Elisabeth Hasselbeck Asks If BlackLivesMatter Should Be Classified as a Hate Group

Elisabeth Hasselbeck | Photo Credits: Alex Geana, © Alex Geana/Splash News/Corbis

This article,

Elisabeth Hasselbeck Asks If

BlackLivesMatter Should Be Classified as a Hate Group

, originally appeared on TVGuide.com.

On Monday's episode of Fox & Friends, co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck wondered aloud why the #BlackLivesMatter movement hasn't been labeled a hate group.

Black Lives Matter, an activist movement that has spread primarily on social media, focuses on police brutality against black people. It was started as a slogan after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in 2013, and has gained traction in recent years after the deaths of black men including Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray.

Hasselbeck was discussing a recent Black Lives Matter protest in Minnesota, during which members referred to police as "pigs in a blanket" and chanted "fry like bacon," as well as the death of Darren Goforth, a white deputy who was fatally shot from behind Friday as he walked towards his patrol car at a gas station near Houston. The suspect in Goforth's shooting is Shannon Miles, a 30-year-old black man who has a lengthy criminal history and was found to be mentally incompetent in 2012, according to CNN.

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Miles has no public affiliation with the Black Lives Matter movement, but that didn't deter Hasselbeck from linking Goforth's death to the cause. "Why has the #BlackLivesMatter movement not been classified yet as a hate group?" she pondered Monday, addressing Kevin Jackson, a black man who is the executive director of The Blacksphere. "How much more has to go in this direction before someone actually labels it as such?"

Jackson responded by calling the Black Lives Matter movement "nonsense," and agreed that it should be labeled a hate group.

The group, which has no formal hierarchy, has organized protests and marches around the country, and was a prominent presence at demonstrations in Ferguson and Baltimore after the deaths of Brown and Gray. Recently, members of the group have disrupted presidential campaign events held by Democrat Bernie Sanders and Republican Jeb Bush.

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