The Problem with Black Lives Matter

First of all I wanted to post this because I thought it was awesome: https://kotaku.com/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-adds-black-lives-matter-me-1843919594

I have critiques of BLM. I have critiques about the popular perceptions of racism and race relations in the USA. The message that I believe is the most important right now is “The Problem With Law Enforcement In America and How Do We Fix It?”

I dont believe that now is the time to talk about whats wrong with BLM. I think right now, in this moment, we should be saying “All Lives Cant Matter Until Black Lives Mater”

I got a lot to say that youre not gonna like but i love you and i want your life to be respected.

Also, here is a compelling speech by an impressive individual

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbj0oZYucKs

I'm sure there's all sorts of good feels and top notch people involved.

Purely emotional response, but when I see all the BLM or related activities, the efforts that various corporations are making to note their support, the issues and discussions being raised....All I see is "American Lives Matter"

On one hand, All Lives Matter, probably....

On the other hand, the USA has a remarkable history of turning on allies and being shamelessly self serving. The USA has treated both enemies and allies with contempt, that's their prerogative I suppose, but to expect to reach out and find compassion when the nation implodes?

Well, it might take a bit to melt my....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L55XO3P-oIo




What, did you "citizens" think you were special? That "Oh, my country might treats others like garbage, but it would never do that to me?"

I've got a bridge for sale...if you're interested.....



Edit: I thought the above sounded a bit uncharitable, so please don't take it too harshly, I offer it as...perspective, as to the problems within the state, and why some areas within that state have such deep and complex issues.

ZealotX wrote: I don't understand your logic. If it makes sense to you please help me to see how it is making sense to you. I want to understand you.

I'm not pretending to be trying to protect, instead the protecting is the product... the result. I'm coming at this from the process of changing the way things work to progress things, not the emotive demanding expecting change to occur. Change management demands more then perfunctory idealism as effort needs to be enduring and effective. Do you expect protesting can continue until there is no longer a racist person in the US? It's just unrealistic to expect some types of change to be instantaneous.... it needs to progress from A to Z. That's the only difference I can see between your approach and mine, you seem to be defending a narrative of worth and rights, where I'm so beyond that it's not even included. If you can get past the type of discrimination, then you can instead focus on the discrimination - because discrimination tends to be the same action no matter the type. As unfortunately it's not a leap for some to move past their bigotry on a path to what we think should be obvious... and also different people are at different places to begin that. It's not black and white obviously, as different sorts of actions have different sorts of effects, but the narrative of race is really irrelevant to the actions against discrimination beyond understanding how its occurring so not to miss it... much like the extent of suffering from discrimination matters less to me then the fact that it exists at all! I'm talking about cutting the head off so the body dies, while you seem to be talking about the wrestling the body because its there. Either way the thing still wriggles long after it should be a goner. But perhaps like you, I don't seem to understand how you weigh your logic, so feel free to clarify.

Bro, I'm still struggling trying to understand what you're saying. You seem to be suggesting that there is a way to counter discrimination in all forms without mentioning the actual forms.

If I invited you to dinner and asked what you had an appetite for, and you said "food." I'd be like "okay, that's implied, but what kind of food?" and we'd be locked in an endless back and forth between a vague generality and seeking specifics. And I would eventually get irritated even though you were being honest and well meaning.

What's your favorite food? Let's hypothetically say your favorite food was pizza. If you ask for food every time you're hungry you may NEVER get pizza. Do you see?

If I want pizza I go to a place that serves pizza. If I want a particular issue addressed? I talk about that particular issue. Because if you say America has no discrimination problem, you could say that if you considered how many things no one discriminates against. Police departments could say, "hey look how many people we didn't pull over, how many people we didn't shoot, tickets we didn't write, etc."

In fact the only way we've been able to get close to highlight the need for something specific to be done against racism is because we've had numbers... statistics... that qualify that argument. I'm sure police departments already have written documents they have to agree to that mention how they aren't supposed to discriminate. But how do you, when lives are at stake, prevent this from happening?

