The founder of a Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization is
voicing his support of Jan. 6 prisoners and not shying away from
endorsing former President Donald Trump as “the best candidate we have.”
Mark Fisher, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Rhode Island. (Courtesy of Mark Fisher)
Mark Fisher—who stepped down from his leadership position at BLM Rhode Island, which he co-founded, and is now founder and executive director of the Maryland-based BLM Incorporated—has stood in solidarity with leaders of the Proud Boys and led vigils of prayer for the people he believes to be political prisoners.
“They’re lambs led to slaughter to be sacrificed as an example for all who might want to dissent in the future,” Mr. Fisher told The Epoch Times. “This is what the government does to those who express independent thought and want to stand up for what they believe.”
What he sees in the vindictive treatment of the J6 prisoners are similarities to how black people have been treated, he said, and his aspiration in establishing that connection is to find common ground.
“One of the things I highlight when I speak to them is that they have a whole new understanding now of what black people have been going through with the over-policing, the police brutality, and the unfair treatment in the two-tiered justice system and how oppressive and overreaching it is,” Mr. Fisher said.
Media’s Distortion of Truth
Just as legacy media has distorted what happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by accusing Trump supporters of a violent insurrection, Mr. Fisher said BLM has been blamed for the 2020 summer riots, though there were outside parties like the far-left extremist group Antifa that were a source of chaos.
“Antifa had a lot to do with the riots of 2020, and there were a lot of anarchist groups who just wanted to take advantage of the moment and were out for destruction,” he said.
Black Lives Matter had been around years before George Floyd died while in police custody in Minneapolis in 2020, Mr. Fisher said. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in the case.
“That’s when it became a political movement and the national and global center of attention,” Mr. Fisher said. “The media made us its darling, which it loves to do, and it was able to make us its scapegoat when things started to go south.”
Mr. Fisher, a Christian who has a degree in theology with a background in being a pastor, expressed contempt for both the government and the media.
“I don’t trust the federal or state government as far as I can throw them, and the media is trying to stop us from uniting,” he said. “It’s the same media that caused the division between all of these marginalized groups in the first place to keep us at each other’s throats.”
What BLM Means
According to Mr. Fisher, people have misunderstood the original intent of BLM's mission.
The name of the organization itself has led to anger.
“It’s not black lives are better,” he said. “It’s not black lives are greater or black lives matter more. It’s just simply black lives matter. That statement itself is so loaded that people have processed it differently through their own lens and experience.”
To not see the significance of the statement from the perspective of a black person is to fail to see it through a lens of compassion, he said.
Mr. Fisher denied the framing of BLM as a Marxist organization.
“Black people want the same thing that white people want,” he said. “We want life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We want to make money and have a family. Do those sound like Marxist principles? To me, those are fundamentally American, entrepreneurial, and capitalist principles. We want to acquire wealth and leave something—as the Bible teaches us—for our children.”
Mr. Fisher's current organization, BLM Incorporated, focuses on entrepreneurship education and financial empowerment for black Americans.
The website also states that the organization is not aligned with any political party or position, “unless those politics are for the dismantling of a racist system and the eradication of the white supremacist ideology and state sanctioned police brutality against and killings of Blacks.”
'A Racist Party'
Mr. Fisher didn’t speak highly of the Democratic Party.
“It’s a racist party with racist policies that negatively impact black families,” he said. “Black people are stuck on that plantation, mentally. They’re slaves in their own minds because they refuse to see the big picture and how we’ve been used and abused by the Democratic Party with policies that are absolutely antithetical to what black people yearn for in this country, which is life, liberty, freedom, the pursuit of happiness, and a family to raise.”
Mr. Fisher equally distrusts the Republican Party, which he said is its own corrupt institution.
“This is why Donald Trump is so popular,” he said. “He’s anti-institution. He can’t be bought. He can’t be sold. He’s going to give it to you straight and keep it real and those who relate to that love that about him. If you look at both parties and the potential candidates—including the current president and vice president—I think he’s the best candidate we have. It’s a no-brainer.”
Though framed by legacy media outlets as a racist and xenophobe, Mr. Fisher said President Trump has helped the black community “100 percent.”
“If you look at his policies, what he’s done for our community has gone under the radar, and he doesn’t brag about it,” he said. “He doesn’t try to convince anyone he’s not a racist, just like I’m not going to try to convince you that I’m not a racist. What you see is what you get, and when you know me, you’ll know my heart.”
However, President Joe Biden has made frequent racist statements in his time as a politician in the limelight, Mr. Fisher said.
He recalled President Biden’s statements on a radio show when running for office in 2020, when he stated, “Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
“How racist is that?” Mr. Fisher asked. “That’s the Democratic plantation telling black people they’re too stupid to think independently, too stupid to think critically, and that we’ve got to march down to the polls and do what we’re told to do.”
Black Support for Trump
Mr. Fisher doesn’t stand alone in the black community in wanting to see President Trump return to office in 2024.
“More and more black people every day are supporting him,” he said. “Look at the rappers. The latest one who just went turncoat on the Democrats was Waka Flocka Flame, who announced on Twitter that he’s voting for Trump."
On Oct. 16, the rapper posted a photo of himself and President Trump, and another post stated simply, "TRUMP2024."
"Look at how a black neighborhood in Fulton County cheered Trump on the way to the county jail," Mr. Fisher added.
They know that the government is harassing him because they’ve seen it in their own lives, he said, and they recognize the persecution.
Mr. Fisher said he isn’t afraid of taking flak from others in the black community because of his support of President Trump.
“I’m going to get the same pushback I expect for this that I got when I started the organization, not only from the white community but from my own community,” he said. “It’s just something that goes with the territory when you’re a leader. You must be bold. You can’t be afraid to be ridiculed.”
Many people in the black community are secretly behind President Trump and want to see him back in office, Mr. Fisher said.
“They won’t say it in public in fear of backlash from the community because they have reputations, businesses, and relationships they don’t want to put in jeopardy, but they’ll speak with their vote,” he said.
What 'Woke' Means
For Mr. Fisher, the term “woke” once stood for compassion, but that connotation is now lost.
He pointed to President Trump’s criticism of the word.
“I don’t like the term woke because I hear ‘woke woke woke,’” President Trump told an audience at the Westside Conservative Club in Iowa in June 2023. “It’s just a term they use, half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is.”
People have radically different conceptions of woke, Mr. Fisher said, but to use it in condemnation is harmful to race relations.
“The word’s umbrella is so big that nobody knows what it means now,” he said. “It’s become burnt out.”
As the media continues to manufacture division, Mr. Fisher said it’s important that all people reclaim their narratives and be open to each other’s views, even if they disagree.
Small acts, like listening to others instead of the media, will go a long way.
“It’s not going to happen by itself,” he said. “It’s going to take deliberate, thoughtful work. We must exercise that power in taking control of our own lives so that we can shape our future. We all have that power.”
Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
