Yes my knowledge of Civil Rights History does tell me that. But I know police officers and relatives of police officers who find it disrespectful. So I’m assuming some people find it disrespectful of police officers.
I would think that they are concerned that they or their loved ones have their lives on the line, and some of the second guessing that has happened in these cases has not been helpful to the safety of the cops (Jamar Clark, for example). Since I’m in the Twin Cities - that one was very divisive.
I get it, I understand why the movement exists - and it should exist. I find the slogan divisive - because I have friends who are good, decent, non-racist human beings who find it offensive. Because THEY don’t get it. And then people go and tell them they are racists? Like that’s going to convince them of anything. That shuts down the conversation - and makes the BLM people - especially the white BLM people, come across as holier than thou jerks.
We (people who fight racism) need to capture the middle - those that aren’t quite there yet or think the problem has been solved. You don’t do that by calling people racist or lecturing them - unless they ask to be educated.
I wouldn’t call them racists either – but responding to “black lives matter” with “all lives matter” is thoughtless and ignorant at best, and racist statements are often (maybe even usually) founded in thoughtlessness and ignorance. They should be criticized if they respond this way. Harsh criticism works for some, and more gentle explanations work for others. I won’t begrudge anyone from using different tactics for speaking truth than I do, since they all can work in various situations.
I don’t believe this is one of those issues that’s tough to figure out. IMO, those who haven’t figured it out yet probably aren’t particularly interested in figuring it out.
The “sins” of the progressives in the US are, typically, annoying but basically cosmetic matters, as far as most political moderates are concerned (sorry folks, but they are annoying): things like absolute insistence that if you don’t accept the ever-changing trends in progressive use of language and sloganeering, you must be some variety of bigot.
However, the “sins” of the right in the US are not (or ought not) to be considered mere cosmetic matters by political moderates–they are truly dangerous to the continued health of the republic.
Given those facts, it makes no sense for moderates to allow mere annoyance at the gadfly tactics of some progressives to influence them to accept the far more dangerous, not to mention morally abhorrent, tactics of the current political right.
Perhaps they aren’t, but lets not piss people off by calling them Racists because they haven’t figured it out yet and aren’t particularly interested in figuring it out in between driving their kids to soccer and getting the bills paid and taking care of their aging parents. Maybe its white privilege to not have to worry about it - but its the reality of people’s lives that they don’t. That doesn’t make them bad people any more than I am because I’m not too worried about Ebola outbreaks in Africa. (We should solve that, we should put money there, but its fairly low on my things to worry about right now meter with teenagers and aging parents and in laws and getting a company going and a missing cat and a new puppy and…)
I’d be fine with Black Lives Matter as a slogan if the response to “All Lives Matter” wasn’t “you are a racist” and instead was “you are right, all lives matter, but right now, I’m talking about what seems to be extreme policing against black men.” Instead, we throw around the racist word, as if that’s going to convince people. No one is going to be convinced by calling them a racist.
Wrong. If they had simply shut up and accepted that the world around them is changing, perhaps you’d have a point.
They didn’t. They stood up and attacked. They can’t even be excused by ignorance, because people have explained a million times why they are wrong. They’re saying these things because they believe them.
Let’s piss them off. Better yet, let’s crush them, their politics, their beliefs, their stupidity, their bigotry, their intolerance, their hatred. Make them understand they have actively allied themselves with the worst part of American history, our country’s national shame since the beginning. They grabbed that mantle, waved it around their heads, and went out into the street to show it off. We aren’t to blame for pointing that out.
Great, fine, you want to lose an election because you want to think that everyone who doesn’t participate in your group think is evil and bad - and tell them that. That’s a great way to get change.
I’m not sure I understand your statement, but I think you’re asking what would be different in a world where forty percent of people were actual, deliberate racists and sexists.
The straightforward answer is; it wouldn’t be 2016, not in the sense we understand it. Society would look and behave more like it did in 1885.
Could you explain it to them if they don’t get it? Why “Black Lives Matter” is not racist and “All Lives Matter” is? There’s been a few good explanations already on these boards, that one some FB user posted with the dad and the kid having dinner is easy to imagine, digest, and understand. If a sane person still doesn’t get it after that, well, maybe they are kinda racist
Change is happening regardless. I’m saying they won’t listen because they have proved it by not listening. Every election matters, not just the presidency. (How’s that for irony?) And Trump is not going to win, even though he panders to your friends the bigots.
I really hope he doesn’t. But I really hope that the left stops considering everyone who doesn’t use their language “bigots” because calling people names because they don’t use your preferred language is no way to win friends and influence people.
Let’s be clear - I am not talking about white sheet wearing racists. I’m talking about white suburban soccer moms. Guys in their 50s who are happy to work along side black people, but really don’t bother to think about how different their lives are when confronted with a police officer or a job interview. People who live in rural Midwestern America where there aren’t a lot of black people - but there is a lot of poverty.
Anyway, back to the op … the ADD afflicted NowCast is now at over 85% Clinton (from 55% Trump a week ago) and the less excitable PollsPlus is up to 68% Clinton, not the highest its been. Wang’s odds (both random drift and Bayesian) have hardly budged as there have been few of the state polls his system heavily depends on.
So while we wait for more state polls and see how things settle on the other side of the Olympics (and another potential for a reset by Trump) maybe someone has an opinion and the comparable “priors” systems of Silver and Wang?
PollsPlus (Silver) assumes that economic fundamentals weigh this race to being close; IOW “priors” in the Bayesian sense is a close race
“Bayesian” (Wang) uses no fundamentals but assumes that the final result is more likely to stay within 1 S.D. of past variation from longer term polling averages, i.e. longer term polling averages are its “priors”.
Does one set of priors make more sense than the other to our Teeming Millions?
The problem is that I don’t agree with the statement. I don’t think the statement All Lives Matter IS racist. I think its an acknowledgement that all life is worthy of respect. I think it can be used in a racist manner, but it isn’t an inherently racist statement. And if you don’t get THAT then there isn’t anything I can do.
And yes, I’ve heard the explanations, and I don’t agree with them. ALL lives are worthy of respect. No buts. No hidden “alsos”
That doesn’t mean I don’t agree that we need solutions for police violence and the targeting of black men in particular. That doesn’t mean I don’t see myself as someone operating out of a position of privilege. It means that my interpretation of the language is that its very important that ALL LIVES DO MATTER - no buts. No implication of anything else.
By the way, most of my “bigoted” friends closed down I94. My close friends are all heavily invested in the movement. I’m a UU afterall. But I know a lot of people across the political spectrum, and I see my leftist friends being really out of touch and really in their own echo chamber on how they sound to outsiders.
Seriously guys, could you start a BLM thread or bump one of the dozen already around?
What I don’t get: Aren’t “economic fundamentals” baked in to the polls already? If people are less likely to vote for an incumbent during a bad economy, don’t they poll that way too? So I don’t see why there is a need to “plus” that into your number crunching.