‘Blue Lives Matter’ T-shirt campaign draws flak for force
Port Hope police fundraiser halted after petition launched
Police in Port Hope have reportedly decided to stop selling T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Blue Lives Matter” at their station after a Cobourg, Ont., woman criticized and launched a petition against it.
Meghan Sheffield said she first became aware of the shirts after hearing on social media about a tweet from the Port Hope Police Service last week. The service was, she said Saturday, advertising shirts being sold for $20 by the local police association, featuring the association’s logo on the front and “Blue Lives Matter” on the back as part of a fundraising effort.
In her change.org petition, Sheffield wrote that “Blue Lives Matter” is an “appropriation” of Black Lives Matter, a social movement with multiple chapters across North America that, among other things, decries the disproportionate number of black people killed by police or otherwise targeted by law enforcement.
Port Hope Police Association president Mathew Lawrence told the Star the shirts have nothing to do with any political or social movements. He explained they were printed in support of Bill 163, presumptive post-traumatic stress disorder legislation that amends the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act and supports Ontario’s first responders.
“We want our officers to receive appropriate care quickly and prevent associated long-term health issues,” he said. “We have officers in our service who have suffered from that illness and we’re standing by them and supporting them.”
He said the campaign’s focus is on officers across the country losing their lives for a myriad of reasons.
Sheffield, on the other hand, said the shirt “creates an unfortunate binary that seems to be equating the experience of being a police officer with . . . that of being a black American.” She said she has no involvement with the Black Lives Matter movement but has followed it “from a distance.”
Media reports quoted Port Hope police Chief Bryant Wood saying he has decided to stop selling the shirts at its station. Sheffield said she got a response from Wood expressing disappointment in the “negative PR,” but stating that it was the association, not the service, that organized the fundraiser.
Janaya Khan, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto, calls the Tshirts “reckless and disrespectful.” She said the slogan is a reactionary phrase that delegitimizes and deemphasizes the need to focus on black experiences to police brutality.
“A movement that is inherently anti-police is being co-opted by the police for their own purposes,” she said. “It’s a declaration that they’re not in support of Black Lives.”
The term “Blue Lives Matter” has existed since at least December 2014, when a New York City-based nonprofit organization called “Blue Lives Matter NYC” formed to “raise awareness and raise money for the families of officers in need.”
Sheffield said she and a few others reached out to the police service on Twitter, explaining why the shirt was “problematic.” The service deleted the tweet, she said.
She then sent emails to the police service, Port Hope Mayor Bob Sanderson and several municipal leaders explaining the issue, and created the online petition late Thursday. (It had roughly 250 signatures as of Sunday evening.) Since then, Sheffield said, she has received some minor online backlash.
Despite being critical of the shirts, though, Sheffield said that she and the community at large support both the Port Hope and Cobourg police services. With files from Laura DaSilva