I have never considered you anywhere close to a centrist, let alone one with a tilt toward the left on any issues.
That’s an interesting phrase.
:rolleyes:
I’m a US liberal and ALM doesn’t bother me. But I don’t agree 100% with all liberal ideas.
Yes, all lives should matter. But in the U.S. of A., black people’s lives are all too often treated as if they didn’t matter, a fact that a number of recent events have highlighted. Which is why it needs to be said loudly and repeatedly that Black Lives Matter. Until the day comes when Black people can take for granted that their lives matter as much as the lives of white people.
And someone covering the NBA should be up on this.
Do some people read “save the rainforest” and assume that means “fuck all other forest”? try reading beyond the literal words, “all lives matter” is the slogan of white supremacists.
Don’t forget: This is the vocabulary of post-rational America we’re dealing with. Maybe “centrist” means half-way between Biden and Clinton (left-wingers) and Sean Hannity and Alex Jones (right-wingers).
It’s possible for someone to say All Lives Matter in a way that isn’t malicious. Maybe ignorant, but not malicious.
I don’t think people should be correcting people in this specific way in either direction: in the rare instance where people say “All Lives Matter” unprompted, the obvious slogan should be piously and wordlessly acceded to in the matter of which lives matter, because they’re equally accurate.
Now, if you had reason to believe that the sloganeer thought you didn’t think some lives mattered, that’s another story. The mere fact of saying BLM makes me wonder, because words are supposed to convey information, and why convey information that you know the listener knows? But it’s silly to think that, even if they are prejudiced enough to think that you don’t believe all lives matter, that they themselves don’t believe it.
Furthermore, suppose that John Doe the activist says “Black Lives Matter” in a BLM March. No problem.
Then suppose he says “Hispanic Lives Matter” in a march in favor of amnesty for illegal immigrants. No problem.
Then he says “Arab Lives Matter” in a march in support of civilians getting killed by drones in Yemen.
Then he says “Gay Lives Matter” in a march for LGBT .
Then…well, you get my drift. He could say Asian Lives Matter, Native American Lives Matter, etc. and nobody would object to him saying that as long as it was in that context…even though the net cumulative effect of saying black, Hispanic, Arab, Asian, etc. lives matter is ultimately the same as saying All Lives Matter.
It’s only when people say ALM in a specific people category context that people get angry.
It may be ridiculous, but it’s also a cunning trap, and I think many liberals (not you, of course, but others) fail to realize that publicly punishing people who say “all lives matter” walks right into that trap. In fact, every time someone is slammed in public for saying All Lives Matter, Trump probably picks up 2 or 3 votes somewhere.
Here’s an analogy I’ve heard. Suppose there’s a large banquet that everyone has paid to get in, and everyone’s been given their meals except for table nine. And they start saying, “Hey, we should be given our meals”, and the reply is “Everyone should be given their meals.”. It’s true, everyone should be given their meals, but it’s incredibly patronizing and ignores the fact that some people haven’t been given their meals, and there seems to be no progress in providing them.
All lives do matter, but it’s kind of irrelevant to the main point, which is that black people are treated as if theirs do not. It’s not solely the fact that George Floyd was killed, it’s how casually he was killed. The cop was just as calm as could be, hands in his pockets, casually looking around. You could tell it wasn’t the first or even the tenth time he’d had a black man on the ground with a knee in his neck. It’ likely the first time he ever killed one that way, but he’d done it before and had grown to enjoy it.
I am astounded that, despite expliations right here in this thread, some otherwise intelligent-seeming people Just.Don’t.Get.It.
So for you wisdom revolves around the most literal interpretation of a three-word sentence. Did it aid your wisdom to diagram the sentence?? To look up the etymologies of each of the three words???
Perhaps YOU should also submit a brief essay demonstrating that you have the slightest clue.
Right, in most contexts I dislike the phrase viscerally because it seems condescending and trite, but I was unexpectedly impressed when I heard it in the context of an actual protest. It’s to the point and not fancied-up into some stupid rhythmic song. It’s not like “please stop discriminating against everyone in the following ways in the future” can be heard very well in a crowd.
- There is no meaningful far left in the United States.
- Lots of former Kings players have come out to say that Napear has been a closet racist for years.
The issue with ‘all lives matter’ is that it is a way to be dismissive of black peoples pain and struggles.
It would be like if you told someone that you were having a migraine and they said dismissively ‘everyone has problems’. They’re invalidating and ignoring your problems by telling you that everyone has issues.
However the people who use phrases like all lives matter generally tend to place their own problems on a very high pedestal. There was no ‘all lives matter’ response from the right when groups like antifa were attacking right wing protesters. The right highly values their own problems and demands that society and the political system respond appropriately when they have an issue (their militia marches on capital buildings for example), but they get enraged when black people discuss their problems and demands society and the political system respond. They want silence from the black community.
For the most part, the right wants black people to shut up and not talk about their problems. If they discuss their problems via peaceful protests (like BLM or NFL protests) they are yelled at and called unpatriotic. If they do it via rioting they are called thugs and criminals. The root issue is the fact that the right would rather black people not discuss their problems or issues, and just slink away into the shadows. The usage of the phrase all lives matter is another way to negate black people’s efforts to discuss their problems in society.
A better and easier to understand phrase is ‘black lives matter too’ because historically black lives haven’t been important. Up until fifty or so years ago, you could kill a black person in the south and nothing would be done about it.
Wouldn’t it be “White Lives Matter” ? Similar to “White Pride” ?
I don’t think the announcer meant it in a racist way at all. It seems like the country may be moving toward another round of McCarthyism, this time hosted by the left instead of the right. And while on the path to root out all of the racists (a good goal, certainly) they’ll crucify those who don’t answer their questions correctly.
This is interesting. So, some people who are still somehow on the fence hear someone chastised for saying “all lives matter” and their thought process is “Some liberal called out a guy for saying ‘all lives matter’. That’s it! I’m voting for Trump!”
Does that sum it up?
All lives matter is the slogan the white supremacists have chosen, because it sounds centrist and reasonable and people eager to find any excuse not to support BLM eat it up. It goes beyond the actual words used.
Sure. As Ann Hedonia said, that’s the whole purpose of the trap. It’s meant to sound perfectly reasonable to someone who doesn’t really understand the phrase’s subtext, but is designed to provoke a public backlash from progressives who do understand it - thus making the progressives appear unreasonable.
You know how some abusers like to do psychological abuse by provoking their partner (or family member) in a way that leads to a public outburst, then immediately play victim so as to garner outsider sympathy? Somewhat similar dynamic at play. By making liberals rage against “all lives matter”, conservatives who say ALM can appear to be the reasonable ones to an unwitting spectator.
I see. So in this analogy, conservatives are the abusers who like to do psychological abuse?
Yes - if they are deliberately playing this as a strategy.
Now, there are some conservatives who genuinely espouse ALM for ALM’s sake without any malice, but that’s different.