In an open letter to the Vancouver Police Department, Black Lives Matter Vancouver states as follows.

“Black Lives Matter Vancouver and the Black community have spent the last weeks grieving, healing and validating our humanity. Again.

“To be abundantly clear, Black Lives Matter is about focus, not exclusion.

“At our vigil on Sunday we successfully negotiated a basic police presence from the Vancouver Police Department. We acknowledge that in certain contexts police presence to perform a job of civil service may deter acts of homophobia and violence, especially at designated queer events such as Pride.”

However, Black Lives Matter Vancouver mentions that it would be purely insulting to have a “police only” float as part of the Pride/BLM parade — given recent events in the United States, as well as likewise discriminations against PoC (people of color) shown by police forces within Canada.

Go pound salt BLM Vancouver. Police lives matter too. ????You don't control the parade.

— IrishEyez #CatLady????? (@beej07) July 18, 2016

Black Lives Matter Vancouver mentions that it’s totally understandable that Vancouver police have a job to do as a civil service.

However, “having the institution participate on a float in the organized festivities of the actual parade is inappropriate and insulting to those who came before us to make Pride celebrations possible, some of who even died for the cause,” says BLM Vancouver.

“Embracing the institution in an event that originates from protest against its actions makes us justifiably uncomfortable,” mentions the Black Lives Matter representatives.

“We feel a constant fear as Black people who continue to receive messages in the form of executions by police in the United States by gunfire, to the shrapnel of daily racism we experience, even in Vancouver, that our lives do not matter. Therefore, all lives cannot matter until Black Lives Matter.”

The Black Lives Matter group mentions that the revised float — to include other servicemen — would still include police officers who would like to participate.

Yet, it would not exclusively represent an institutionalized police force that “perpetuates structural violence against Black and brown bodies in North America,” Black Lives Matter Vancouver elaborates.

This is how misunderstandings occur. People take half-truths and run with them, rather than taking adequate time to comprehend a situation.

In another Inquisitr report, it explains how Black Lives Matter has been the blame of three officers’ deaths in Baton Rouge.

However, independent reporter Tim Black mentioned that mainstream media outlets purposefully swept an eyewitness’ testimony under the rug — whom mentioned that it was a lone gunman, and the shootout had started long before Baton Rouge officers arrived at the scene.

Rather, it was painted as a “police ambush by Black Lives Matter,” furthering the initiative to label the organization as a terrorist group.

The report states that the shooting had nothing at all to do with the civil rights activist group, but actually was a quarrel among men which go out of hand.

Baton Rouge officers responded to the call, and the lone gunman shot at them as well.

When a White American lone gunman fires on a church of innocent church-goers, are all Caucasians to blame? Is “All Lives Matter” to blame?

Black Lives Matter doesn’t promote segregation. Stop twisting the story.

It doesn’t state that “only black lives matter.” Rather, it’s bringing awareness that black lives matter just as everyone else’s.

Logically, if you’re saying that “all lives matter,” you must also acknowledge that black lives also matter — as a part of “all.”

What are your thoughts regarding Black Lives Matter Vancouver’s proposal, now that you realize what was actually said? Feel free to share your comments below.

[Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images]