Your logic is impeccable. I’m here for an honest discussion; care to tell me what exactly is wrong with asking that protest energy be focused on helping people not be killed for no fucking reason?
I will drink the blood of every man, woman and child who plays in the NFL!
Oh, and if you think that the statues thing was the point of my post, I’m afraid you’ve missed it entirely. It was an example. The point, if I haven’t said it enough, is that I believe that the massive outpour of caring and energy and just general human sympathy for the cause of basic human rights would be better focused on helping people not to die, than things that are not that. I suppose that makes me an evil racist bastard, somehow. That attitude is exactly what I’m talking about. At the rate that you guys are intent on driving away people who essentially agree with you about the fundamentals of human justice, you’re lucky that the other side is essentially pure evil and I wouldn’t touch them with a hundred-foot pole. Because you’re really doing a great job of trying to get people to vote R.
‘They’ have refused ‘our’ help to keep themselves from dying.
CMC
CMC, I apologize for calling you a moron. You are a good person who cares about the rights and feelings of your fellow man. I hope you recognize that I am, too.
zoid, I’m sorry you feel that way. I am genuinely trying to advocate for what I feel will make the world a better place for all humans to live. I honestly don’t think I’m an idiot. If you think I am, please help me to understand why.
The “white guys don’t get opinions” thing was misguided. I shouldn’t have posted it. I retract it and sincerely apologize.
I still stand by my main point. Attacking police brutality resulted in actual change that will prevent harm and save lives. Attacking statues resulted in some inanimate objects that represented atrocities not being there anymore, which is not a bad thing, but did not prevent any physical harm or save any lives. Attacking NFL players, and people who failed to attack NFL players, is just stupid. No one cares what NFL players think about anything, and no one thinks that quoting Hitler is a good idea. Except DeSean Jackson, but he’s just an idiot.
I really, genuinely want to make Social Justice great again. It’s a wonderful concept. My favorite comedian, Steve Hofstetter, likes to call himself an SJW, and if his concept of social justice was what was meant when everyone used the term, I would be proud to fight and die by his side to defend it. I don’t advocate for Confederate statues. I advocate to prevent the needless torture and death of minorities, and the sick and poor, and the people at large. I am not your enemy. Deciding that I am based on what I’ve posted here is exactly what needs to stop.
It doesn’t make you a racist it makes you self righteous. “You’re not doing it right, you should be more considerate of those who are trying to help you, you’re gonna scare us off!”
We get that you’re sympathetic, and your opinions as to how it makes you feel are just as valid as anyone’s opinions. But if you would be scared off by some who pull down statues or demand that sports teams change their names or any other that you deem is a waste of energy, then you don’t really understand what’s going on and where never really on our side to begin with.
Him, his peers, his followers. No one should care, big difference. If we don’t attack professional athletes for their stupid opinions, we give them the respectability they think they deserve.
Well, that’s the thing. I’m not “scared off” by people who pull down statues. They’re doing something I agree with. I just think it’s a bad use of their time. I’m in favor of the Redskins changing their name; I think you misread that part of my post.
As an example, I think a good use of protester time would be to contact your local and national representatives and advocate for the removal of institutionally racist organizations and policies. Once you do that, the racist iconography will be removed as a matter of course, along with the infinitely more important destruction of everyday actions that hurt people and defy the basic human rights of safety and personal dignity.
I’m not “scared off” by people who pull down statues. I think they’re misguided. Statues don’t move. Statues don’t beat people. Statues don’t deny people healthcare because they can’t afford it. Statues don’t run people down with cars. Statues don’t deny people the right to earn a basic living because they don’t want them “taking our jobs.” Statues make people sad because they represent a time when we were a lot more evil and ignorant than we are now, and that’s bad. But, holy shit, to say it again, people are fucking dying. They’re dying. Care about that. That is the important thing. Statues can wait. They really, really can.
And again, not that it seems to be doing much good to say it, but statues are not the point. Focus on helping people to stay alive. Focus on legislation that changes institutional racism. Focus on healthcare. Focus on things that help people now, today. If your energy and your caring can help one person to stay alive, then you have done a good thing.
And don’t ever fucking imply that I’m not on the side of humanity. I know you added a qualifier, but if that’s what you think, then fuck you. If you understand that that’s not what I’m about, then that “fuck you” isn’t directed at you. I care about people. That’s the point of this post.