I guess what I'm not understanding is how you propose to combat discrimination without having specific types.

"If you can get past the type of discrimination, then you can instead focus on the discrimination - because discrimination tends to be the same action no matter the type."

No... I don't believe this is true. Let's take job hunting or compensation for example. 3 people go in for an interview. 1 male, 2 females. If the male gets the job, it could have been sexism at play but how would you know? Maybe the woman reminds the employer of his ex-wife. She may not even know she's been discriminated against without statistics showing just how much he tends to hire males over females. And there are biases that go into hiring decisions that aren't simply restricted to qualifications. So to actually combat this and root it out you MUST look at hiring practices through a lens of gender. And if you add race and ethnicity on top of that, it is the only way to expose unfair practices against different groups. Same with housing. How do you know you're being discriminated against if no one talks about the type of discrimination and highlights any numbers that show a pattern?

The other thing is that I think some people may have a limited view of the problem. Yes, the police shouldn't shoot unarmed people but is that all they're doing wrong? I say it actually starts before that; starting with the presumption of innocence. Whether shot or not, an officer of the law should not go around assuming guilt based on someone's race. This doesn't happen as much when the officers police the communities in which they grew up, or departments that have regular social interactions with their communities. George Floyd is a symptom of a larger problem that needs to be addressed.

That problem is like a disease. Your doctor can't say "you have a disease, here's some Tylenol". The type of disease you have matters because it requires a specific treatment. Same thing with racism. It's not about changing how everyone thinks until there are no more racists. It's about removing known racists from positions of power and influence where they are speaking and acting on behalf of our system of government. I really don't care if there is a racist dog catcher. I don't even own a dog. I don't care if there's a racist Walmart Janitor or a tire salesman. Is it too much to ask that they don't get guns, badges, robes, etc? I don't want radical Muslim extremists as flight attendants. I mean, because at some point you're just kind of asking for it. You get where I'm coming from?

But I'm not talking about racially profiling future police. I just want them to get fired if shown to have racist views on the basis that the community should have a reasonable expectation that they will be policed equally and fairly, maintaining the presumption of innocence. A lot of officers have complaints that go ignored and are expunged and they get moved around like child molesting priests used to do. If that were to happen you'd have less racism in policing and less people getting killed. And I would argue that a racist mind is evidence of a very narrow mind. So if one is racist they may not be a good judge of character or make other judgments and decisions in general that a police officer needs to be able to make. And it's the same with teachers. I don't want racist teachers, either.

Solutions for these problems aren't really that difficult. The main problem is simply that people don't want to face the problem itself. Instead, they debate you as if you're crazy and just making everything up. If you see a problem, I'm glad. But you are one person. We need more people to see a problem before change is possible. Why? Because the number of people who see a problem amounts to political pressure. That, is the purpose of all this. You may or may not be tired of it, and you may or may not assume that everyone is on the same page, but they're not. And to be perfectly honest there is a racist narrative being pushed that works against everyone being on the same page. Calling Floyd a violent criminal, calling BLM a terrorist group, etc. are all tactics to enable racism. This narrative often begins as propaganda to challenge the credibility of people and organizations trying to make the world better. And then as the propaganda is heard multiple times and accepted, that's when non-racists whites start questioning the name Black Lives Matter as not being inclusive enough; a total distraction from what it is they are protesting. People become so critical of the group that they make any changes the group demands. And that's ultimately how racism endures.

