5157

I’m perfectly happy to say “Black Lives Matter,” but as a slogan its unclear, and easily obfuscated (as we have seen, over and over). That you think clarity is somehow an indication of bigotry (or perhaps lack of purity?) is symptomatic of the broader problem in leftist politics - too many on our side are fucking allergic to clear and effective messaging. Being bloody-minded about shit like this is an obstacle to the very things you want.

5158

I think 400 years of demanding people beg for their lives in just the right way might have something to do with that.

I mean seriously, if someone wants to have a conversation about a good way to message with their politicians, fine, probably didn’t need to wait until now for that. There’s too much get on your knees and beg the right way around here, and last I checked, we had someone get on their knees, for almost 9 minutes to kill a man. I think that messaging was pretty damn clear.

5159

Public support = less people getting killed for no reason. Good messaging = more public support. I sincerely don’t understand how anyone can think that the way things are explained just doesn’t matter.

5160

I seriously don’t know how people get into a Black Lives Movement topic and discussion and wind up spending so little time in actually talking about black people and their lives.

5161

Wow, I admire your patience and resilience lady. I would have thrown a tantrum and left ages ago. You one tough cookie! O7

My most memorable encounter with a cop:

I had rolled a big spliff with my buddies. His lighter wouldn’t light. I didn’t have one. So we amble up to a pair of uniformed beat cops. You got a light mister? Sure thing young man. Puff Puff. Want a toke? Naw thanks, not on the job.

Yeah. Dutch cops back in the day :)

5162

I don’t find it the slightest bit unclear, and all the obfuscation I’ve seen about it has been bad-faith obfuscation motivated by racism, and I don’t think any slogan is proof against that.

5163

I guess it’s time to change the thread title to “Whitesplaning the Black Lives Matter movement”?

While the search for the perfect slogan still goes on, things are moving in Minneapolis.

5164

I was just about to say that as well. It doesn’t matter that the slogan was Black Lives Matter and not Black Lives Matter Too or whatever you want to make it. Racism is racism and they were going to attack any slogan, regardless.

5165

I sincerely believe that’s what I’m doing…

…but clearly this conversation is neither wanted nor welcome, so I’ll shut up. I apologize for my lack of understanding.

5166

I had a friend who tried something similar. It being the US, you can imagine that the outcome was rather different. (He might not have been the smartest of friends.)

5167

No. This is not talking about black people, about the experience of minorities in this country, about why the movement is formed, about centuries of efforts to get equality. I do not know how you can look at the one sentence and truly believe you are talking the black experience with all the pain, the suffering, the anger, the hopelessness, the hope, the frustration, the rage, the heartbreaking sacrifices and the hint of maybe, maybe this time is different and think that that sentence is… anything except yet another hurdle.

I don’t give a shit what we call it.

Here’s what I know. We have police officers, on camera, with an audience, amongst their peers, kill a man for almost 9 minutes. They were unafraid and evil in their act. The people around them felt powerless to stop them. We gave them that power. We keep giving people like that, their power. The systems, the judges, the laws, the politicians, the fucking statues all are designed to keep them in that position of power. It’s time to take that back. It never should’ve been given in the first place; it’s past time to right wrongs.

So before someone sits back, licks their fingers to scurry through pages and start merrily deciding what slogan to use or whether or not the law is on whose side… the law is part of the problem, and that might be the 40th time someone has been stopped by a cop before they’re even a senior citizen when most of us engage them a handful of times, IF that, and even then we were not always the targets.

So yeah, before anyone sits down and starts criticizing any of this… these are not incidents, moments in time, one-offs, these are lifetimes, multiple lifetimes… the country’s original sin, several countries’ original sins. And if you don’t approach it like that… then you don’t understand. And if you can’t understand, how the hell do you think you can be part of the solution?

This cannot stop with protests and quickly drawn up laws or cute marketing slogans that make white people feel better about the work ahead of them. And it’s a lot of work. It will not be done by the time everyone currently on this board is dead. And if that’s hard to grasp, don’t walk away, don’t throw out it’s your at fault for this election, or if only you begged nicer… sit-down… listen, and listen some more, and then listen more. And at the end of that, ask yourself what you can do and stop telling everyone else what they’ve done wrong, but what you can do. It’s been 400 years… people trying, dying, trying some more… and every step on a long march is someone telling them if only you’d be a little more good to me I would’ve done this… just do this. Don’t wait for perfect. Just do it.

5168
5169

Reminder: the suggested alternative was “Black Lives Matter Too.”

If you think “Black Lives Matter Too” is a better slogan than “Black Lives Matter,” then you. do. not. get. it.

(I’m about to do that thing where I go into exhausting detail. I’m putting it in a spoiler so that people who do get it don’t have to have it explained to them with a wall of text.)

In English, when do you add “too” to the end of a sentence? When the subject matter you’re discussing in that sentence is additional, subordinate, or supplementary. For example:

  • I have to go to the dentist at 3. I can go to the grocery store, too.
  • When I go to New York, I want to see the Statue of Liberty. I want to see Ellis Island, too.
  • We need to go over the Q3 results. We need to talk about the marketing budget, too.

In all those cases, the “too” is adding the connotation that whatever it refers to is less important in some way than the primary thing under discussion. Even when you’re just agreeing with someone who just said “I like X” by saying “I like X too,” by adding “too” you’re implicitly ceding control of the conversation and handing the baton back to the first person.

If, in fact, you think the Q3 results and the marketing budget are in equal need of discussion at this time you say: We need to talk about the Q3 results and the marketing budget.

And if you think the the marketing budget is the thing that needs attention right now - not next week, not one hundred years from now, but right now - what you say is: We need to talk about the marketing budget.

The intended function of “too” - what it is expressly designed to do - is to diminish the urgency and importance of the subject preceding it. Anyone who thinks “I matter too” is stronger than “I matter” does not get how English works.

5170

I think some people understand systematic racism to mean there are a lot of racists in the system. It’s not about whether the individual cop had hate in their hearts when they arrested or beat or killed someone. The forces that burn the crosses are certainly a large problem that needs to be rectified quickly but it doesn’t end there. It’s that the whole system is set up to produce these results regardless of an individual cop’s opinion of minorities.

Consider that even if every cop were pure in their motives, the simple facts of over-policing of minority neighborhoods combined with a police force trained for confrontation and escalation that is mainly used for things where confrontation and escalation is counterproductive will still result in disproportionate use of force against black people. And this is just one small part of the systematic problems.

5175

I immediately thought of repeal and replace also but it was in truth too tongue in cheek to be good fit.
I also thought renovate or remodel as in something you do to house. But I quickly hit on re-imagine policing as my favorite. It has positive connotations (Disney imagineers) , John Lennon’s “Imagine”

So I was quite happy to see that both Cory Booker and Kamala Harris have also advocated the phrase.

It is broader and more hopeful term than defunding.

5176

Nobody likes the term defunding, but one of our biggest policing problems is too many cops and not enough crime. So we’ve roped cops into roles that they’re not really cut out for.

I liked this article in the Atlantic. Not sure “unbundle the police” is much better as a slogan, but I like the concept.

5178

I think it’s just time to agree to disagree on this one. Or make a new thread at least! :D

On the BLM front, I don’t think this has been posted but here’s Starbucks, blazing the way for equality!

5179

Starbucks always managing to be terrible.

5180

I think they reversed that already. Let me to the googles.

5181