Heh. While we’re posting corrections and retractions, I should note that I accidentally described that VA nurses’ rally as “last month’s” rather than “last year’s”.
Heh. While we’re posting corrections and retractions, I should note that I accidentally described that VA nurses’ rally as “last month’s” rather than “last year’s”.
- Most humans are not reasonable. We are whirling balls of neurosis, insecurity, fear and emotion. We want validation and acceptance and fear judgement and exclusion. The large majority of us of feel we deserve more respect than we get. Whether or not these emotions are justified is largely irrelevant.
Smart leaders know this, and use it to their advantage.
- I have zero idea about the specifics of the VA dispute, but to the extent there are also janitors and radiologists etc. at the same hospital who also felt underpaid and disrespected (likely), I think it’s probable that a nonzero number of them were turned off by any rhetoric implying only nurses had problems; the greater the implication, the greater the turn off. People driving by, with no relation to the nurse or hospital, wouldn’t be influenced because the whole thing is mostly not their business.
Smart unions know this, which is why they strive for solidarity among all workers.
And when it comes to race, nobody is an uninvolved bystander.
If you require mind-reading in order to identify a racist act, then you are part of the problem. Racists do not announce “I am now committing a racially motivated act.” Hell, even David Duke says he isn’t a racist.
We don’t need to read minds. We know that black people are disproportionately subjected to violence and lethal force for disproportionately minor crimes compared to everyone else. We know a white man wouldn’t have gotten an illegal, lethal neck-hold for passing a fake $20 bill. This is abundantly sufficient to establish that this was racism.
I’ve never used heroin either.
I don’t need to use something to witness its horrible effects. Twitter conveys “communication” the same way as words scratched into a toilet stall.
Well, as a centrist (except on this board where I’m a rabid right wing Trump supporter, apparently :p) I have to say that this sort of thing doesn’t really bother me all that much. It’s certainly not the point where the left loses me, and I don’t necessarily associate this (BLM) with the US ‘left’ necessary, though obviously they are sympathetic to it. I think this is part of the larger racial equality movement that really started to gain momentum in the US in the 60’s and has been pushing for equality since them. We still have a long way to go, and I see BLM type stuff as frustration with the speed it’s happening…or not happening.
JMHO and all, but the things that bug me personally about the left don’t include this. YMMV of course.
You have anecdotal evidence that people were butt-hurt over nurses saying that they deserved respect, that veterans deserved quality care?
Sadly, I believe that people could be that shallow and self centered.
So, always play to the lowest common denominator.
Yes, leaders like Hitler, Pol Pot, Putin. They know how to take advantage of their people’s insecurities to pit them against eachother.
So long as the people are fighting eachother, they don’t have time to address their concerns to the government.
“Smart” leaders are very good at the “Lets you and him fight!” rhetoric.
There is a possibility that a non-zero number of them chose to take exception to it. Like you said, people do stupid things.
What would make it much more likely than the individual seeing that and saying, “Hey now wait, that person is marching for nurses, why isn’t anyone marching for me?” is when a “smart” leader tells them that this is the case and sics them on the people who are trying to address the actual issues.
I don’t know.
If you look at this you see that they are not being as comprehensive as you would like.
One person has a sign that says, “Protect Worker Rights”, implying that he doesn’t give a shit about anyone else’s rights, one has a sign that says, “Save the middle class” which implies that she wants all other classes condemned, and a couple with signs that say “Don’t tread on Me”, so what he is saying is that he wants everyone else to be tread upon.
As a white guy, I’m not sure I agree. The only involvement I have with race is what I choose to be involved in. I have the privilege of not actually having to worry about it. I could go entire days, weeks, or even months without even thinking about race.
I’m not worried that if we start valuing the lives of black people, that we will stop valuing the lives of white folk. I’m not worried that we will get to equality by treating white people the way that we treat black people.
Hey, if your point is that many people are influenced by systemic racism preying on their natural insecurities to respond irrationally to the slogan “Black Lives Matter” as though it were somehow a threat to them, and that we need to recognize and engage with that irrationality in order to advance BLM, I don’t disagree.
But you seemed to be arguing that BLM activists need to pander to racism-driven irrationality in order not to “alienate” those people. That they should change their slogan to avoid disturbing white-privileged expectations of being acknowledged and deferred to even in situations where other people are rightfully the focus of attention.
That’s where you and I part company. I recognize the necessity of engaging with irrational racist prejudices, but I don’t agree that they ought to be pandered to and protected from discomfort. The upsetting and destabilizing influence of discomfort is ultimately what’s necessary to get people to question their irrational racist prejudices.
So I’m all in favor of identifying and analyzing irrational racist prejudices, explaining what’s wrong with them and pointing out their inconsistencies, as in the discrepancy between non-nurses’ reactions to signs saying “VA NURSES DESERVE RESPECT” and many white people’s reactions to signs saying “BLACK LIVES MATTER”. But that doesn’t mean that activism ought to be tiptoeing around irrational racist prejudices, adjusting its language so as not to risk triggering them, or pretending that they’re not cowardly and irrational. That sort of infantilizing coddling treatment is no good in the long run either for the cause of activism or the people whose irrational racist prejudices are triggered by the activism.
But then your acronym would be BLAM. Weirdly fitting, but probably not the tone you want to set.