I dont believe that now is the time to talk about whats wrong with BLM. I think right now, in this moment, we should be saying “All Lives Cant Matter Until Black Lives Mater”

When was it the right time? As far as I'm concerned there are thousands of cases of racism and racially motivated police brutality and that has been the whole focus of Black Lives Matter. They were never sitting around thinking "how can we piss off white folk by not including them in our name?" Never once did they say "Only Black Lives Matter" so why should they have to say "Black Lives Matter Too"? We don't think of race when it comes to the inherent worth of all life. That's why it was always implied that black lives matter TOO. Being able to attack BLM of petty nonsense is not by accident. Black Lives Matter is a statement to the police. They are the ones who seem to have a problem with black lives. They, for those who are white, obviously don't need to be told that white lives matter. They already treat their own life as valuable as they train to protect themselves and each other. That's why some of the behavior we see from them is always passed off as self-protection and cops saying "I was scared for my life". And they seem to be more scared of black people so black people are more likely to get shot.

And I hate when people say "oh but black people are more likely to shoot cops". Yeah, number 1, if they have a fear for their lives then why shouldn't they shoot if that argument works just as well for the police? Why shouldn't they, at some point, think they are acting in self-defense? The difference is that cops are allowed this ridiculously low bar standard of self-defense as if every black man is 6'3, 280 lbs of muscle and as if that makes any difference to a gun. And number 2, if cops think a black person in one situation is just as much of a threat as a black person in another situation, then that's racist because they are pre-judging based on race. This is how innocent people get killed.

And I want to say this again:

Calling Floyd a violent criminal, calling BLM a terrorist group, etc. are all tactics to enable racism. This narrative often begins as propaganda to challenge the credibility of people and organizations trying to make the world better. And then as the propaganda is heard multiple times and accepted, that's when non-racists whites start questioning the name Black Lives Matter as not being inclusive enough; a total distraction from what it is they are protesting.

OB1: I think right now, in this moment, we should be saying “All Lives Cant Matter Until Black Lives Mater”

This statement right here is perfect. It is an elegant response to All Lives matter because "All lives matter" was a ridiculous assault on the BLM name. It wasn't for the purpose of greater understanding or clarity. Anyone wanting that could have merely asked. Or... gone to their website to have it fully explained. It was there.

Did people care? No. They rushed to judgment. Instead it was used as a wedge to distract and to provide cover for the police because everyone wanted to see them as America's heroes. And like the military, everyone wants to say "I support the troops" until they have PTSD and can't get enough funding for their mental health. We gotta do better and not put people on a pedestal unless they individually deserve to be there. Anyway, I'm thankful for this statement. I hope to see more of it. I hope to see greater understanding and empathy, not just for the officers but for those they hurt.

It may seem like debating the name is such a minuscule thing but it's actually a weaponized form of racism, falsely asserting that BLM is racist (too) and therefore their protest isn't valid. This is the same type/method of invalidation that happens when someone killed by police or in some racially based hate crime. People start introducing past mistakes or anything that person may have been guilty of as a way of blaming/shaming the victim for their own death. The object is to get white society to care less about the victim and to care more about the killer, and even imagine themselves as the killer, creating the idea that their fear, and the actions that result, are justified. The truth is that if we are all allowed to kill each other because we're afraid then we're simply going to create the environment in which everyone shoots first and asks questions later.

ZealotX wrote: Bro, I'm still struggling trying to understand what you're saying. You seem to be suggesting that there is a way to counter discrimination in all forms without mentioning the actual forms.

If I invited you to dinner and asked what you had an appetite for, and you said "food." I'd be like "okay, that's implied, but what kind of food?" and we'd be locked in an endless back and forth between a vague generality and seeking specifics. And I would eventually get irritated even though you were being honest and well meaning.

What's your favorite food? Let's hypothetically say your favorite food was pizza. If you ask for food every time you're hungry you may NEVER get pizza. Do you see?

Because the 'eating' is not the subjective experience of flavour and temperature, as good or bad, its the objective chewing and swallowing as proper or improper. Same with discrimination, you wanna stamp it out, but not by expecting to control what people think but rather what is proper behavior. This way more people will be sensitive to improper behaviour because they each have different exposure to it from the different types of it.... which increases the detection capacity of the population to the acts of discrimination, and adopting of its ethics.

