The other night on Twitter I learned about the murder of Darren Seals, a black activist who protested during Ferguson. I was not familiar with him before, but among the tweets I saw something about the time he slapped Deray, another prominent voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. I read Darren's story and ended up learning more about Black Lives Matter (the organization) and how it intersected with actual Ferguson protesters. I'm sure I've only scratched the surface. I have more to learn, but it looks like there's some legitimate concerns with the protests being hijacked.
I will let the story speak for itself. I collected the tweets here so it's easier to read. My only modification was to remove the @-names in his tweets for readability.
Rest in power, Darren.
ok y'all here's the back story from the beginning. August 9 we all know MB jr. was killed by DW. I got to the scene maybe 45 mins
after and he was laying there for like 4 hours from the point I showed up. I saw everybody and everything so I know
who was with us and who really started and lead this movement and it wasn't ANY of these Twitter stars
this is 9/9/2014 this who started the whole thing. Me the homegirl @justspook and the homie Marcus https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn4tLJVUEAAmxMO.jpg
if you research any of the pics and footage from the early days you won't find these Twitter ACTORvist anywhere
if u don't know who @justspook is she is a female leader that helped start the movement. She is who @Nettaaaaaaaa pretends to be
she took a bullet to the head
....Ok now moving along with the story
we gained national attention when the young kids burned down QT after the police maced them for no reason
and all of a sudden all these people was popping up from all over the world but we was fresh into our activism so we didn't
know these people had different motives (I personally did because coming from the streets I can smell a snake a mile away(
so we in the steers everyday all day my lil homie Skeeda pic goes viral (the American flag shirt pic) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn4ugwMUsAEnMEo.jpg
that's me him and Spook together in front of Ferguson PD
all the reaL founders and leaders of what the media calls the #BlackLivesMatter movement wasn't on twitter because we was
too busy in the streets
the whole time I'm working for General Motors so I'm doing 13 hour shifts everyday then going straight to the streets to protest
literally risking my job, house, car, freedom, and my life for that matter
Spook risked her life and almost lost it
Skeeda risked his freedom and still fighting for it til this very day
ok moving on with the story.....
once the media came in they kept asking us "what's our organization" and nobody had one at the time we was all just pissed off
black people who came together as one but then all of a sudden every dog broke off into groups and orgs
I didn't started one or join one because k felt it was a way to divide and conquer and im on the record saying no that.
and clearly I was right....but moving along with the story
so we in the news everyday, people getting locked up, orgs got faces of the movement traveling out of town which
took a lot of heat and attention off Fergsuon and Fergsuon PF which was a BIG mistake by local activist (I warned them too)
so while we were in the streets fighting a lot of out of towners showed up and all of a sudden the trending hashtag went from
#Ferguson to #BlackLivesMatter
at the time we didnt pay it no mind plus it was catchy so we was all using the hashtag and saying it becuz black loves do matter
we had no idea it was a 501c3 org founded by those 3 lesbian black women. We never knew them we never followed them
we didn't even realize that was the name of a org most of the people in our city that use it and have their signs still don't
those girls took compete credit for everything we did and they had ZERO to do with it. Literally we still never even met them
so thei DeRay dude pops up out the blue. I heard his name a few times because he was tweeting a lot but I was told he was
like some wanna be journalist so I didn't really pay it no mind
he approached me in the mall one day told me who he was and I gave him a 5 and told him I appreciated any help outsiders came
to give us. I honestly had no clue this dude was on Twitter telling people he was a leader and organizer
he literally sat on the curb and in his car tweeting about what WE were doing
he never lead or organized anything we did. All he and BLM did was trademark and brand what we was doing and taking credit
for it. That's why (if you really pay attention) they can't ever tell you any stories or experiences because they have ZERO
I have plenty
I was pissed off when I started hearing about what Deray was doing but I wasn't gone hurt the lil dude I was just gone have a
man to man talk with him
but when I found out he was using us to raising money and wasn't putting any of it into my community at that point it was
nothing left to talk about
so we was in front of Ferguson PD (the day those cops got shot) and I was talking to MB Sr. About to and told him I
was going to beat dude ass if he admits to raising funds
when he gets there I walked up tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned around simply asked him
"why are you raising money and taking credit for what we doing out here?" He smiled and gave a lil giggle as if I was joking
or playing
so my instinct kick it and I swung but as I was about to connect I opened my hand up so I wouldn't knock his weak ass out
he stood there looking stupid and dumbfound and everybody started pulling me back. I had to work that night so I hopped in my
car and took off
i posted about it all on Twitter so people would know he was a fraud and a thieve
imagine how we feel looking at these people on tv, magazines, news, and become super stars all based off of OUR work
that's the biggest spit in the face and nobody can even imagine how we feel unless you're one of us.
little Josh lost his freedom, people lost their jobs, spook almost got killed, and I got every cop in the city hating me
and all of that on top of the fact we didn't even get justice smh man that shit burns my soul and people didn't even care
to know the truth
they didn't even research, they don't even ask us who's who they just go with the narrative that the media pants
and this is suppose to be the same system we fighting against. I guess the white man wins once again because he was able to
use our own people selfishness and greed against us
and ultimately push us out and insert their select token sellout negros......:
it's a lot more to it but I just got off work and Im about to hit this high way so I'll ttyl
Here's one of the day one #Ferguson aka real #BlackLivesMatter activist telling Shaun why we had issues with #Deray https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn40opdVYAA_ZJv.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn40ooaVMAAVPHl.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn40ooQVIAE2apf.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn40ophUAAE--7x.jpg:large
anybody who doesn't believe me after all of this just doesn't want to believe me and too far in love with the lie
To be very clear, I am still very supportive of the broader #BlackLivesMatter movement. It's only the organization and potential hijacking of activism that has me thinking.
Whoa.