Since the uprisings against police state violence following a spate of recorded instances of brutality, there has been an unrelenting effort by far right and pro-establishment critics to tarnish organizations like Black Lives Matter. Not surprising for anyone who has studied US civil rights history. The American government has long sought to demonize anyone who dissents from their repression and violence. The latest effort has been to link BLM to terrorism.

          Susan Rosenberg, who apparently is on the board of directors of BLM, has become the latest victim of this old smear. According to Wikipedia:

          After her release from prison, she was also made communications director of the American Jewish World Service, yet there was little said to denounce that organization or accuse it of being violent when this happened. So we should all understand that the basis of this is simple racism and suppression of dissent to state violence.

          Rosenberg became an activist at a time when the US was carpet bombing south Asian countries, napalming children, and spraying rain forests with Agent Orange. The FBI, who had just tried to convince Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide prior to his assassination, was also running the infamous COINTELPRO program which infiltrated and sought to discredit a wide spectrum of political organizations they saw as subversive. And scores of anti-racist activists were being targeted for non-violent protest. Rosenburg’s alleged crimes didn’t target innocent people and no lives were lost. One cannot say the same in regard to the millions lost around the world by US wars and state violence.

          Rosenberg spent her time in prison as an advocate for prisoner rights and for people with AIDS. Since then, she has devoted her life to activism on behalf of the poorest and the most vulnerable, both in prison and out, and of the global south which continues to suffer at the hands of American imperialism. That she has been chosen to serve on the board of directors for Black Lives Matter should not be seen as troubling in the least. On the contrary, as one of the most important mass movements of our time, it is absolutely where she belongs.