This is delicate, I’ll probably word it poorly, but I just want help understanding things.
“Black Lives Matter” is true, important, born in response to racism and injustice, and “All Lives Matter” is the wrong response. I’m on board with that.
But I also see lots of examples of things done in the name of the Black Lives Matter movement that sound problematic. Tension and clashes with other minority advocacy (usually LGBTQ), crossing the line into blanket anti-police demonstrations, etc.
I don’t really have much context for these examples though. Are these fringe examples that we should be ignoring, or is the organization itself problematic? Also I’m at work typing on my phone, so I’m doing a terrible job of doing the work of researching this further on my own right now. Apologies for this very lazy question regarding a serious subject.
Like Occupy Wall Street, it lacks leadership. At least its goals are clearer.
I wonder if the powers that be recognized the threat that people like MLK posed to their power, so quietly implemented rules and laws to guard against people like him from rising to power in the future. The war on drugs, existential poverty with no opportunity for advancement, etc. I’m probably listening to too much Rage Against the Machine.
There is massive need for a prorgressive black activist group focusing on police, who pretty much execute black Americans at will.
BLM isn’t it. It’s divisive and regressive, and forces white people into defensive tribalism rather than wanting to embrace egalitarian ideals. It even alienates swathes of the left. (Pride Toronto)
but you need a high impact high visibility movement to oppose your police (who are quite frankly, terrifying), and at the moment BLM is all there is.
I think the lack of leadership in BLM really hurts them. Also they lack focus. The prime example of this is what became of the BLM group at the U of Missouri and all the stupid crap they have involved themselves in.
As a result of the actions of some BLM factions the entire movement has been stained. And that is too bad.
I don’t even see that you need to wonder about institutionalized racism. The powers that be have been gaming the system since the first slave was freed.
Southern Poverty Law Center is an amazing, amazing group that I deeply respect. But they don’t pull headlines due to stunts because that’s not how they work. They are extremely academic and it appears unless your a wacko academic you are easily ignored by the likes of Fox News and every other pseudo-news site.
I don’t believe a top-down organized group with “strong leadership” is a requirement to achieve change. Decentralized cell phone videos will do the job eventually.
[quote=“playingwithknives, post:3, topic:120215, full:true”]but you need a high impact high visibility movement to oppose your police (who are quite frankly, terrifying), and at the moment BLM is all there is.
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But this made me re-think the value of the BLM movement. As a naive believer in collaboration, I’ve always thought the “us vs. them” mentality would do more harm than good. Now I’m beginning to realize it’s a necessary middle step. It’s important to advertise the problem even if we’ll need to move beyond this movement eventually.
I’ve read stories about suspicious police killings for over a decade on libertarian blogs. No one ever mentioned the race of the victim because it wasn’t the important issue – the police state was. Obviously libertarians are invisible, so there’s never been any traction.
Black Lives Matter leverages white guilt toward a useful awareness of a problem that can affect anyone but happens to affect blacks most often. One of the weaknesses of our system of government is that it’s difficult for a large group of people with minor incentives (the public) to do something about a special interest with major incentives (the police). I’m not talking about shallow political analysis like campaign donations. It’s just hard to do anything in government without a driving force or an acute benefit. BLM is that competing special interest that has the passion and focus to make a change.
I don’t think real change happens without collaboration. It’s tough to change hearts and culture from an adversarial relationship, though I’m sure victims would be more than happy with a superficial change in behavior!
In the meantime, BLM is a necessary movement to overcome lethargy among the public about things that don’t directly affect them.
BLM is a bullshit movement. They don’t care about black lives. If they did they would be focused on reducing black on black crime which kills way more black people than bad cops.
Police brutality is a problem. Most law enforcement officers are good people but there is a percentage of them that goes into the profession because of the power it gives them over other people. I don’t know how to solve that.
But black people killing other black people is a much bigger problem. And BLM does not give a shit about that. Why?
The existence of MLB is justified because childrens are dying, and the only reason is the colour of his skin, and that is bullshit and somebody need to do something.
Is also pretty clear that this something will be attacked by many fronts and linked to violence. Maybe MLB should have preemtivelly announced his pacifism and made clear that his message is of peace. Without it I dont see much future to the movement, beacuse is too easy to link a whole movement to violence and many people is scared of violence, so It would turn MLB into a guetto.
It’s as relevant as white on white violence, which is to say not relevant at all… the issue is police brutality, which is directed disproportionately at people with darker skin.
Why are black people killed by police at 4 times the rate of white people? I guess that is not worth examining to you.
The tribalism is occuring anyways, for a variety of reasons.
BLM isn’t causing the tribalism.
While I can’t support BLM due to the stupid crap they’ve pulled, they have a legitimate complaint to a legitimate problem, and I support solving that problem.
The problems go beyond more than police into culture itself. I have no idea if that can even be solved at this point.
I’m not sure what the killing of 5 police officers has to do with the BLM movement. I can almost certainly say that it wasn’t organized by BLM. This is what happens when injustice continues for too long and people feel that they have no other option but to take matters into their own hands. It’s wrong, of course, but there it is.
The Dallas PD was one of the best PD’s in the countrys- and the BLM folks held it up as one of the better ones as well. Not saying it’s perfect, but BLM was not behind these attacks.
If I had to guess,I’d say it was people acting on their own out of anger.
BLM is decentralised rage against the police, and Dallas looks to be too. The BLM tag is being attached to the Dallas incident on socmedia. I’m quite happy to link the two. This is how decentralised movements work. This is white America learning they finally crossed line. It’s moved beyond identity politics now.
If it comes down to raw identity politics, and it became white vs black- one side has a lot more power than the other.
You can’t get any sort of racial progress without some of the majority on board.
This is why I say some things on here that anger some of the liberals- because I’m afraid of America becoming a nationwide Mississippi in terms of racial politics - that won’t end well for anyone.
Because social media gives a crap about anything resembling facts? Glad to see you proudly declaring yourself part of the problem. For a dude that bitches about identity politics you sure fell into that trap easily.
I’m not sure that I agree with that. It’s not a union or other structured organization, but many in the BLM movement look to Deray McKesson and Samuel Sinyangwe, both of whom have spoken for the movement and are involved in the Mapping Police Violence website. In fact, they spoke together about their leadership role in it at the 2015 Eyeo Festival. It’s worth watching that talk, if you wonder about their role and interests in it.
