Are the actions of BLM wise or foolish?

It is very decent of you to offer an apology. If more of the protesters were as polite, the movement might actually get somewhere.

Polite protests do not have a history of success. Non-violent, yes, sometimes. Polite, no. Protesting is rude and disruptive and that’s why it works. It forces people to take notice.

It does not work. The useless crybaby social justice warriors are narcissistic asswipes who simply want attention or to think they get to stick it to the establishment. The jackass protestors on my train one hot summer night after work probably didn’t expect me to react so angrily , I called each of them every name in the book and I’m glad I saw tears from one of them.

I imagine many people felt similarly about the sit-ins and marches of the Civil Rights Movement: ‘How dare those stupid crybabies occupy the diner and keep me from getting my lunch!’ ‘These jackasses are holding up traffic with their stupid march! I’ll be late to work!’

It worked, though. The fact that you, personally, are not sympathetic to the protestors or their goals does not imply that their action was ineffective, because not everyone is you.

At least I understand that the sit ins were protests against segregation. BLM doesn’t even have a point to their protests. What are they trying to accomplish? They’re similar to the ridiculous Occupy Wall Street nonsense of a few years ago. BLM can claim they’re ‘against racism’ but they don’t have any goals they’re trying to accomplish besides ‘awareness’ Occupy Wall Street failed because a bunch of whiny social justice activists were annoying people with their complaining about big banks and big business, but didn’t really have a goal they were seeking.

This is the opposite of the truth. Read MLK. What the civil rights protesters were doing were targeting the conscience of white voters. The white voters saw the dignity of black people sitting politely at a lunch counter or marching peacefully and being attacked by horrible people with dogs and firehoses. It was obvious from their behavior who was right and who was wrong and which side good people should be on.
In contrast the BLM people are screaming at a bunch of people who have never harmed them. It is likewise easy to see who is in the right in this case.

Well, MLK seemed to have a lot more success with his polite, dignified, & peaceful protests after the rise of groups like the Blank Panther Party & black leaders like Stokely Carmichael. After that, it somehow seemed that MLK was the responsible black leader that they could reason with.

This kind of good-cop, bad-cop scenario might be something useful for the BLM movement to consider.

I worked for feminists too.

Which is great and all, but what does that mean in the context of a response to a movement complaining about racism? Yes, all lives matter. But we all know white lives matter. We all know asian lives matter. We mostly know that hispanic lives matter. Black lives are sort of up in the air, though.

First and foremost? Those in a position of power and authority. Oh look, huge shocker, that’s what they’re directed towards. The police. University deans. Politicians. Seems pretty well on-target to me.

An interesting problem that the black community has been trying to address for some time. Also: completely irrelevant to issues of systematic racism. Stop distracting from the issue.

Have you been paying attention to why they targeted college campuses?

Also, your view of MLK and the civil rights movement has been thoroughly whitewashed. You’d do well to look into that a Little deeper.

Yeah, I know. “We’re getting shot in the streets by authorities, but God forbid we protest that; it might inconvenience and hurt the feelings of white people!”

Yeah, there’s a bit of a disconnect here.

I disagree: these two had independent trajectories, and in fact MLK was in a slump when he was killed

  1. Initial success with the Montgomery Bus Boycott
  2. Phenomenal success with voting rights in the South
  3. Moving north to work on housing, he had his ass handed to him by the Dailey Machine
  4. Drop back and work on a smaller project with the Memphis garbage strike, while contemplating going big again with Vietnam.

No one is saying they worked together. Just that the existence of one allowed the other to be more effective. There’s a reason why Malcolm X is vilified while King is venerated, despite both of them being vital to the cause.

This may be best suited to GD. I’ll relocate the thread.

They’re making a horrible mistake organizing a protest on Black Friday to disrupt shopping on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Besides pissing off people, what else do these crybabies think they’re going to accomplish? The officer that shot the knife wielding teen Laquan McDonald has been charged and awaits trial. His mother (father is either unknown or completely absent) will receive 5 million dollars as restitution. They don’t need to raise ‘awareness,’ everyone over the age of 2 is aware of this shooting.

To make matters worse, the Chicago Teachers Union, who is already threatening yet another senseless strike, is going to be participating. What a wonderful message to send. They’ll be harassing shoppers, many of them tourists, just because of their selfish need to be jerks for the sake of being jerks.

I hope today’s protests are met with jeers and that there are record sales on the Magnificent Mile today.

First off, let’s be clear on something here. The “knife-wielding teen” was walking away from the police when he was shot. Sixteen times.

Despite this dashcam footage being known about, it took a year for this evidence to go public, and for the officer to be charged. A YEAR! The city of Chicago held this under wraps for an entire year, delaying justice for what is a blatantly obvious case of murder. That’s outrageous, and as good a reason as any to protest.

You look at a scenario like this, where it took a full year for a murder caught on video to see justice, where countless similar cases around the country have not seen any measure of justice, and then you talk about the protesters being “crybabies”, “jerks”, “selfish”… You sure you don’t want to call Laquan a “thug” while you’re at it? It’d fill out my bingo sheet.

I’m so, sooooo sorry that a holiday that exists entirely as the bastardized child of a hallmark holiday and Wal-Mart wanting a piece of the action is being interrupted. It’s not like they’re protesting anything important, like 50% off a flatscreen TV. Just, you know, constant and consistent mistreatment by the authorities, institutionalized racism, and unimportant stuff like that. :slight_smile:

And only 14 months after the body turned cold too; gave plenty of time for memories to fade and/or evidence to be ‘misplaced’. Officer even kept his title, job, and salary. Nothing to see here. Anyaknowhat…

[ul]
[li]BLM protesters’ are “making a horrible mistake” according to you (man who doesn’t give a shit about police street executions). [/li][li]BLM should just accept that justice’s wheels are now rolling (said man who takes pride in fighting/abusing/screaming at human rights protesters). [/li][li]They damn well better ‘shut up and stay home’ and not bother my shopping (said man who hates these social justice warriors).[/li][li]“I despise them and openly taunt them” (said man who drinks tears)[/li][li]Everyone who’s smart already knows about it (said man who wants to shop)[/li][li]They should be happy with what they have (said man who needs to SHOP!!!)[/li][*]“They’re alienating me!!!”(said BLdontM Chicagoan)[/ul]

Well, if you’d prefer locking up criminals to shooting them to death, why hasn’t the Democratic leadership of that city mandated that police use tasers to subdue criminals?
Wouldn’t that have been a priority in organizing that community?

Hi, sorry, I’m a little sensitive to loaded language, is there any particular reason you brought up “criminals” in this discussion? Or why you specifically chose the terms “organizing that community”, rather than, I dunno, anything else?

I’ve always despised Karen Lewis, leader of the Chicago Teachers Union. Now I actively hate this shrill, despicable harpy.

“It is time to turn our pain into power,” union president Karen Lewis said. She encouraged union members to take part in the protest to “express their outrage and dignity.”

What pain does this overpaid piece of garbage woman feel? She’s stirring up trouble to help her political ambitions in the next mayoral election.

If I didn’t have to work, I’d be right down on the Mag Mile heckling these idiotic protesters. They just want to stir shit up for the sake of stirring things up.