And if you can’t click the link, imagine a firefighter spraying water on another house when yours is burning down, because “all houses matter”. That’s basically the gist of it. If you haven’t figured it out after 4 pages, it’s because you don’t want to.
I find it oddly asymmetric for so much thought and explanation to go into what “Black Lives Matter” means, such as the dinner table analogy, yet almost none is going in to understanding what “All Lives Matter” means. I have two hypotheses:
It means “I hear and am affirming what you say. However, I find it needlessly divisive. Therefore, I’ll make an expanding statement that encompasses the point you make, but expands the core principle in a pluralistic way. But I agree with your sentiment, and I will likely support the same policy prescriptions as you. Ergo: all lives matter.”
“Black lives matter” as a statement is almost completely non-controversial in 2015. Only those with an almost cartoonishly racist world-view would disagree. However, we live in an era of extreme political polarization. A number of pundits make entire careers out of saying the most controversial things possible. When an entire political movement is being made around the slogan “black lives matter”, there is a natural inclination to interpret it in a way that makes it controversial. “Black lives matter, too” is still not controversial. Therefore, some people interpret it as “Only black lives matter”, and “All lives matter” is a direct contradiction of this sentiment. When “all lives matter” is met with boos are reassertions that “black lives matter” is the only correct thing to say, it alienates those with this read on the language, and confirms their belief that the two statements are taking opposite sides.
I largely see this dispute as one around language, where two sides are mostly talking past each other. And I don’t think it’s reasonable to assign blame. The “all lives matter” crew should try to understand what “black lives matter” means, and the dinner table analogy is a good one for elucidation. However, the “black lives matter” crew needs to understand that the slogan isn’t being heard that way by a large portion of the audience. Demonizing the “all lives matter” response without understanding it is equally irresponsible.
@ Do Not Taunt: That’s pure horseshit. There’s no talking past going on, and this is not a both sides doing it situation. The all lives matter folks are simply those who are against making changes to the status quo.
“Black lives matter” is not polarizing. Institutional racism is fucking polarizing. Observing and critiquing institutional racism simply cannot be polarizing. It makes no sense.
I’ve met too many people who are reasonable, rational people whose initial reactions have been supportive or akin to “all lives matter” to believe this. Maybe they’re just all “white supremacist liberals”, but I doubt it.
I would offer a tentative 3rd way to take it, namely
“I perfectly understand the message and the plight behind it, I simply want to dismiss it while looking like I have the moral high ground and trying to make you look like you’re saying something you aren’t. Also I’m a disingenuous ass.”
(1) 33% clueless folks who didn’t take even 30 seconds to consider the import of changing the slogan to “all lives matter”
(2) 20% overly defensive white folks who feel challenged by black mobilizing and genuinely read the slogan to mean “only black lives matter”
(3) 47% (just for Romney) folks who understand the message, don’t like it, and want to diss it without being open about the fact that they just don’t care about police violence
Are you a pollster? How could you have talked about this with so many people so soon?
initial reactions have been supportive or akin to “all lives matter”
This is a miasma of nothingness.
What exact kind of reaction would this be? What context are you talking about? If you don’t believe in a racist history of the USA then you are allowed to just say so.
“Everyone” is never a factual claim of course. But a large majority ? On Twitter/Facebook at least, I’d say it’s extremely likely. It’s a toss-up between that and simply rebleeting what Fox News or some other sneering RW pundit crapped out that day without thinking about it. Or anything much.
I’ve yet to meet one of your “reasonable, rational people” who fit in case #1 (which is silly anyway, for reasons already clarified).
I’m not a heavy Twitter/Facebook user, so perhaps that explains some of the difference in experiences.
In the offline world, I think this is fairly common. As another datapoint, it was alluded to upthread that the Reddit thread in which the dinner table analogy was posed, that many posters described it as illuminating. So imagine that mindset, but minus having read the Reddit thread or had it summarized for them.
The reason why people saying “all lives matter” as a response are tone deaf is that for the most part police treat whites as if white lives matter. The average white person doesn’t get pulled over a lot, and when they do commit an infraction for the most part get treated with more respect than black people, from what I’m hearing. I do in the rare cases I get pulled over.
When I was in college, in Boston, I got pulled over all the time for the sins of having long hair and driving a big car. Yet I never felt fear - it was a long time ago and while the cops liked to hassle us we were still white. And might have connections.
So we’ve won the white lives matter fight already. Black lives matter focuses on the problem.
Let’s say that I’ve from wondering about the reason anyone attacks people for saying “all lives matter”, to wondering why anyone acts on such a weak reason and uses it to justify actions that are obviously counterproductive.
Any movement, to succee, must attract people to its side rather than driving people away. Launching attacks and disrupting speeches in a dispute about word choice drives people away. Calling people white supremacists when they aren’t drives people away. Shoving Bernie Sanders drives people away. Are the activists simply too dumb to understand that?
But let’s say it’s occupied Europe 1943. Someone, appalled by the Holocaust, says “You shouldn’t kill Jews.” Then some smug condescending douchebag with an over inflated sense of his intelligence–not like anyone in this thread, I hasten to add!–says “You shouldn’t kill anyone!” (I leave you to imagine the smarmy emphasis that is put upon the word anyone.) You really can’t see how that person is missing the point? Really?
They’re college kids. So yes, I’d deem it likely.
But then, using those two (2) chicks to try and demonize the entire, global movement with your trademark po-faced candid innocence is pretty scummy and drives people away from your side as well. So there’s that.
The co-founder of BLM is in full support of those two (2) chicks:
Mara Jacqueline and Marissa Jenae deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. They are apart of BLM. I support them in their leadership. Please discontinue harming them through social media. If you have questions about what Black Lives Matter’s does. Please message me. I’m tired of folks not being principled or just hateful for no good reason.
BLM did not circulate a petition asking for an apology. We are not circulating articles that are slandering these women’s names. Cut this shit out, yall.
I’m not at all sure that the Central Committee of the BLM Movement ever made a decision to recruit “chicks” with the required “…trademark po-faced candid innocence…”.