N.Y. chairman threatens to ‘burn down this system and replace it’
Hawk Newsome, chairman of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, in a Fox News interview June 25, 2020 (screenshot)
He was reacting to the vow of Hawk Newsome, the president of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, in a Fox News interview on Wednesday.
“I said if this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down the system and replace it. All right?” Newsome said. “And I could be speaking figuratively, I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation.”
Trump tweeted Thursday: “This is Treason, Sedition, Insurrection!”
In the interview Wednesday, host Martha MacCallum noted Newsome has said “violence is sometimes necessary in these situations.”
“What exactly is it that you hope to achieve through violence?” she asked.
“Wow, it’s interesting that you would pose that question like that, because this country is built upon violence,” Newsome replied. “What was the American Revolution, what’s our diplomacy across the globe?
“We go in and we blow up countries and we replace their leaders with leaders who we like. So for any American to accuse us of being violent is extremely hypocritical.”
MacCallum noted she was citing his own words.
“I said,” Newsome told the host, “if this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right? And I could be speaking … figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation.
“Let’s observe the history of the 1960s, when black people were rioting,” he continued. “We had the highest growth in wealth, in property ownership. Think about the last few weeks since we started protesting. There have been eight cops fired across the country.”
“I don’t condone nor do I condemn rioting,” Newsome declared. “But I’m just telling you what I observed.”
Newsome insisted the Black Lives Matter movement is about “saving lives.”
He said its adherents should be “applauded” for upholding the Second Amendment.
“Nobody’s talking about ambushing police officers. We’re talking about protecting lives,” he said. “There’s nothing more American than that. We talk about uplifting and upholding the Second Amendment but it seems to be the hypocrisy of America that when black people start talking about arming themselves and defending themselves, [that] talk is ‘violent.’ But when white people grab assault rifles and go to our nation’s, their state capitals, it’s all good.”
MacCallum read a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. and asked Newsome if he agreed with the great civil rights leader.
“Let us be dissatisfied,” King told the Southern Christian Leadership Conference convention in 1967, “until that day when nobody will shout, ‘White power!’, when nobody will shout, ‘Black power!’, but everybody will talk about God’s power and human power.'”
MacCallum replied: “I love the Lord and my Lord and savior. Jesus Christ is the most famous black radical revolutionary in history. And he was treated just like Dr. King. He was arrested on occasion and he was also crucified or assassinated. This is what happens to black activists. We are killed by the government.”
The Black Lives Matter leader concluded: “I just want black liberation and black sovereignty, by any means necessary.”