Treading kinda close to “ALL Lives Matter” territory, although I know you didn’t mean it that way. Expanding BLM’s mission beyond issues that specifically and disproportionately harm black people — more particularly, police violence — dilutes its message. There’s nothing stopping a BLM activist from going to any other protest also, so what’s the benefit of dragging a bunch of other more abstract baggage into it? Protests can work when they have clear policy goals, not when they amount to “everything sucks!”
no thats dumb. ofc economic issues disproportionately effect black people. if oyur activist movment doesnt have a structural critique of the system which produced whichever problem its organised around how it ever gonna achieve anything beyond meaningless liberal tokenistic reforms.
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I’ve heard that part of the reason that Occupy had problems was because they let Ron Paul supporters get involved, which quickly destroyed any attempt at consensus.
Not that I think consensus politics works well in any group that doesn’t have very similar views. Try getting a Stalinist and an anarcho-syndicalist to agree on how socialism should work (also see the First International).
Actually, don’t try that example. The Stalinist would probably try to “solve” it by executing the anarchist, if history is anything to go by.
Yeah they do, but IMHO they’re more effectively [sc] addressed with efforts towards specific reforms than a generalized litany of complaints. Suffragettes didn’t get the vote by muddying the waters with temperance and reproductive rights, even though those were somewhat related issues. They focused on getting voting rights first and then used that power to effect [sc] further change. The civil rights movement succeeded (inasmuch as it has so far) by going after Jim Crow laws and segregation, not by invoking Marcus Garvey or Pan-Africanism. Put concrete and visible injustices forward to the people with proposals to resolve them and there’s a chance of getting traction; putting forth broadly entrenched large-scale meta-issues with no proposals more specific than “hey you guys stop being racist please” is an exercise in futility.
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How is that exactly? I’m saying that black activists don’t have to be single issue activists… I’m not the one assuming they need to be.
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I said exactly that thing. Individual activists can have multiple causes, but an advocacy group is better off narrowly focused. I’m sure there are gay and vegan people with BLM, but it doesn’t make sense to bring LGBT rights or animal welfare in as planks of that platform.
Because black people aren’t queer or vegetarian?
I have to deduce that you’re being willfully obtuse now.
You might think that, but I’m not. I don’t think it’s fair to try and dictate to political movements how they should respond to the vast and complicated network of influences/issues they confront. BLM was never a single issue movement (responding to police violence) and I’m not sure why anyone would assume other wise, given how it was never top down to begin with… Racism isn’t just found in the criminal justice system, but is pervasive in many aspects of political and social life. Connection economic issues with the problems of police brutality isn’t a new strategy for civil rights activists. I’m actually surprised that some people here seem to think it is.
so it makes not really sense to talk about The BLM?
I’m not dictating anything, just observing how similar movements have succeeded or been derailed in the past. I’m not suggesting that overarching structural issues aren’t worth thinking about or discussing, but in terms of protest, emancipation and school integration and ending Jim Crow got somewhere because they had clearly explainable specific goals. The goal of “end structural racism” is too huge and multifaceted to be directly targeted by any one movement. You might as well expand it to “end all injustice everywhere forever.”
Big intractable problems are best addressed by breaking them down into manageable chunks.
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I think that’s how the people who work within it see it.
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