Yes. This is exactly what people who object to “Black lives matter” are trying to do. Steer the conversation away from talking about racism. It’s exactly what they would have done no matter what slogan was chosen, and exactly what they have done many, many, many times before.
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The main thesis of the OP and most of the commentariat seems to be that:
The slogan “All Lives Matter” in the context of being used as a response to the slogan “Black Lives Matter” is not sincere affirmation of our shared humanity, but either an implicit denial of the existence of systemic racism against blacks or a self-serving disavowal of responsibility for systemic racism against blacks on the part of whites.
The existence of systemic racism has been addressed at length, but I suspect most people getting behind “All Lives Matter” aren’t really trying to deny the existence of systemic racism (no doubt some significant percentage are, though). I’m actually almost interested enough to go look at what sort of stuff is being tweeted on #AllLivesMatter to see if I can glean anything from that.
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Point taken. My education on the details of 20th century US history is definitely below American standards, and I’m viewing the events through the “things that get reported halfway around the globe” lens. So I admit that I have a hard time keeping the different victims of police brutality apart and was thus unable to immediately recognise a claim of the form “the jury is still out on <name of dead person>” as wrong. And the whole Ferguson affair was reported on my side of the globe as “violent mobs laying waste to Ferguson”, followed by police-state-like overreaction immediately afterwards.
My point was that using a one-post-wonder as an example of why some opinions are tainted by association with racists is logically weak, because it sounded like you were labelling people who said “I like ‘All Lives Matter’ better than ‘Black Lives Matter’” as racists and then tried dissuading other people who said the same thing from being associated with them. I retract that point, as it was based on Chuck_C being in the “suspicious, we’ll know in a few posts” category rather than in the “outright racist” category.
I still don’t like the “you must be wrong, look who’s agreeing with you” argument, in general, though. People should be suspicious when only the racists are agreeing with them. If there are five people who disagree with you on an issue and two of them are racists, that doesn’t mean the other three are wrong or should change their opinions.
But I apologize for choosing a bad example to make a point about what kinds of arguments we should use, and thank you for responding with facts rather than with invective (that’s rare on the internet…).
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You should tell that Ricardo Diaz-Zeferino. Oh wait you can’t, because he was shot dead by Gardena PD.
There must already be a term for the kind of discrimination and *-ism that is perfectly statistically justified. Which doesn’t make it right. If the statistics say that members of group A are more likely to carry drugs than members of group B, then focusing on group A is a rational and successful strategy to maximize the amount of people you catch carrying drugs with a given amount of police work.
But that STILL makes life harder for law-abiding members of group A. Just because they’re group A, even when they’ve done NOTHING wrong.
So even if it’s perfectly statistically justified, applying the statistic to individuals is still a problem.
This problem pops up very often in various contexts, I wonder if the “theorists” already have a proper name for it.
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What you said, 1000 f-cking times!
It’s a debate worth having in the specific case of Bernie Sanders, if:
you believe that when determining whether to apply the tag of “racism” a person’s life history of actions and public statements is of equivalent weight to the degree of enthusiasm with which he chants the slogan du jour.
You do know I was being sarcastic right?
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It is truly astounding that, at this late date, this has to be explained.
Well, if it is supposed to “cover up and distract from the systematic racism”, then it does an extremely poor job of it.
Oh yeah, I knew. I was just being lazy.
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i have two thoughts, one more towards the main point of what i think you are saying, and one that’s a bit off to the side.
so, maybe, yes: we shouldn’t treat an individual differently based on their class. it’s the individual that matters. and in all the ways that really count, we vary more widely between individuals than between classes of people.
it’s a curious question though, when we see the statistical differences should we treat different classes of people differently. and, i still feel yes, this too.
it might sound contradictory, but i don’t think it is. i don’t go into a bar, see a stranger of another race, and buy them a drink saying: here you are, differently colored person, enjoy.
but, we might still look at police enforcement and say: hey, you guys are profiling minorities. stop. now. we might even start to prioritize this kind of minority focused analysis and action because we already know the issue is affecting real people everyday.
thought #2 is: i think confronting folks with individuals from classes of people they fear actually does help. it’s precisely because they don’t know such individuals as individuals that negative stereotypes arise.
i don’t have any statistics to back this up – but i think one of the reasons the usa shifted so quickly on same-sex marriage was because more and more ( very brave ) people were coming out of the closet. suddenly everyone realizes, oh: i know these people, i’ve known them along. they aren’t scary. they are my friends.
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honestly, i think xenophobia is also a bug for them too. they’re just trading short term gain for long term political instability.
( sorry for the split post – this ties into that thought #2 from my other reply. )
sometimes, going after the symptoms does go after the cause.
in some cases, bringing down the fever lets us survive the fight. in other cases, symptoms can be used as a marker to quarantine the risk.
this has direct parallels to the issues of racism. if we can’t outright cure the disease of bigotry, we can still decide how it will effect the rest of society. how bad the symptoms of the disease gets, and how far we allow it to spread.
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There are other issues here too that people want to call attention to by saying “All lives matter.”: The militarization of the police. Overstepping authority. The loss of constitutionally protected rights.
Why can’t we see the term “All lives matter” as inclusive. I want to stand by my Black brothers and sisters. I want to include them, not treat them separately.
Why can’t we all just work together?
Why do you want to interrupt a movement started by and for black people to insert issues of concern to other people?
Do you really not see how obnoxious that is, and how it deflects from the emergency at hand?
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I certainly don’t want to interrupt this movement. I want to join. This is an issue for ALL of us.
So you’re going to join a “Black lives matter” movement by basically holding up a sign that says “All lives matter”? Did you actually read the OP?
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So how is -responding- to #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter doing that?
This demonstrates the crux of the problem. You want to include them, in their struggle? That is not the same as standing beside someone.
Besides #AllLivesMatter being used -in response- to #BlackLivesMatter, which derails and dilutes #BlackLivesMatter unnecessarily, many well-intentioned people want to step in and support black activist movements by telling them from on high (privilege) the correct method of ??
and they don’t realize how they rob their supposed black allies with their assuming leadership instead of learning to follow. Not only is the act harmful to any movement, such players are completely unaware that being unable to follow generally means they are piss-poor leaders and end up falling for the ruse that #AllLivesMatter is.
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