Our society has decided that it doesn’t have the resources to ensure that “all lives matter”. Instead of constantly striving for this utopian ideal, it has decided that some lives matter more, and some lives matter less. “Black lives matter” is a challenge to this compromise, pointing out that the burden is distributed along racial lines… “All lives matter” implicitly accepts the status quo.
It’s better than “Blue lives matter,” but that’s not hard to manage.
You can’t bring public attention to a specific problem if you tailor your language to avoid calling out that specific problem.
“Black Lives Matter” is an extremely concise way to draw attention to how the lives of Black people in particular are not treated as if they have equal value to white lives. “All Lives Matter” is vague to the point of being meaningless, obscuring the problem instead of drawing attention to it.
So you’re…Pro-Life, then. 
Right-wing groups led by an Arkansas group called Confederate States III%, had applied for a permit to hold a rally in Stone Mountain Park, where there’s a giant sculpture of Confederate leaders. The event was planned as a response to a march in the park by a Black militia group on July 4.
But the Stone Mountain Memorial Association denied the permit on Aug. 4, citing a violent clash between groups in April 2016, spokesman John Bankhead said. The park closed to visitors Saturday and was set to reopen Sunday.
From the AP article the instigators aren’t even from Georgia. That is definitely one of the centers of White Nationalism in the South. Definitely check out @knoxblox full link.
No it’s not. When you say things there is a whole host of meanings behind them, in this case, the entire point was the negate BLM. That’s it.
Yes, it’s purposefully interpreted that way to discredit BLM.
They would take it anyway. The point isn’t for ALM to understand structural racism, it’s to discredit progress on equity.
This.
Why does ANYONE need to be convinced that Black Lives Matter? Maybe that’s the question YOU need to ask yourself?
It’s not helpful to moralize over language to the group of people suffering oppression. That does nothing to further the cause of equity and justice. It’s just another form of respectability politics. By asking the oppressed to constantly twist their words to conform to what makes the OPPRESSOR comfortable, you’re asking them to water down their message.
If those “some people” you’re talking about are bigots like the ones who tried to hold this rally, don’t fret about it. Ultimately, the people at whom this acronym is targetted are young people who’ve not yet been “carefully taught” by society that Black lives don’t matter. Short and clear statements of principle, especially ones that should be obvious to anyone with a sense of decency, are perfect for that purpose – all the more so if they can be boiled down to an acronym.
That the response of “All Lives Matter” is an attempt to deny the harsh truth of 400 years of oppression that says Black lives don’t matter and that the response of “Blue Lives Matter” celebrates the main mechanism of that oppression doesn’t change the core truth of the statement they try – clumsily and desperately – to riff off of.
Stop worrying about being uncivil and blunt when it comes to communicating your values to virulent and casual racists – they don’t worry about it. The establishment being nice and polite and insisting that we give bigots a fair hearing has brought us to this crisis point. It’s now time to choose a side, and that means using very short*, very blunt**, and very harsh*** language to express where you stand and what kind of society you’d like to see.
[* not necessarily uncomplex and non-nuanced]
[** not necessarily mean-spirited]
[*** not necessarily profane or gratuitously offensive]
Actually, yes I am, and it annoys me a little that this phrase has been coopted to mean “against legalized abortion”, or anti choice. Anyone who is legitimately pro life is 110% on the side of Black Lives Matter, like that 75 year old Plowshares protester who was bleeding out of his ear in Buffalo.
Yet more bigotry and hatred; how unsurprising.
As a Black person, all I can say to that is your personal preference is duly noted.
There is a certain section of white people who think they are being left behind with all this social change. They feel that Democrats don’t court their vote anymore because they aren’t a member of some protected class. Sadly this means they are very receptive to anyone who will speak to them, even if it is evil nonsense like the Tea Party, Trump, or QAnon.
Exactly. To use an ecological analogy, “Save the Whales” was never interpreted as, “F*&$ the Dolphins.”
If they’re stupid, ignorant and/or hateful enough to fall for these woo peddlers, they were a lost cause to begin with. Better to focus on new and young voters with a progressive message (the real sad part is that the establishment Dems who abandoned the working class for Third Way politics still don’t get this).
I have to do a lot of communications and editing and writing for my work, and I have fallen into this same trap of thinking, “oh, if I just rephrase this thing I’ve been trying to get across for 5 years, then they’ll get it. Then it won’t be misinterpreted or misunderstood.
I’m all for accurate use of language, but speaking from experience, don’t fool yourself into thinking that the terminology is the reason these bigots are offended by BLM. I mean, think of what they’re getting offended at: they matter? Not even that they’re important, they just…matter.
