Black Lives Matter-An Orwellian Nightmare

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.”
Georges Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part III, Chapter III.

Black Lives Matter is the symptom of the worst woke culture can produce. It is a belief system centered around the idea that one's identity is based on race. It posits that Western societies are systematically racist: If you are black you are inherently disadvantaged and if you are white you are inherently privileged; no matter your social status or upbringing.

If you disagree with the Black Lives Matter narrative, you are labeled racist and there is no greater damnation in today's Western societies.

Black Lives Matter has created a culture of fear that has eroded free speech. It is an Orwellian nightmare that draws frightening similarities to the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, as demonstrated in the seven motifs below.

Mutability of the past

In his communication theory, the American professor Walter Fisher, described the concepts of narrative paradigm and rational world paradigm.

In the narrative paradigm, individuals are essentially storytellers: they approach their social world in a narrative mode and make decisions within this framework. In contrast, in the rational world paradigm, individuals make sense of the world through facts and logic.

Humans produce stories instinctively while reasoning through argument from facts in a learning curve. Consequently, due to its simplicity, the rhetorical power of the narrative paradigm surpasses the rational paradigm.

A good story, regardless of its veracity, must be coherent, have an internal logic, and also sound authentic in relation to an individual’s value system, otherwise, it will be rejected.

The woke narrative, seemingly true, appealed to our egalitarian, anti-racist, and tolerant values. It is a simple Manichaean story in which good faces evil. Although composed of bold stereotypes, this narrative became more powerful than reality.

The tragic death of George Floyd reinforced the storytelling of systemic racism in Western societies, it illustrates the narrative paradigm described by Fisher, the simplistic plot in which the good (oppressed black minorities) are engaged in a battle against evil (white oppressors).

In the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the truth is what the Party deems to be. History is mutable or changeable. The manipulation of facts and the lies eventually find their way into history books and are taught to children at school. With time, the lies will become historical truths.

The history of slavery, for instance, was cut down to the transatlantic trade, or more precisely the vicious domination and the atrocities committed by whites while omitting other trades (inter-African trade, Arab-Muslim slave trade…).

In August 2019, Nikole Hannah-Jones, a journalist at the New York Times Magazine, aimed to “reframe” the history of the United States with the 1619 Project. With other journalists, she re-examined the legacy of slavery in the United States, questioned the national narrative, and campaigned to change the date of the creation of the country to 1619 (the date of the arrival of the first slaves) instead of 1776.

In May 2020, Nikole Hannah-Jones won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her introductory essay on the 1619 Project. Subsequently, many schools adopted the 1619 project as curriculum.

Propaganda

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, propaganda manifests itself in the tales of heroes, narratives that illustrate the virtues of the Party. The propaganda machine reflects the Party’s current position and allows the Party to control the information disseminated to the public.

George Floyd, in that fashion, was presented by the media as a one-sided victim of Western systemic racism. After his death, reports reinforcing the systemic racism narrative claimed that the police use disproportionate force against black people.

In truth, data have shown that black Americans were no more likely to be killed by police than whites. A report by the Center for Police Equity even announced that white people are more likely to be killed during an arrest and many studies support this conclusion. Yet the mass media and divertissement industry spread the lies of the Black Lives Matter narrative.

In Orwell’s book, the Newspeak word “prolefeed” describes the entertainment (literature, films, shows, and music) produced by the Party. The purpose of those intentionally frivolous content is to prevent the proletariat from becoming educated and potentially initiating a revolution.

The most glaring example of “prolefeed” in our contemporary societies is undoubtedly rap music, which behind the illusion of protest and subversion is nothing but the deflection of legitimate popular anger, impoverishment of the language, glorification of a degenerated way of life (weapons, prison, narcotics, violence), victimization, atomization and the apology of ultra-liberalism.

Ultimately, only a certain political class benefit from the diversion of the legitimate anger from the vertical (rebellion against the establishment) to the horizontal (war of all against all).

Enemies of the Party

The enemy of the people in Nineteen Eighty-Four is Emmanuel Goldstein, once a senior Party member turned traitor. Likely Goldstein does not exist as a real person, it is a propaganda tool, a scapegoat to whom the Party can impute its bad deeds, blame all problems, direct hatred and violence, and thus prevent rebellion.

The Black Lives Matter’s scapegoat is the essentialization of white men as oppressors and racists. The popular anger is diverted onto the indigenous Western population designated responsible for all societal injustices using the abstract terminology of “systemic racism”.

In the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, during the “Two Minutes of Hate”, Party members loudly express their hatred daily towards their perceived enemies (Goldstein). It is an emotional frenzy that culminates in chants honoring the Party (Big Brother).

