I’m sorry, I meant no disrespect.
I didn’t mean to derail the conversation. If I had known about the firearms thread, I would have asked my question there. I didn’t realize at the time how insensitive I must have come across.
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Okay… again, I have no problem with the conversation itself, just that given the topic, the side bar should be taken elsewhere, IMHO. As you can see, @Mister44 disagrees that it wasn’t as much of a problem, as it was a question you asked that he was trying to answer, and not a gun debate (which, I guess is the real problem we’ve had before).
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I am sorry if I strayed from the topic. I was addressing the idea that the BLM should not have based their list of demands ( https://policy.m4bl.org/ ) on The BP’s 10 point plan, which are based on pure Marxism. This is a free country, so you can be a Marxist if you want, but such policies are unlikely to gain mainstream support. And police reform is an issue where mainstream support is going to be critical if real and effective change is to happen.
I really do not want to throw accusations of Marxism around if it is not warranted. I do watch the marches, and there are almost always lots of these people there:
They do not want police reform. They want actual violent revolution to “sweep the current system away” and install a new, Communist system. If I were running a movement with real, achievable goals, I would not want these people around. I am not implying that the REVCOM people dictate BLM policy. But they use the movement for their own ends.
The three founders of BLM, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi all members of groups that together form the FRSO
Once again, it is no big surprise when serious social activists have strong ties to leftist organizations. Nor is it a big deal. But when they start to transform their movement into something that has a potential for making real, substantive change, they really should separate themselves from those who want to destroy rather than transform.
I don’t know what it would take to keep BLM on a positive, reform-based message. But there are groups associating themselves with BLM that poison any possibility of that happening. The various communists are not helping, the looters are not helping. Anyone who writes “Black Lives Matter” and “Kill Whites” together is not helping. All of those people are probably willing to sabotage any real efforts at reform.
I have written before that BLM lost my personal support when they confronted and harassed my son and his study group in University. I admit that it was a small thing when looked at from the perspective of all the bad things happening in the world today. But just in the sense of meeting goals, I don’t see how they are helping their cause by invading a semi-private space ( a reserved room in a campus library), and screaming profanity at a diverse group of shy med students studying on finals week.
Someone organized that protest, and felt that it would help the larger BLM movement to go around campus, disrupt academic activities, and scream obscenities at many of the White and Asian kids. And it is ongoing. But from the perspective if the BLM cause, how are such tactics helping?
I say all this with the assumption that BLM actually wants to make positive policy changes to end excess police violence.
This is one page, which I don’t think represents the whole of the movement. As @anon15383236 has repeatedly noted, this is a broadbased, heterogeneous movement, with the only real unifying theme being the ending of systemic racism in America.
I do not see where the connection to the Panthers is being made, however, on the website you linked too, at least not explicitly. Also, I don’t think the Panthers represented as “pure marxism” as, first, that just doesn’t exist, except in the pages of books written by Marx himself. In practice, marxist ideas have always been tempered by reality. In this case, the Panthers brought in an analysis of race, based on the concepts of Mao and Gueverra and their experiences with revolutions (for good or ill). A race analysis is more often than not at odds with a class analysis, which has been a major problem for American socialists and communists. Go read The Invisible Man, where Ellison very much made that case.
Specifically, the economic justice page, which would be the most clear way to see a Marxist perspective looks to me like your run of the mill leftist/socialist political views, read through a racial analysis and more in line with the mainstream of Northern European socialist parties. I again, see little or not influence of the Panthers, who were indeed a revolutionary group, with grounding in marxism (though with major caveats on that). Even then, the Panthers did plenty of positives in their communities - feeding children, police the streets of police violence, and pushing for local reforms in Oakland for example. Or in Chicago, where Fred Hampton negotiated a peace between gangs before being ruthlessly assasinated by the local police and FBI (which further radicalized some panthers and some white activists).
When you employ a term like Marxist, I’ve noticed that you tend to wield it like a catch all for people you disagree with on social and economic issues. That isn’t helpful and only comes off as a mindless epitaph for people whose politics you dislike. It also sounds like your son had a run in with some BLM activists and that the actions of a few might be coloring your view of the entire movement. None of that is helpful, because it doesn’t actually address what is really happening. It just obscures the facts and dismisses legitimate concerns that these activists have about what it indeed their country.
I’ll leave that with some of Baldwin’s wisdom:
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Thank you for your considered response. I do not want to throw Marxism around as some sort of general insult. I have at least read Marx, Mao, and Lenin, and have personally experienced life under Marxist regimes.
I connected the BLM and BP plans from the words of the people who wrote the BLM plan. When I have more time, I will post a link.
I have no issue at all with Baldwin’s sentiments.