Right? Just like States Rights aren’t about States rights, ALM are about drowning out an appeal for equity and justice. Because these people don’t want that, they want a society where they get rights the rest of us don’t.
I learned this at a relatively young age in my first career. In writing for TV news, we were supposed to keep things to an 8th grade reading level and keep things as bland and beige as possible. Even so, we’d regularly get calls from viewers accusing us of pushing a “[Jewish|Black|Gay|etc.] Agenda.” You just have to accept that some people are write-offs who’ll never get it, and focus on getting through to those who will.
As an aside, can everybody please note that @anon73430903 is a woman? Thanks.
As a certain section of white people, I don’t feel like they need to court my vote. There is nothing that benefits Black people that doesn’t benefit me at least indirectly. I’m not dumb enough to think that anything Trump does benefits anybody except Trump, and I’m not narcissistic enough to flip my views entirely because nobody’s paying attention to me.
we have no choice but to lift these people up. letting them fall will have them dragging us down with them.
That’s the Democratic strategy. It doesn’t work. Too many “new and young voters” are part of the QAnon demographic. Being young and feeling voiceless and powerless has lead them to conservative-cults.
I saw it with my generation in the 80’s and 90’s, young republicans and teens and twenties who listened to Rush Limbaugh and read Drudge Report. The right-wing media doesn’t only rot boomer brains, they captured plenty of younger gen-X and older millennial as well.
I think most voters lack any sort of civics education, either formal or informal. It’s not clear that people even know why we have a government, let alone what federalism is or why it exists. I can’t even have a dialog with some people because the meaning of liberal and conservative has mutated to some insane point.
We have a few options left, most of them will end in civil unrest sooner or later. A few ways should have a peaceful resolution with a general improvement in our society and government. It’s complex and I don’t think we as a people have the attention span to deal with something complicated and abstract and so very messy. People get scared when you raise taxes. And they don’t get scared when you cut benefits. There is some irrational forces at play in the minds of voters that won’t leads us out of this mess.
I have a choice. I choose not to engage with morons who are convinced they’re geniuses
No. If that were the Dem strategy, they wouldn’t be favouring bland Third Way candidates like Biden and Harris The DNC establishment’s strategy since the 1990s has been: tack right to appeal to white suburban middle-class homeowners and to corporate donors; abandon attempts to appeal to working-class voters; cement ties with older minority community leaders who can turn out traditional voting blocs; and outsource GOTV efforts to other organisations.
The Dems, under their current leadership, prioritise the socially liberal portion of the American oligarchy over all other constituencies, expecting others to vote for them because the other duopoly party (that also prioritises the interests of the oligarchy) is bigoted and crazy and openly hostile to liberal democracy. Not much there for today’s young people.
The generation I see now understands that they’ve been screwed (which is why they appreciated a crabby old grandpa’s being honest about it and why they’re not inspired by the grinning, overly optimistic grandpa who promises a return to an unsustainable past).
I’ve seen tens of thousands of them show up at Friday for Future protests, I hear them talking about inequality and debt. I see them asking why we don’t raise taxes on billionaires. They do this despite civics education (and financial literacy, media literacy and crititcal thinking) being discouraged in America’s K-12 schools. If some of them are falling for alt-right BS it’s in large part because the duopoly party of the so-called left in America isn’t offering them candidates who really speak to them, and because the so-called liberal mainstream media still serves corporate interests and the status quo above all else.
If I see a smart Millenial or “Zoomer” I know falling for charlatans like Ben Shapiro or Jordaddy or the manosphere types because the Dem establishment is failing them, that – and not some middle-aged Fox-watching born sucker – is where I’m going to put my efforts into turning them toward progressivism and away from those promoting oligarchy. That’s where I see my duty. As Malcolm Harris says in his book “Kids These Days”:
If, as blockbuster audiences seem to both fear and relish, America is quickly headed for full-fledged dystopia, it will have gone through us Millenials first, and we will have become the first generation of true American fascists. On the other hand, were someone to push the American oligarchy off its ledge, the shove seems likely to come from this side of the generation gap, and we will have become the first generation of successful American revolutionaries. The stakes really are that high.
Lucky! It took me a while. At least a decade and I came late to the “professional” world.
That was my absolute takeaway from the one time I played the “Innovation Diffusion” game to learn how to be a better agent for social change. I wasted the whole game period trying to convince someone of something, but they’d gotten a card that assigned them the role of “absolute reactionary” or something. Meanwhile, other people were waiting to be approached so they could change their stance, and no one talked to them 
Well it’s a false choice. You can choose the option that results in our collective destruction, but that would be stupid.