Fear and hate as a way to control and unify their allies were also part of the Black Lives Matter methods which publicly shame verbally and sometimes physically those who refused to conform. In a viral video, dining customers sitting in the outdoor space of a restaurant are seen being harassed by Black Lives Matter supporters surrounding them and demanding they raise their fists in solidarity with the movement.

Language

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Newspeak is a reformation of the language via lexical and syntactic simplification. It aims to destruct words enabling the expression of subversive notions, preventing individuals from conceptualizing, formulating, and voicing ideas that would challenge the absolute power of the Party. In summary, without words to express criminal thoughts, it would be impossible to articulate those thoughts.

In the global context of Black Lives Matter protests, we have similarly seen many groups, businesses, or institutions removing words deemed problematic in virtue of greater social justice: from the cosmetic company L’Oréal getting rid of the terms “whitening” from their labels, to computer developers wanting to ban expressions such as “whitelist” and “blacklist” viewed as racist.

In Newspeak, the term “goodthink” means a set of thoughts and beliefs consistent with those established by the Party, the “orthodoxy”, the blind acceptance and devotion to the Party ideology.

The Black Lives Matter proof of “goodthink” was plentiful. There was, of course, the knee on the ground and fist in the air adopted by the demonstrators, footballers, politicians, and even police officers …, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media and individuals and private multinational companies changing their profile picture or social media background color.

“Doublethink” is the process of indoctrination by which the subject is supposed to simultaneously accept two contradictory beliefs as correct, often in contravention with their own memories or sense of reality. Simply put, doublethink is the ability to hold two conflicting ideas in mind at the same time. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the party’s three slogans – “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength” – are examples of doublethink.

In the Black Lives Matter ideology, one must believe that segregation is diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism. For instance, Columbia University offers graduation ceremonies based on race and background.

Anti-racist movements such as Black Lives Matter elevated race to the rank of supreme identity marker, thus, they have demonstrated the most blatant example of “doublethink”.

Party Loyalty

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, O’Brien admits to Winston that ultimately the Party will remove babies at birth to raise them in specialized structures allowing indoctrination from birth. Although, in the novel, the Party ideology is already so deeply rooted in children that they won’t hesitate to report their parents to the “Thought Police” if suspected of having criminal thoughts.

Similarly, after the death of George Floyd, many teenagers denounced on social media their parents’ disloyalties for the Black Lives Matter movement such as Izabella, from Louisiana who uploaded a video of herself in tears claiming that she hated her parents for their lack of support towards the cause.

The Critical race theory, a concept developed in the ’70s stating that the legacy of white supremacy remains embedded in the laws and institutions in western societies favoring white people, resurfaced and was promoted in primary and secondary schools.

Like the Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four instilling a climate of fear to ensure loyalty, Black Lives Matter successfully shut dissident voices with the fear of being accused of being a racist, necessarily leading to social death … if not actual death…

In 2016 in England, a young 16-year-old girl committed suicide amid fears of being harassed and call racist over a joke photo she sent to friends.

Technology

If you ask someone what is the main topic of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the answer will certainly revolve around the omnipresent surveillance of the individual by invasive technology.

In our contemporary societies, social media is the ubiquitous form of control. We traded our privacy and freedom for a world of appearances and intellectual submission.

In September 2019, Google and Twitter have announced that they are planning to create an independent structure in cooperation with the UN and the European Union to tackle (what they deemed) extremist speech. Although officially those private companies would have no control over the structure, their financial support cast some doubt over the total independence of this initiative.

Thanks to social media, the Thought Police has turned out to be a virtual army of social justice warriors fighting for the promotion of progressive ideas online and the censorship of conservative ideas deemed problematic.

Cancel culture and re-education

Thoughtcrime is any politically unorthodox thoughts that contradict the ideology of the Party. In Nineteen Eighty-Four, a thought criminal would be arrested and disappear during the night (“vaporization”) secretly assassinated and erased from society, from the present, from the past, and the future.

In our societies, dissidents are being “canceled” in the public sphere. If not a concrete form of political assassination or imprisonment, the “cancel culture” is a form of ostracizing from social or professional circles. This is what happened to Nick Buckley in 2020, dismissed from his position as chief executive after he posted a blog criticizing criticizing Black Lives Matter.

In Orwell’s novel, after being arrested and after days of torture, the thought criminals are sent to the infamous Room 101 where the final phase of re-education occurs. This process is presented to us as a form of redemption, a correction for the individual more than a punishment, a cure for the illness that is thought of as a crime.

If nowadays in our societies, the modes of control and submission are not as violent and flagrant as in the novel, they are nevertheless insidious and disheartening. In 2021, Jason Kilborn, a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, was required to attend diversity training after using censored swear words identified by their first letter n. and b. in an exam.