Racial justice leaders are reeling from the ‘hypocrisy’ in the police response to the US Capitol riots
After police forced her away from the White House with flash bangs and pepper spray, Allison Lane and dozens of people who were peacefully protesting George Floyd’s killing last summer ran into a stranger’s home to escape the clouds of tear gas.
“I was pepper sprayed for being Black and protesting,” the 34-year-old bartender and podcaster recalled.
Lane’s chaotic night in the nation’s capital last June has since been replicated numerous times from coast to coast. It was a wave of interactions, racial justice activists say, that underscored a form of systemic racism that’s deeply tied to one of the country’s most powerful institutions: police forces.
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At issue is whether grassroots energy can translate to influence inside the Beltway and at what cost.
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, shown in 2018, has been the subject of pushback from local leaders. | Amy Harris/Invision/AP
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The Black Lives Matter movement is buckling under the strain of its own success, with tensions rising between local chapters and national leaders over the group’s goals, direction and money.
From the beginning, Black Lives Matter was a grassroots effort, born in the streets with no central hierarchy. The idea: to keep power concentrated in the hands of its members, the people.