Actually, not even the first part of it reads to me like a man responding to somebody he likes.
It reads to me like somebody ticked off because the other person had dropped contact.
Language is a funny thing. But this guy is an announcer; isn’t it his job to understand how he’s likely to be heard? And he’s an announcer for an NBA team. It seems unlikely to me that he didn’t understand the connotations of responding to ‘all lives matter’ with ‘black lives matter’.
Not any more. He resigned and parted ways with his radio station. This wasn’t just a poorly worded tweet.
There’s nothing wrong with the slogan “Black Lives Matter”. It’s perfectly clear. Anyone who is unclear about it is either too stupid to live or a racist. Any phrase that caught on would’ve ended up “problematic” because this is what racists do. You want evidence? Look at what they did to the perfectly clear phrase “Black Lives Matter”.
I guess we all don’t remember when the Right declared calls for ‘gay rights’ to actually be calls for ‘special’ rights for ‘gays’?
(Where the special ‘right’ was to be treated like everyone else.)
This is a very old page out their playbook and it’s embarrassing that anyone still falls for it.
CMC fnord!
Heh, I’m old enough to remember when they started denouncing “Women’s Lib” as a movement for “special rights”.
Curse that minority!
The slogan may or may not have anything wrong with it. This attitude defending it though is however crap and works against making any actual progress.
The goal of any social action or political movement is to actually accomplish systemic and structural change, not just to be able to count yourself as “a good guy” and to pat each other on the back about that.
That means more than more intense support among those who already strongly support the changes. It requires widening the support as well.
It is simply untrue that all who are unclear about it are either too stupid to live or racist. Yeah saying that may give you a chance to posture your moral or intellectual superiority, to feel good about being righteously indignant, and get some likes from others who already explicitly endorse prioritizing the needed structural changes … but it actively and aggressively disinvites the new and even some current allies that actually accomplishing change will require.
THAT’S stupid.
This amounts to “stop being mean to racists.” No matter what you say, the people who don’t want change will find a way to criticize your tactics. Tone policing.
“You can’t bring change by destroying property.”
Okay, peaceful protest.
“You can’t bring change by disrespecting the flag.”
This is all just playing into the hands of the people who don’t want to face their role in an unjust system, who don’t want change, and don’t want to be confronted with the suffering and despair that is happening.
It’s bullshit.
If you can’t get behind a simple, clear, true statement like “Black Lives Matter,” it means you are trying not to get behind it. There’s no innocent misunderstanding here.
Your contention is that the phrase “Black Lives Matter” itself pushes away people who otherwise endorse the movement? I am actually shocked by this opinion and I personally couldn’t think of a single example of this. All I can think is that the BLM movement itself has done some things like protest/disrupt political rallies for Democrats and may give rise to some of the sentiment to not vote for either major party, but I couldn’t name a single public figure who supports making changes to racial hierarchies in American society and biases in American policing but is turned away by the phrase.
There ARE a fair number of less highly educated whites and non-Black minorities who feel that they do not matter in this society. Some may be racist to varying degrees, some not.
If it makes you feel better to lump them all as racist hood wearers and “enemy” because they’d be more likely to be allies if they hear that they matter too, go at it.
I’d rather have their votes at every level of governance supporting the needed systemic and structural changes.
str8cashhomie - no, I have no beef with the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” I have an issue with the labelling as racist (or “too stupid to live”) any and every person (potential voter) who does, or who is willing to endorse both “Black Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter” affirmatively.
:dubious: Why aren’t all these easily miffed non-black people also complaining about the lack of attention to their own value as human beings in slogans and demonstrations for other causes, such as the aforementioned demonstration for veterans’ healthcare and rally to save the bees? I mean, I know k9bfriender is out there counterprotesting them, 
but AFAICT he’s the only one.
Why is it only in the case of a political cause specifically upholding the human rights of black people that we get this great outpouring of hurt feelings and solicitude about the movement not sufficiently acknowledging the equal importance of other causes?
IMO this unique discomfort with asserting the basic value of black people, and requiring special reassurance about the value of non-black people before being able to express that solidarity with black people, is itself a manifestation of the influence of systemic racism.
No, I don’t believe that everybody who is uncomfortable with agreeing that “Black Lives Matter” is necessarily a conscious racist or supports explicitly racist views. And of course I don’t advocate calling them “racist hood wearers” or “too stupid to live”, or even “pathetic twerps”, etc., in direct communication with them, at least as long as they haven’t shown any other indications of being outright racist assholes.
But I strongly disagree with your position that their discomfort with unqualifiedly asserting the basic value of black people ought to be coddled or pandered to with special reassurances and deferential affirmations of their own importance. Nor do I believe your unsupported assertion that such coddling will really accomplish anything in the way of making them reliable “allies” of the BLM movement.
Face it: Any kind of movement affirming the basic rights and value of black people in the US is going to make a great many white people feel vaguely distressed and uncomfortable, and there will always be some nitpicking criticism that they can seize on to account for their feelings of distress and discomfort. I don’t think it will ultimately help them, the BLM cause, or anybody else to be constantly trying to accommodate that reaction with incessant soothing and tweaking of the language of solidarity.
In the last analysis, if a white person is incapable of unqualifiedly affirming that “Black Lives Matter”, it’s most likely not the mere wording of the slogan that is really bothering them.