All of which is fair enough. As a historian, I do think perspective and context matter, but there can be a problem with one’s personal views/experiences cloud their logic center when it comes to these discussions. This is not a problem that is unique to conservatives or to you, but to all of us. Because we are human and are as much creatures of emotion as we are of reason.
Marxism, whatever the lived experience of the 20th century, still bears study because we still live in a capitalist economy. That doesn’t make it the only way to think about the world nor even correct. It’s a set of theories for thinking through the world. How that actually unfolded in history as a political system that people had to live under is another matter, I think. That, I do think, has little to do with the situation at hand in the US about race and the continuation of systemic racism.
I’d guess if there is shared concepts there, that likely has more to do with the lack of structural changes since the days of the Panthers. The history of the panthers is a serious mixed bag, to be sure. But whatever they might have taken from the panthers, there is no serious revolutionary aspect to the movement, in terms of pulling from Mao’s/Guevarra’s theories of revolution. BLM, employing time tested direct action, wants to work through the system, not overthrow it. That’s a huge distinction, I think.
I don’t know how anyone could. It’s far more patriotic to work out and talk through our problems than to just shrug our shoulders when our fellow countrymen are in pain. Far too many of us are willing to ignore the realities that some of our fellow citizens face and then wonder why some people are so pissed.
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it might be a good idea to question whether the media is massaging the message. In so many of these stories, they don’t tell you that it was the police moving in and “dispersing” protestors that started the violence. They don’t question for you whether those looting are opportunists or provocateurs. They’re simply telling you, no matter what the facts, that it’s those violent black people who are at fault.
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The only problem i have with your beautiful argument here is that i think that
should be “You may even believe you are one.”
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And? Where is BLM in all that?
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@Mindysan, bless you for your patience and your willingness to try to get through to someone who clearly cannot or will not see past their own experiences, bias and unacknowledged privilege… someone with admitted limited personal experience with the community he opines about, but then he deigns to speak for them, based upon his skewed interpretation.
I think it’s a wasted effort, since this same type of interaction keeps happening repeatedly, but I still applaud you for your endeavor.
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Nah, they never do that, do they?
(I agree of course that the corporate media massage the message constantly, even if, as in cases like Hurricane Katrina, those working in the media often do so unconsciously.)
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Some of this is more about making my own thoughts clearer to myself. But we’ll see what @Max_Blancke has to say in response. I look forward to hearing it and hope we can make our views clearer to him.
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Really good point about how the massaging is frequently being done subconsciously by all the people that together make up the organization.
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Right? It might not be an organized attempt to create a stigma, but it’s the same effect regardless. It’s certainly why systemic is a good way to talk about this stuff.
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I hope that I have not claimed to be speaking for the Black community, per Milizmatic. And I don’t really assert that the senior members of BLM want violence to be a part of their actions. But these things are happening, for whatever reason. Those looters and the fringe groups that seem to show up at BLM events are affecting the public message, and the perceived goals of the movement.
I guess to try to get back to the topic of the article, any movement that intends to actually reform police practices has got to have mainstream support. That means that it is going to have to appeal somewhat to all the rubes in flyover country. The portrayal by the media is a part of that. But I have to think that it would be most effective if the message were clear and consistently on topic. And the actions of the participants at your events have to be worth admiring. Elements of that have been happening, such as the image of Leshia Evans at the Baton Rouge protests. An average person looks at that image and sees strength and conviction. But fewer people are going to watch the looting of a liquor store and say to themselves " Now that is something I can get behind". Fewer still want a chance to march alongside someone flying the red flag of socialist revolution, or variations of such. Whether those people are officially members of and under the direction of official BLM leaders is mostly irrelevant to the average person watching from outside.
Ideally, you would want a situation where, if one of your marches is announced, business owners and residents would summon their families to watch the inspiring and historic event, rather than boarding up their windows and evacuating.
These are solely my own opinions. I admit that my only personal contact with BLM is through my son’s experiences. I probably do have personal issues with communists that are very hard for me to see past. But I am trying my best to be receptive and open minded.
MB
That’s a pretty vague critique. I am skeptical of both the parallels you draw between Black Panther and BLM, as well your ideological filters about communism generally.
I will admit that I have not read much official documentation from BLM, but what I have read from activists is squarely focused upon issues of police violence and structural problems directly interrelated with it. Not manifestos about workers seizing the means of production or changing anything fundamental about current economic or political systems. It is easily possible to have a capitalist republic which is not racist. Capitalism does seem to be based upon a degree of exploitation, but the categories are arbitrary and only serve to concretize pre-existing biases. There is no need to systematically disenfranchise people based upon their race or ethnicity for that system to work, and insistence upon using it as a cudgel demonstrates a failure of the marketplace.
