Perhaps more than any other state, Idaho misunderstands what the Black Lives Matter movement is and what its trying to accomplish. It makes sense that we wouldn’t understand it given how little diversity there is in our state.

Just take Pocatello for example. The racial makeup of our city is vastly white, making up 90% of our population in 2019. Compare that to our African American population, at .8%. When I was growing up here, I had no idea what kind of systemic injustices black Americans faced because I wasn’t exposed to many of them.

It seems to me like white people are moving in two different directions, with some realizing their privilege and others denying it. I’ve talked to a number of Pocatellans who are closed off to having an unbiased conversation about the George Floyd Protests because of misconceptions they hold about what the movement actually is.

I’ve never been to any of the protests in larger cities but I’ve talked to people who have and I know that what we’re seeing portrayed on television news or Facebook is at best a small sliver of the story and at worst a complete mischaracterization of events to support an agenda.

The greatest misunderstanding is the role of Antifa in the protests. If you’re listening to the president or his supporters, Antifa is a dangerous terrorist organization made up of anarchists and the far left that started the unrest in our cities. This is a false narrative made up of lies and half-truths, created as a re-election strategy for Trump.

The truth of the matter is that Antifa is not a violent organization, because they’re not even an organization. It’s short for Anti-Fascist, which is an idealogy that believes in combating fascism wherever it rears its ugly head. This could mean violence, but that depends on who the Anti-Fascist is and whether or not they’re provoked with violence.

Another massive misconception I’ve observed is the notion that Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization, because one of the original founders said her and another founder are, “trained Marxists.” This does not mean that the George Floyd Protests support Marxism. Black Lives Matter, just like Antifa, is not an organization. Its a decentralized mass movement, organized by community activists who all have their own beliefs and ideas about how to combat racism.

This is why it’s hard for any media outlet to accurately cover Black Lives Matter, because they don’t understand the decentralized movement. Each activist is going to have their own ideas about what the country needs, so you’re not going to get an exact list of goals everyone in the movement can agree on. Are some of them anarchists? Yes. Are some of them Marxists? Yes. But these groups don’t make up the majority of the movement. It’s a mass movement made up of individuals with different goals.

Here’s what they all agree on though; black lives matter. It’s a statement of a basic truth because we live in a system that treats black lives like they don’t matter. This is something that’s non-negotiable. You can’t ‘agree to disagree’ on human rights.

For all of us white people who don’t have experience in racist discrimination, our job is to listen and learn from people who have experienced it. Get out of your media echochamber and challenge the perspective you were raised to hold.