ZealotX wrote: "If you can get past the type of discrimination, then you can instead focus on the discrimination - because discrimination tends to be the same action no matter the type."

No... I don't believe this is true. Let's take job hunting or compensation for example. 3 people go in for an interview. 1 male, 2 females. If the male gets the job, it could have been sexism at play but how would you know? Maybe the woman reminds the employer of his ex-wife. She may not even know she's been discriminated against without statistics showing just how much he tends to hire males over females. And there are biases that go into hiring decisions that aren't simply restricted to qualifications. So to actually combat this and root it out you MUST look at hiring practices through a lens of gender. And if you add race and ethnicity on top of that, it is the only way to expose unfair practices against different groups. Same with housing. How do you know you're being discriminated against if no one talks about the type of discrimination and highlights any numbers that show a pattern?

There are mechanisms which can be employed by management to detect deliberate cases of this, and minimize inadvertent ones. It's what anti-discrimination policy represents already. Whether its being done well or not is another question. But yes specific avenues of discrimination are served by focusing on the specific manifestations of discrimination.... I'm not sure how you draw the connection between those vastly different levels of analysis. As I said before, things like not seeing color are not ignoring race, they are focusing on the humanity. What each individual or scenario represents is specific to each level of interaction depth. Defining a person by any one attribute prima facie seems unnecessary and unwise if discrimination is prevalent. Much better to see a person first, then an individual second, and let the person choose how they want to define their identity then sticking labels onto a person by their appearance, IMO.

ZealotX wrote: The other thing is that I think some people may have a limited view of the problem. Yes, the police shouldn't shoot unarmed people but is that all they're doing wrong? I say it actually starts before that; starting with the presumption of innocence. Whether shot or not, an officer of the law should not go around assuming guilt based on someone's race. This doesn't happen as much when the officers police the communities in which they grew up, or departments that have regular social interactions with their communities. George Floyd is a symptom of a larger problem that needs to be addressed.

That problem is like a disease. Your doctor can't say "you have a disease, here's some Tylenol". The type of disease you have matters because it requires a specific treatment. Same thing with racism. It's not about changing how everyone thinks until there are no more racists. It's about removing known racists from positions of power and influence where they are speaking and acting on behalf of our system of government. I really don't care if there is a racist dog catcher. I don't even own a dog. I don't care if there's a racist Walmart Janitor or a tire salesman. Is it too much to ask that they don't get guns, badges, robes, etc? I don't want radical Muslim extremists as flight attendants. I mean, because at some point you're just kind of asking for it. You get where I'm coming from?

Discrimination is already illegal AFAIK. What's being discussed is how best to get progress on it. You say you aren't saying its about changing how people think, but I think you are. It seems your just burying it in emotional noise. As you say following on;

ZealotX wrote: But I'm not talking about racially profiling future police. I just want them to get fired if shown to have racist views on the basis that the community should have a reasonable expectation that they will be policed equally and fairly, maintaining the presumption of innocence.

Where do you draw the line on what constitutes a 'view'? Obviously overt discriminatory beliefs and actions should already be inappropriate/illegal, for its the workplace law AFAIK. Less obvious discriminatory 'views' become harder to find... and its here where your (perhaps inadvertently) reaching over and into expecting to be able to know what peoples 'views' are, your 'views' seeming to be analogous to 'thoughts'.

ZealotX wrote: A lot of officers have complaints that go ignored and are expunged and they get moved around like child molesting priests used to do. If that were to happen you'd have less racism in policing and less people getting killed. And I would argue that a racist mind is evidence of a very narrow mind. So if one is racist they may not be a good judge of character or make other judgments and decisions in general that a police officer needs to be able to make. And it's the same with teachers. I don't want racist teachers, either.

