If the focus of Black Lives Matter is making things safer for Black lives then their actions have been foolish. In 1994 over 10,000 black people were murdered in the US. In 2013 about 2,500 were. That is a huge decline. One of the reasons for this decline was aggressive policing. By attempting to racialize every police shooting, BLM risks causing the police to ease up and letting the violence escalate. For example in the wake of the Freddy Gray riots in Baltimore murders there have increased significantly, there have already been more than 90 more murders in 2015 than in the whole of 2014. If this effect is repeated throughout the country it would mean thousands of more black people murdered.
However, the actual focus of BLM is on the protester’s feelings and since bullying is fun, it is succeeding in making many of them feel good about themselves.
You seriously don’t understand this?
Last week, if every person you talked to said, in response to the Paris attacks, that “All cities matter”, that wouldn’t offend you? That doesn’t sound like a slightly nicer way to say “Fuck Paris”?
Let’s make it clear: Saying “All Lives Matter” in response to “Black Lives Matter” is equivalent to saying “Black Lives Don’t Matter”. Stop saying it if you think black lives actually matter.
If that was a Big Bang Theory episode it would be called the Baby Daddy Inclination.
If I said that we need to protect Paris from terrorist attacks and they responded with we need to protect all of France from terrorist attacks I would not be offended or think that they hated Parisians. If someone was offended I would think that they are either looking to be offended or only cared about Paris.
When you get offended when people say “All lives matter” that seems like you don’t think white, asian, or hispanic lives matter.
‘BLM’ draws attention to the disparity in society’s treatment of blacks (in policing, justice, housing, etc); ‘ALM’ dismisses/ignores this disparity.
That’s the message, but is that really your goal?
I get mildly annoyed by both slogans. Usually when you make a statement, you are attempting to supply new information: if not, why bother with the statement? With this in mind, the only reason to say “BLM” is to imply that people do not think that BLM, and the same thing goes for saying that ALM. If they already agree with you, why shout the slogan?
IMO. the actions of BLM are unwise or foolish when they are targeting people who do not disagree in any meaningful way with their statement, such as at a random restaurant or an Obama gathering because it is implying that they disagree with the premise. When it is in response to a specific (or even generalized to an extent) police behavior, that is another story.
That said, that sort of action may not be unwise if it came with a publicized concrete agenda, i.e. we will continue to behave in this way until these specific steps have been accomplished. I might still disagree with the tactics of annoyance, but would not be able to argue with the results if they worked.
I’m sure you’ve heard about the 5 BLM protesters who were shot last night in Minneapolis by alleged white supremacists. This scares me. I’m thankful for the ones that are willing to go out there and “make that change” so to speak, I’m not sure if I’m that bold, but maybe I should be. I’m becoming numb to the brutality and that scares me. There was nothing unwise or foolish about the protests last night, and innocent black people still got shot. How can I not harbor some type of fear as a black person in America when I see that, you know? I’ll probably be cringing under the bed with you.
Those _______ people might have a good point, but why do they have to be so angry about it?
No, it would not. It would have the exact opposite effect. I think that reaffirming the universal importance of all human lives is an excellent, wonderful thing to do, no matter what the circumstance. Why would I think otherwise?
No, it doesn’t. Is there any logical reason why it should?
Who gave you dictatorial power over deciding when a phrase is equivalent to another?
Let’s use logic. Black people are a subset of all people. Therefore to assert that all [human] lives matter, is to assert that black people’s lives matter and so do the lives of all people. This is logic.
If you believe that saying “All lives matter” is equivalent to saying “Black lives don’t matter”, then apparently you reject this logic. Are black people not included among all people?
(For the record, few of the episodes here involve anyone saying “all lives matter” in response to “Black lives matter”. The BLM protesters get furiously angry about anyone saying “all lives matter” ever, in any circumstance, or at least that’s what it looks like.)
Unless they get some outside funding, I seriously doubt we will hear of them in a year or so.
Just like Occupy Wall Street.
