Recurring patterns of injustice and the lack of understanding thereof

Great Debates
#1

Something I’ve been thinking about that I thought might be useful to talk through (and refine, with input from y’all). I know I touch upon a lot of related topics and this might be a bit to spread out, but I hope my main line of thought is at least somewhat coherent here.

When minorities protest about racism and police brutality, it’s not just about George Floyd.

When women talk about being sexually harassed, it not just about that guy at work that one time.

When service workers complain about customers, it’s not just about that one Karen on Thursday.

It’s about seeing and having those experiences, day in and day out, every day, for weeks upon months upon years upon decades, and not seeing anybody particularly interested in doing something about it or caring. I don’t see how you can’t at least sympathize a little with “abolish the police” when I’m sure the minorities being argued against hear, “yeah, I know this has happened 5210 times before in the past century, and every single time we’ve said there will be reform and things are still not improved, but THIS TIME we really really REALLY mean it, I swear!” It seems to be the same as the “not all men” reaction (and just as missing the point).

In fact, the police abolishment movement is exactly what made me think about the similarities here with sexual harassment and treatment of minimum wage workers. The inability or refusal to understand that it’s about a decades-long, CONSTANT trend and struggle that never seems to get better, seems to be the source of most of the misunderstanding and frustration in many debates, as previously noted. Of course, as I said in another thread, none of this makes the politics or practicalities any easier to navigate; quite the opposite, by definition. Like with Democrats vs. Trump supporters, it’s like the parties live in different worlds with different facts and rules of physics.

Is there a way to overcome all this? Like, I’m sure that (barring anarchists) most police abolishment advocates would happily ease off their rhetoric if they actually thought that more incremental reform/change was actually going to be done, or even considered in a year’s time, but it’s very clear to me they don’t, for the reasons mentioned above. What can be done, and who’s going to have to do the heavy lifting here?

#2

It’s worse than that, even. We make progress like the frog in the well, taking three steps forward…and then backsliding two steps!

Look at transgender rights: we had one President who protected those rights…and then another President who removed those protections.

We lose ground about as often as we gain it, and progress is herky-jerky.

The only good news is that we do make progress. Things are better now than before. The human species has a kind of blind-spot, and we ignore things until we simply can’t ignore them any more, and then we are spurred to energetic action. It’s just how the species is configured.

So, yeah, it seems awful, but without our Rodney Kings and George Floyds, things don’t change. As Thomas Jefferson said, we need a revolution every so often.

#3

The problem with the straw-that-broke-the-camel’s back dynamic here is that to the people suffering in question, they perceive their problems as a lump sum in totality, whereas outsiders perceive it as only the latest straw. And when people propose something like “abolish the police” due to having hit their “frustration critical mass,” that unfortunately backfires and makes it ***likelier ***that someone like Trump could get reelected which could then set the cause back even further. (Yes, it’s not likely that one issue could get the floundering Trump reelected, but the extreme-sounding nature of “abolish the police” is doing the BLM cause much more harm than good.)

#4

Yes, that’s what I meant about the politics and practicalities being complicated, which is why I asked who should do the “heavy lifting” in trying to bridge this gap of understanding. As I’ve expressed in other threads, it seems to me that because of the weight of history, the status quo system has more responsibility to either earn the trust of the other side, but I welcome other possibilities.

#5

When I was very young, I knew a boy my own age who came home from school the first time he was called ‘nigger’ and tried to wash the black off his skin.

Approximately one black is shot dead by cops every day, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Blacks are constantly being accosted just for being in public places, or sometimes just for being in their own yards.

Recently right here at SDMB, a poster mentioned a white man who had been killed by cops — why was George Floyd so special? Why did only black lives matter? I wanted to puke. Here are some comments about ‘black lives matter’ from a black comedian.

#6

Part of the issue with these two examples is that we’re dealing with two separate large scale issues. There’s the issue of racism against blacks and the issue of police brutality. While the two have a large section in common on a Venn diagram, they are separate issues. My guess is solving the issue of police brutality is actually the more difficult of the two to solve.

#7

Part of the issue with these two examples is that we’re dealing with two separate large scale issues. There’s the issue of racism against blacks and the issue of police brutality. While the two have a large section in common on a Venn diagram, they are separate issues. My guess is solving the issue of police brutality is actually the more difficult of the two to solve.