Which is where my point has its traction - you make these people more sensitive to the inappropriateness of racism by showing them its wrong to be discriminatory, regardless of the type of discrimination.

ZealotX wrote: Solutions for these problems aren't really that difficult. The main problem is simply that people don't want to face the problem itself. Instead, they debate you as if you're crazy and just making everything up. If you see a problem, I'm glad. But you are one person. We need more people to see a problem before change is possible.

Which is why I'm saying that making the problem understandable to them in terms they are more likely to relate to will have a greater chance of having real impact on the way they think and behave more broadly. It's usually easier to get the desired result by applying a small well placed impetus then a strong badly placed one.

The problem isn't that discrimination isn't illegal. The problem is that since there's no accountability for cops, that illegality is useless because there are no consequences for them breaking those laws.

Bro, you got me wrong.

"ZealotX wrote: But I'm not talking about racially profiling future police. I just want them to get fired if shown to have racist views on the basis that the community should have a reasonable expectation that they will be policed equally and fairly, maintaining the presumption of innocence."

If you stop for a second you will see that you CANNOT "show" that someone has racist views without them doing an "action" that expresses those views. I'm not interested in changing how everyone thinks or feels. That's not possible. We have been down ALL roads before. So please understand this. I have personally been involved in black empowerment and all my (personal) solutions are about economics. I am personally not a fan of marches. However, there is only so much that can be done when you have an external force constantly on the neck of your community, constantly threatening your life. So I understand the protests and hearts of the protesters and I am actually surprised that people are finally responding and finally seeing what we've been saying was there the whole time. But it's like white society literally looked at us like we were crazy or liars; like we would ALL (millions) lie about how bad the police were in our community. Now you see, not only a man get murdered in broad daylight, but also even how elderly protesters are getting pushed. Come on... And if they do that to an elderly white man, just imagine what they would do to a young black man at night when they can all get together and tell the same story and its their word against his. Just imagine that. Because they lied and said the old man tripped. And clearly you can see he was pushed. Clearly, cops were aiming at reporters and hitting cameramen. So who's lying? Who?

I was emotional when a cop thought I was robbing my own church when my father and I went in response to the alarm going off because we lived close by. I was emotional when the cop put his knee on my back and handcuffed me on the pavement like I was some kind of animal. It hurt. And I definitely would have gotten arrested if my father hadn't shown up. But that was a long time ago. When I was more recently given home detention where I could have easily lost my job and income, even though I should have been out on bail, I was pissed, but not in the same way. I had already made up my mind that the answer was that we needed to build our own economy because we would not be equal until our money was.

I know that a lot of racists aren't going to change. I know that isolated white communities often produce racists because they never have real (regular) experiences with black people. Therefore, they can be a sort of fictional construct crafted by the media and their perception in pop culture. They don't like rap music. Hey, I don't like most of it either. I listen to reggae. I'm not stereotypical in any way. I now live in a predominantly white neighborhood but still have at least a few black families on my street. All my neighbors seem nice. America can be nice.

I over heard a drunk guy saying something racist, more than likely directed at me, but hey... that's his OPINION. You are entitled to that. If you secretly hate black people, seems like a waste of mental energy, but that's fine if that's your choice and its not infringing upon my rights, liberty, or my pursuit of happiness. Now when my kids get told to go back to the cotton fields and other overtly racist garbage at their school, yeah it upsets me that they have to go through that, but that's their parents speaking, and their more isolated community speaking.

(cont'd)

And yes some of those kids might grow up and apply to be police officers. I don't want them to be denied because of what they said when they were 14. But if they have to take some kind of bias test involving threat level detection from black people, if they fail, then no, I don't want them serving in a community where black people can be victimized by their representation of law and order. They're there to protect and serve. If they act like a gang then the gang needs to be policed. And it seems like there was a time in which officers were afraid of Internal Affairs. That no longer seems to be the case.