We’ve tried “all lives matter” – it doesn’t work (or at least the justice system in America hasn’t stuck to it). Black people, and black lives, are treated disparately by the justice system, so there needs to be a special focus and emphasis on black lives. White lives already matter, the justice system has indicated – white lives don’t need special emphasis, they’re already (mostly) protected and treated with respect by the justice system. So “all lives matter” misses the point, and even dismisses the point. That’s the point of Black Lives Matter, and the reaction against “all lives matter”, I think.
Interesting observation.
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Acting like troublemakers probably isn’t going to get them very far in their quest to lose that criminal reputation.
“All lives matters” is a complete dismissal of the point.
Imagine that you go out to dinner with your family, and everyone gets what they order except you - you get a plate full of dicks. You say, “Hey, I should get what I ordered!” And your wife responds with “Everyone should get what they ordered,” while chowing down on the food she ordered and doing absolutely nothing about your plate of dicks. The effective meaning of that sentence is to completely ignore your complaints. Yes, obviously everyone should get what they ordered, but most people already do.
Or, to put it another way: when I say “black lives matter!” I am specifically addressing an inequality in the system: the fact that black lives, by and large, don’t seem to matter, at least not in the way white lives do. If your response is “all lives matter!” you have at best missed the point and at worst are trying to deflect from it. Yes, of course all lives matter, but right now we’re trying to pay special attention to black lives because that’s the point where “all lives matter” seems to be breaking down. It’s like wondering why there’s no such thing as a straight pride parade - you completely miss the point of the exercise, and at this point in the conversation it’s entirely reasonable to assume that you’ve either just stumbled into the room for the first time, or you’re doing it on purpose.
This is what happens when you blindly play semantics with absolutely no attempt to understand the context; the equivalent of wondering why they’d need a plane in wood shop because you couldn’t fit a Cessna through the door.
Or, to put it another another way: when I say “#BlackLivesMatter”, I am referring to a specific set of circumstances. I’m talking specifically about the problems African-Americans have where they are marginalized, their lives are seen as worth less than that of Caucasians, and they face systemic racism on a constant basis. When you respond with “#AllLivesMatter”, what, exactly are you trying to say in response? Yes, I know all lives matter, but what does that have to do with the conversation we’re having? It’d be like responding with “#GettingVaccinatedMatters” for all the relevance it has to the discussion. We all know it matters, but it has fuck-all to do with what we’re talking about.
This is the context behind “all lives matter” that you need to understand, ITR and everyone else who just doesn’t get it. It’s a response to a conversation that has nothing to do with what the conversation is talking about… Unless you assume that it’s meant as that dismissive, “Everyone matters, stop getting all pissy about just black/muslim/trans people”. And, surprise surprise, that’s exactly the context it almost always gets used in.
It is a great idea to increase the number of inner city black deaths. By what I am reading in the news, seems to be working for them.
I despise them and openly taunt the protestors. I think their actions are usually foolish and have alienated people on the center left, such as myself. Especially the silly protests they organize to tell me to ’ check my white privilege’ or other such nonsense. Interrupting CTA train rides, the Pride Parade, or brunch in restaurants is highly counter productive to their cause.
If anything, this should lead to disgust and outrage at the police. If they’re willing to shirk their duty because they can’t indiscriminately shoot black people, they should not be cops!
I’m sorry that your convenience is disrupted by their protests over not receiving basic human decency from law enforcement.
The people who say all lives matter are agreeing with you that black lives matter and appealing to a common humanity.
If black lives don’'t seem to matter than who should the complaints be directed at? In your analogy my wife is correct that everyone should receive what they ordered and if I did not get what I ordered I should complain to the waitron and not make blanket philosophical statements to my wife.
Look at the statistics, in 2012 the last year good statistics have been published for, there were 2,648 black people murdered. White people committed 7.3% of those murders. White people are 75% of the country. That means that the danger of a black person being murdered by another black person is forty five times the danger of a black person being murdered by a white person. Yet the Black lives matter people are targeting brunch places and college campuses. That seems to suggest that it is less about wanting to protect black lives and more about the fun of epater les bourgeoisie.