As for communism, I think it’s weird that you claim to have read Marx, yet you speak of having lived under a Marxist regime. Strong polarization such as framing communism as inherently destructive (implying that market capitalism and corporatism are especially creative), and lacking in popular struggle strike me as dubious presuppositions. Capitalism is elitist by design, just as communism is egalitarian, so I would need some convincing to accept this inversion. But none of this has anything to do with reducing police brutality! People can just as easily prop up communist or capitalist ideology or actions as an excuse for racism and violence. Switching to a different economic model does not automatically address people’s attitudes about race.
Where I do agree with you is that looting hurts activists by diffusing their valid arguments and undermining popular support.
I think that the Panthers set a great example of policing by and for the community, and that their direct actions greatly reduced police violence, at least for a time. If you consider their work to be more destructive than supportive of common people I need to wonder how.
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Those are often known as “police riots” because the police have a major hand in starting them. [quote=“Max_Blancke, post:145, topic:86436”]
Those looters and the fringe groups that seem to show up at BLM events are affecting the public message, and the perceived goals of the movement.
[/quote]
And if people can’t seperate those out in their own minds, BLM isn’t to blame. I also wonder about the accuracy of these media reports, given how problematic the media has been historically on representing the actions of black people and communities. [quote=“Max_Blancke, post:145, topic:86436”]
any movement that intends to actually reform police practices has got to have mainstream support.
[/quote]
It would be nice if they got it, because it’s important. But if white people won’t actually listen and continue to make assumptions, believe media distortions, and throw around loaded language, it’s not going to happen. [quote=“Max_Blancke, post:145, topic:86436”]
And the actions of the participants at your events have to be worth admiring.
[/quote]
I disagree. Human beings deserve to be understood as such and if someone is willing to throw an entire movement under the bus because of the actions of one or two individuals, the BLM isn’t the problem here. [quote=“Max_Blancke, post:145, topic:86436”]
An average person looks at that image and sees strength and conviction.
[/quote]
What precisely, do you mean by this? Who is the average person? How are BLM members and their supporters somehow not average, in your mind (if that’s the case). Because they seem pretty average human beings to me.[quote=“Max_Blancke, post:145, topic:86436”]
But fewer people are going to watch the looting of a liquor store and say to themselves " Now that is something I can get behind".
[/quote]
You’d be surprised how many people are down the random acts of violence when it’s done by the “right” people… or at the very least are willing to give it a pass as “kids being kids” or some such.[quote=“Max_Blancke, post:145, topic:86436”]
Fewer still want a chance to march alongside someone flying the red flag of socialist revolution, or variations of such.
[/quote]
No such thing has been happening, at least on a broad scale. And in contrast, there seem to be plenty of people who are willing to fly the flag of revolution when it comes in the form of a populist like Trump. [quote=“Max_Blancke, post:145, topic:86436”]
Whether those people are officially members of and under the direction of official BLM leaders is mostly irrelevant to the average person watching from outside.
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The average person watching out side might probably look a bit more deeply into what is going on and inform themselves a bit better about the lives of their fellow countrymen. [quote=“Max_Blancke, post:145, topic:86436”]
Ideally, you would want a situation where, if one of your marches is announced, business owners and residents would summon their families to watch the inspiring and historic event, rather than boarding up their windows and evacuating.
[/quote]
Which has yet to happen in American history, where African Americans fighting for equal rights are involved. At no point has white America (with individual exceptions noted) stood by and watching African Americans peacefully protest for their rights. It has always been met with violence. The events of the civil rights movement are still in living memory for the boomers. The classic civil rights era was not met with open arms by many white Americans, which is (one of the reasons) why you ended up with all the more revolutionary groups in the late 60s and 70s.
I think it’s good of you to admit that. Of course, anyone suggesting that there was no violence in communist countries is lying. But being able to understand that not all of marxists are about that or that all social movements on the left are marxist is critical. It’s a continuum of ideas… some good and some bad.
That’s good. We should all be more like this and try to be anyhow. If it helps, keep in mind that we are all flawed individuals, trying to figure this all out. Empathy and listening without judging is a key skill we all need to practice in order to become truly compassionate.
[ETA] Also, you should really get people’s names correct when you are talking about them. I don’t think that @Melizmatic appreciated you mangling her name.
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Well, it’s so nice of you to give them that benefit of the doubt. I mean, it’s not as though they have openly condemned violence with extremely clear statements that they do not tolerate or support it.
Only if those “average people” are looking for scapegoats.
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I did not live under communism, in the sense of toiling for years in a people’s agricultural collective or the like. I have spent several months at a time on work-related trips in both the USSR ( during Chernobyl!) and the PRC, and when I was young and stupid, I thought it would be a clever idea to ride a bike through Cambodia from Thailand to Vietnam, at a time when the Khmer Rouge was still a factor. So that is some firsthand experience, but not Solzhenitsyn- type experiences.
But that does seem to be a little off topic, and this is probably not the right place to fully explore the issue.