In that case you need non-combat trained civilians who are armed with psychology degrees and social worker, to respond to many if not most of the calls, paired with a regular police officer. That person should deal with the "talking" part of the job and decide if the threat level warrants the combat trained officer to get out of the car while they fall back and record.

At the same time police forces need to be de-militarized because guns are a form of power and when you give them tanks and assault rifles you're teaching them that this level of force is sometimes necessary. And if THAT (military) level of force is sometimes necessary (or why else would they be allowed to buy it) then lesser levels of force are more necessary in many other situations. You don't bring an assault rifle to a knife fight. It makes it into a gun fight. Giving cops certain weapons changes the mentality. The problem is that we think that because they have a badge and uniform that they are trustworthy. Black people know they're not, that they LIE, that they falsify reports, that they plant evidence, and we so often have to take bad plea deals to serve some time just so that we don't end up doing hard time for crimes we didn't commit but that society thinks we're guilty of. African Americans are also 50% more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers and spend longer in prison.

https://research.msu.edu/innocent-african-americans-more-likely-to-be-wrongfully-convicted/

"In addition, the report, officially titled, “Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States,” found innocent black people are about 12 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than innocent white people."

"“Of the many costs the war on drugs inflicts on the black community, the practice of deliberately charging innocent defendants with fabricated crimes may be the most shameful,” said University of Michigan Law Professor Samuel Gross, the author of “Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States” and senior editor of the National Registry of Exonerations."

We're not, as a community, as criminal as people think because of how often charges are flat out fabricated to boost numbers and make more money off our community, keeping us in and out of court. We're not several times more likely to be innocent or killed accidentally. That's racism!

Police have to stop being treated like an endangered species made of porcelain. Police lives matter. So do black lives. But police are trained to protect themselves first and foremost. If they're scared they think that's cause enough to shoot. That isn't the same bar for the rest of us. So if they lie and say that they, even though they have guns, tasers, batons, handcuffs, and sometimes vests, and backup, that they were scared, that's all they need to commit and get away with murder. And juries act like their badge prevents them from lying or that the law is so sacred to police officers that they wouldn't ever commit perjury. If you're that scared then you're in the wrong line of work!

Romanticized duty or not, THEY ARE NORMAL PEOPLE.

However, many normal people in positions of power allow that power to go to their heads. I have a boss like that too. Many people do or have in the past. Power and authority get abused all the time. That's why we have multiple levels of power and authority. But when the higher level almost always uses their power, not as a check and balance, but like an OG protecting his corner boys, then the system doesn't work. You may see a cop disappear after one too many complaints but he is probably simply working in a different precinct now. And they can regularly clean up their own records of misconduct. This is not normal. If you work at McDonald's and get caught spitting in the food they don't move you to a different store. You get fired.

Workplace laws don't mean a d-mn if no one reports you or if the one person who might think for a second about reporting you realizes that other people will lie and say it didn't happen and that they will be picked on and bullied for ratting out their fellow cop. That's why the whole bad apples argument falls on deaf ears. Because everyone else around them enables it and allows it to continue. Again... it's all about improper behavior. If you listen to the Mark Fuhrman tapes this is not just idle talk from a racist, but rather how his racism informed his performance. Racists don't just muse about racist ideas intellectually when they have a badge. They look for opportunities. And if they're hostile towards whites because their normal disposition is already that bad? Then when a black person looks at him wrong on the wrong day, that's all it takes. And if we can prevent terrorist plots, why not this? Why not domestic terrorism against black and brown people?

So yes, profiling no, but testing, yes. Testing, retraining, bringing in civilian leadership, defunding (doesn't mean taking all money away), changing the rules of engagement, banning choke holds and pressure that cuts off circulation, etc. Why did they think they were allowed to pepper spray protesters because of something the protester said that wasn't a threat? In other words, legal use of first amendment rights. And once they grab you... that's when they can then claim you're "resisting arrest". Everyone saw that, right?

cont'd