Edit: I just got where that “if you’re scared off” thing was coming from. I’m not saying that the people attacking symbols would lead someone to vote Republican. I’m saying that telling anyone who disagrees with anything you think that they must be an evil racist shitstain does that. The reactionary bullshit is bad. Stop doing it.
Why can’t we do that and the other stuff too?
To quote myself:
Also:
Here’s the thing, not everyone who wants systemic racist brutality to stop has the time or ability to go become a lawyer and/or a politician to bring lawsuits or legislation to the table to institute change. But absolutely anyone who can get out of their home CAN go out and march and pull down statues. "Why can’t they focus their efforts elsewhere " is fucking garbage reasoning.
So, Roland, is this your point: that attempts to do multiple social justice things generates attention that sucks oxygen away from the social justice thing[s] that you feel are more immediately crucial?
Yeah, that would be garbage reasoning, which is why I didn’t use it. I would enjoy you pointing out anywhere where I said, or implied, that anyone ought to become a lawyer or politician. I advocated contacting your local representatives and being active in protests involving immediately relevant social justice issues rather than focusing on virtue-signaling attacks on inanimate objects. Absolutely anyone can do that. Nice strawman, though.
When? 'Cause I’m seeing a whole lot of resistance to the thought of removing it.
CMC
I don’t have the credentials of the OP but would like to thank him for this much-needed thread.
My 2 cents:
Many social-justice activists do not understand that it is possible to argue for the right thing, in the wrong way. (A phenomenon also present in many marital disputes, family quarrels, workplaces, politics, all sorts of other situations as well.) It is perfectly possible to promote a cause in a way that inadvertently backfires rather than helps. But when you tell them that their way of arguing is backfiring, they think you are saying that their cause is bad, not that their tactics are bad.
Almost there. I’m advocating against wasting energy on things that do not immediately hurt anyone in favor of opposing things that do. Again, the protests against police brutality and racism have saved lives and prevented harm. Now. Today. There are people who aren’t beaten and people who aren’t killed because that happened. Legislation to improve the state of policing in various locations will keep people from being beaten TODAY.
This isn’t about my pet project. This is about ANY project that helps people in physical, not emotional, ways. This is about preventing poor people from dying because they can’t afford surgery; preventing black people for dying from existing on the streets in a white neighborhood; preventing a Mexican immigrant family from starving because assholes won’t hire them and we don’t have a working social safety net; preventing people from fucking dying because we’d rather yell at goddamn statues and football players.
There can be multiple problems at once. Those problems need to be prioritized. Yes, I’ve decided that people fucking dying right fucking now are more important than fucking statues. The iron is hot and we need to pound it in the right places to make some needed changes, as we did at the start of all this. I’ve decided that in all of my self-righteous imperious authoritah. I’m right. Prioritize. And stop attacking me for agreeing with you. Fucking hell.
When legislation happens to support advocacy for equality and true social justice. When the United States government, and those of the individual states, make it clear that institutional racism will no longer be tolerated. When people stop attacking the symbols and start attacking the ideas that create them. That’s when. Not before.
Ok, you yourself said you participated in marches. Why DIDN’T you pull down a bad statue while you were at it? People are fucking dying! Why didn’t you commit every scrap of time and money to stopping bad cops from being racist dicks? Because the only outlet for these people, besides voting and donations is to march and pull down statues, and you didn’t do one of them. People who might not have the money to donate, or might not even be able to fucking vote due to…systemic racism.
Well, I mean, for one thing, I was in the middle of Washington, D.C. I guess I could have tried to get a group together to yoink down the Washington Monument since he owned slaves, but, to the point, it didn’t seem like it was worth the effort. But, more directly on subject, people aren’t dying from statues. That’s a pretty good chunk of what I’m saying.
And no, that’s not the only outlet. You can write to your government representatives anytime you like. That’s ostensibly what they’re there for, unless you’ve given up on government to the point where you think that cogently-expressed opinions of the constituency no longer matter.
Obligatory addendum to every post that I am not your enemy. To all my fellow Dopers, do you genuinely think that I’m a closet racist trying to concern troll? Why? What about anything I’ve said makes you think that? I am genuinely trying from the bottom of my heart to understand this, when all that I am asking is to focus your wonderful innate human kindness on ensuring that someone doesn’t get killed tomorrow rather than making sure people aren’t sad. Yes, I think that’s more important. Why is that wrong, and why on Earth does it make me a racist?