@enderland I understand that is widely perceived, but frankly much of it is a "I'm so tired of pandering to WHAT ABOUT THE MENZZ that I no longer feel I have to be polite"
well, at least being obnoxious about issues got a tolerant president elected who deeply cares about minority and women's issues /sarcasm (after a mostly-black president)
@enderland "the problem is that none of the situations - either BLM or feminism - do anything but try to blame 100% "the other side"" - couldn't disagree more. Both BLM and feminism offer specific proposals for improvement, one of the first of which is awareness
"Critics and police organizations have portrayed Black Lives Matter as radical, anti-police, and anti-white. But the policies Campaign Zero is pushing are none of those things. Instead, they’re practical, well-thought out, and in most cases, achievable. Most will also directly benefit everyone — not just black people."
How Black poverty and genocide is state violence. How 2.8 million Black people are locked in cages in this country is state violence. How Black women bearing the burden of a relentless assault on our children and our families is state violence. How Black folks living with disabilities and different abilities bear the burden of state sponsored Darwinian experiments that attempt to squeeze us into boxes of normality defined by white supremacy, and that is state violence.
idk. maybe I'm not reading that correctly but those are rather divisive goals but seeing things like that and:
> When we say Black Lives Matter, we are broadening the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. We are talking about the ways in which Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity.
on their official site leaves it hard for me to feel the goals aren't intentionally inflammatory
A few responses to the "tone" question: First (previously mentioned), asking nicer doesn't actually fix the problem, many people still oppose equality. Second: why does "respect my human rights?" need to be asked nicely? Isn't that worth getting loud about?
Regarding those goals, the more I understand about the history of this country, the more I realize those are accurate descriptions, not inflammatory hyperbole
Is it hard to hear about? of course. Is it frankly hard to really believe? In many cases, yes. I'm just fortunate (as a suburb-dwelling white guy) that I didn't have to experience it they way so many black Americans have.
And just because (to pick one example) red-lining in housing is no longer legal, doesn't mean the effects are lost in the sands of history
And as a middle-class suburb-dwelling white guy, I recognize the privilege (to bring in another controversial term) that those bring, through no fault of my own. And that helps me keep perspective when I hear stories from those who grew up in a very different America than the one I did
@BradC people would take you considerably more seriously if you were more action and less talk, which is another common problem that SJW folks have that causes us "bystanders" to not take them seriously
THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER. I EVEN DONATED ONCE!
I'm actually surprised you've done that, nearly everyone who tries to argue this sort of approach hasn't done anything at all
Again, criticizing my level of involvement in a movement to which you are opposed is pretty disingenuous. If I were more involved, would that change your opinion? Surely not.
why wouldn't it? you are passionately arguing something. an even more compelling argument is evidence from your life that you believe it strongly enough to do things
And an issue can be important enough to care about, and even be passionate about, without it meaning I should quit my job and (insert radical action here)
why, because I'm typing on the computer here instead of picking up a sign (which I have)?
There doesn't happen to be a BLM march right now on a Thurs night.
But you can believe I'll be in the anti-Trump march on April 15th!
What if the most effective thing I can do at the moment is keep earning a steady income, so I can continue contributing to the cause? And keep learning, and sharing what I know?
I think we've chased everyone else away. Probably should have opened a BLM/SJW discussion room.
Yeah, workplace.SE! Hey, Workplace.SE, my employee spent all afternoon on chat.SE talking about BLM, should I fire him?
@enderland Sorry, just can't let it die. And yet when people DO march and scream "FIRE FIRE the building is on FIRE" are they actually taken seriously? No, they are called thugs and met by cops in riot gear. There is no "polite" way to say "please stop oppressing me".
MLK: I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice;
who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action";
who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I care far more about people around the world literally starving to death as far as my emotional energy and money go
as far as the BLM convo goes, focusing on the root problems rather than symptoms would make me far more sympathetic to the cause (not to mention the inflammatory attitude which seems to be ok to you, but turns me off entirely)
But an awareness of (say) the legacy of how laws have been (deliberately and explicitly) used to target blacks is necessary background to a discussion of how to fix them.
And if people aren't willing to acknowledge that, despite our documented history, its kind of a non-starter.
If you go back to those 10-point solutions, there are a lot of solid ideas
Of course that is a huge factor, although I'm not certain whether it is the chicken or the egg here, its cyclical. Racial policies deliberately kept blacks in the inner city in poverty.
And a huge set of ideas about racial equality are about economics.
MLK talked about that a LOT if you read his speeches and writings.
@BradC at this point, it doesn't really matter, it is the egg now - you can't change the past and the present state is a fairly dramatic socioeconomic imbalance
@BradC I actually don't think this issue is primarily a racial issue, but more a socioeconomic issue where race plays a role
Still, even if we agreed it was clearly the "cause", that doesn't make it any easier to address. We're talking about a legacy of generations of forced poverty (through racially discriminatory policies).
And even now, programs designed to help people in poverty (health care, food stamps) are hated by one of our two major political parties
honestly I think the single most effective way to begin fixing these problems is converting "free" help into job programs, somewhat like the New Deal
giving someone food stamps and saying "now you're not poor!" doesn't give any self-worth nor does it give them any tools to help them actually leave that situation
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