No, you are not most people, you are a person and I recognize you as such.
Please note that I didn’t engage with Wiggin’s argument, I countered that the only people saying #Blacklivesmatter is racist, are white people.
All lives matter is a pedantic response to #Blacklivesmatter.
What do you think is going to happen? Are police going to stop targeting black people and fill their death quota by killing whites?
The only way it makes sense for white people to derail #Blackilvesmatter is if they believe white power is going to respond like this:
OK, start killing more latinos and make sure you kill a few whites while you’re at it so we can say “See? we kill whites too? your argument is invalid”
Eeeeh. I’ve seen people that would respond by shifting the hate from one minority to another and going ‘see, group A aren’t being targeted.’ I have sadly encountered that mindset and it makes me sad.
Except to that person, and it also limits/enables what/how that person can contribute. That people in power will not give up their advantage is a societal flaw, and needs to be addressed as such.
Xenophobia looks like a bug to us but it is also a feature.
This is missing the point. As I just explained, racism seems to not be about real differences, identities, histories, or struggles. It seems to usually be a projection of the bigot, rather than an actual critique of who they are complaining about.
There is no place for “dominance” in culture, they are two distinctly different ways of living.
What does that even mean?
Again, you seem to be deliberately distorting what I am saying. Which is not that black people are in no way different from anybody else. It is the paradox that what the real differences are, are not what racism against the group is based upon. If you were reading my post, it should be apparent that solving the process of racism was what I was explicitly addressing.
FFS, I explained why directly in the text you quoted:
AGAIN I already explained my position on this!
Going after a process by fixing its effects does not solve anything. Not unlike in medicine, if we address the cause, then the symptoms are cured also, whereas the converse does not apply. What people here seem to be saying is that only a churl would waste their efforts by addressing the root cause of the problem, rather than its visible results. But those are the efforts where nearly all activism takes place. And, as I said, it is worth doing. But attacking people who think it is more beneficial to frame the problem differently and try for deeper solutions comes off as yet more xenophobia. Saying that people who don’t see it your way must be harmful jerks might get people on your side, but it does not present a cogent argument for your position. But I am not saying that it needs to.
I swear, it seems as if people read my posts until they find something they don’t like, and comment upon this without having read the rest of it.
But aren’t people who say “Black lives mattter” ALREADY addressing BOTH the root cause of violence against black people (the widespread assumption that the deaths of black people don’t matter as much as those of other people), AND ALSO its visible results (the high numbers of unarmed-and-then-dead black people)?
Have you stopped and thought about what the mostly black people who comprise this movement and say “Black lives matter!” would think of your telling them that along with their efforts, they should somehow or other be addressing the fact that racism is a form of projection? I mean, really, are you suggesting that protestors should also carry signs that say that?
The dust up I have read about involving “all lives matter” involves Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders being the utterers of offensive speech. This is exactly why the right wing blogosphere is amusedly referring to this as “the left eating itself”.
Real, vicious outright racists - those who are not displeased by rampant police violence - are paying no interest whatsoever to all/black lives matter.
I think it does explain a relevant point. But if we acknowledge the projection, then it might follow that very concept of “black lives” is going to mean very different things to either “camp”. Of course, this is not unexpected. But either way, despite the importance of the message, I also very much doubt that a three (or four…) word slogan is going to persuade anyone who already has an opinion.
If I claimed to psychically know what black people think, I would be on shaky ground. Empathy does not entitle me to this.
This is, AGAIN, putting words in my mouth. I am not telling people what they should be doing. What I did was remark upon what I thought would be effective. There is a big difference.
I make a point to try avoiding suggestion or persuasion in any case. My approach is to put forth tools for people to think clearly. Not to have others “agree” with me or anyone else. This includes recognizing when one’s thinking is based upon bias so that one can avoid having both personal and social problems in the first place. This cannot happen by soapboxing at people.
Here’s my take (not that anyone asked for it, shut up): The “All Lives Matter” campaign is a way to take the teeth out of “Black Lives Matter” and white wash it. If you believe “All Lives Matter” is the better slogan, then you also probably think the Civil War was about State Rights. It is only a half truth.
Why I think slogans and signs are used in demonstrations is not because of their accuracy or effectiveness in persuasion themselves. They seem to function more as a show of “strength in numbers”. The problem with this is that “strength in numbers” is the language of dominance to begin with. But the problem itself is caused by some supposing a different innate worth between various kinds of people. This, and the counter of recognizing innate equity between people are not populist, statistical measures. Black people (and woman voters) have this equity regardless to whether this is said by one person, or one billion. The state and law are not granting them equity as people, but rather recognizing it.
Telling people that how many choose to recognize their innate worth makes any difference is to misrepresent the nature of the problem. It is not a popularity contest.
No. Both are crucial and cannot be ignored. Just because they aren’t always the same group of people doesn’t mean that both nature and nurture aren’t equally real and important.
Yes: arrests of blacks are higher than of whites for crime in general. Another poster above linked to FBI figures that showed whites kill more than blacks do. They’re just not arrested for it as often.
Right, but you’re saying that this doesn’t dominate topics of discussion, when on cable news/local network news, it ABSOLUTELY does… You don’t see it, because, like me, you don’t watch much cable news. Much like your ex, freaked out about stranger danger (which is a generational thing, I think… I assume you and your ex are Gen Xers like me, and grew up with that narrative being shoved down our throats at a time when the “mainstream” media was the primary means of news - stranger danger and satanic panic were EVERYWHERE in the 80s… remember that?), people whose primary news sources are network news are fed a very racist narrative from cable/ local network news, which focuses on both black on white crime (which you point out is rather rare) and black on black crime… But it is talked about and discussed and black civic leaders are often bombarded with questions about it…
This is true of people who watch cable news…
Of course cops are people… people who are committing crimes and getting away with it. And that’s the core issue of black lives matter, because they are disproportionately impacted by criminal police behavior and have been for a very long time…
There is a certain profound and obviously affected obtuseness in these kinds of objections to simple slogans or ideological nomenclature that should be expected of the backlash against movements like “black lives matter”. It’s a willfull lack of nuance or understanding fueled by peoples fears and biases.
Exactly the same arguments pop up in regards to any kind of minority “pride”, whether feminism should be called feminism, or strict etymological readings of the word “homophobia”.
Their isn’t anything that would be less easily misconstrued or misused that wouldn’t take several volumes to clarify, because those who object don’t actually want clarification. Even if they aren’t consciously or maliciously trying to derail the conversation by picking every conceivable nit, they are still trying to derail the conversation from what it is actually about.
No one worth speaking to honestly believes that only black lives matter. That’s perfectly understood by anyone else who is worth speaking too.
