NAACP calls out FBI’s latest report on ‘Black extremists’

(NNPA Newswire) – According to a journalistic investigation by the news outlet Foreign Policy (FP) the FBI’s counterterrorism division has identified a new threat—Black identity extremists (BIE). The FBI’s assessment is that BIE’s “perception of police brutality against African Americans have spurred retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement.” In response to this report, the interim NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson has released the following statement:

“In a time when white supremacists are marching down city streets with loaded weapons and tiki torches—organizing rallies of terror around the country—it comes as a great shock that the FBI would decide to target Black identity groups protesting police brutality and their right to exist, free of harm, as a threat.

“Sadly, this report comes as no surprise from an organization that has a history of targeting Black civil rights groups and leaders, including wiretapping Martin Luther King Jr. and others fighting for civil rights in the 1960s.

“We do have a real threat in the United States and it’s the rise of right-wing extremists, white nationalists and white supremacists, who have been emboldened by this administration. In light of this report, the NAACP is resolved to double down on our efforts to advance the rights of Black Americans and people of color across this country. We remain steadfast and immovable in our fight for justice and equality – and we are not afraid.”

This article originally published in the October 16, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.