Where Are the Little Black Squares for Israel’s Victims?

Do you remember what it was like to visit a website in the summer of 2020? It didn’t matter what the purpose of the site was — banking, shopping, cloud services. For a while, it was almost guaranteed that, somewhere on the homepage or the log-in screen, there would be a little black square that featured a message about Black Lives Matter. In June, July, August, and beyond, the practice became ubiquitous. Every brand in America felt the need to acquiesce. Email providers did it. Soft-drink companies did it. Industrial-widget manufacturers did it. To spend time online was to be inundated with little black squares that carried expressions of support. One could scarcely buy a pencil without being informed of the store’s support for racial justice.

Sports were taken over, too. MLB reversed its initials on the pitcher’s mound, so that “BLM” was visible throughout. The NFL allowed — “allowed” — players to choose from a predetermined list of social-justice messages on their helmets, and placed slogans in the endzones. Similar steps were taken by the NBA, the NHL, and, it seems, every single league in the world. Entertainment followed suit, as did the universities. On Netflix, Spotify, Kindle, and beyond, I was offered racially inspired playlists and content suggestions. Apropos of nothing, college presidents issued statements, called for days of recognition, and reorganized teaching schedules to accommodate the supposedly universal trauma. It was, for a period, as if the nation were in a total war — replete with all the ugly rhetorical traps that total wars tend to yield.

About the Author

Charles C. W. Cooke

Charles C. W. Cooke is a senior editor at National Review and the host of The Charles C. W. Cooke Podcast.

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Do you remember what it was like to visit a website in the summer of 2020? It didn’t matter what the purpose of the site was — banking, shopping, cloud services. For a while, it was almost guaranteed that, somewhere on the homepage or the log-in screen, there would be a little black square that featured a message about Black Lives Matter. In June, July, August, and beyond, the practice became ubiquitous. Every brand in America felt the need to acquiesce. Email providers did it. Soft-drink companies did it. Industrial-widget manufacturers did it. To spend time online was to be inundated with little black squares that carried expressions of support. One could scarcely buy a pencil without being informed of the store’s support for racial justice.

Sports were taken over, too. MLB reversed its initials on the pitcher’s mound, so that “BLM” was visible throughout. The NFL allowed — “allowed” — players to choose from a predetermined list of social-justice messages on their helmets, and placed slogans in the endzones. Similar steps were taken by the NBA, the NHL, and, it seems, every single league in the world. Entertainment followed suit, as did the universities. On Netflix, Spotify, Kindle, and beyond, I was offered racially inspired playlists and content suggestions. Apropos of nothing, college presidents issued statements, called for days of recognition, and reorganized teaching schedules to accommodate the supposedly universal trauma. It was, for a period, as if the nation were in a total war — replete with all the ugly rhetorical traps that total wars tend to yield.