>We say "black lives matter" not because white lives don't, but because it is a defacto truth of our system that black lives are treated as mattering much less.
And you really think that people protesting police shootings in general, and e.g. shouting "all lives matter", whether the victim is black, latino, asian, white or whatever would harm things?
It's the NON PROTESTING that's the problem, not the change of angle from "black lives" to "all lives". If anything insisting on "black lives" is only just addressing a narrow part of the problem and alienates people from the more general cause to boot.
-- police violence is unambiguously a racial issue [0]
-- "white lives matter" contains implicit parallelism to "black lives matter" and cannot help but be viewed as responding to BLM. Its use in general has been to deny the racial aspects of police violence.
-- if you wish to address police violence for all groups, then use language which does not function to deny or derail other movements. Choose a new catch phrase. BLM is necessary to address the particularly black aspects of police violence, and trying to turn it into a race-blind movement is to destroy a core part of the problems it is trying to address.
Make a movement which is interested in the general problem of police violence, but recognize that you're not addressing the same types of problems as a movement like BLM and don't try to stop what BLM is doing.
The claim that <a movement which addresses the particularly black aspects of police violence is alienating> is a condemnation of non-black culture, not a condemnation of BLM. Race exists and has strong effects on culture and treatment, and race-blindness' only function is to deny marginalized groups the opportunity to address the oppressions specific to them.
> Race exists and has strong effects on culture and treatment, and race-blindness' only function is to deny marginalized groups the opportunity to address the oppressions specific to them.
I think this depends on who is blind to race, and if they really are or are just not saying it because they like the status quo. If everyone was blind (literally) to race, there would be no racism... I don't think the world is helped by everyone talking about race. It's not that exciting, it's some minor physical traits. Culture, and history, are the deep topics.
And I think it misses the point that if you're bullied by a sexist, or a racist, you're going to feel the same. We'd have to ban a thousand topics and it still wouldn't keep the bullies from bullying. It's better to go to the root of the problem and deal with bullies.
Bullies feelings don't matter, so we don't have to worry about being PC, etc. Everyone has been bullied, so everyone can get into it.
What we need to do to make this work is talk about race just enough that we don't discourage the victim revealing their bullying, but not enough to give the bullies anything to work with.
> police violence is unambiguously a racial issue
Right, but we won't fix it by being equally but opposite racists. We fix it by firing and charging any officer who breaks a law.
No, it's the politically correct who go there to pitch a fit, change the chant, and then leave when satisfied they've meddled enough who would "harm" things.
I'm not black, but have been threatened by police (with guns) for perfectly legal activities. But I'm not going to fight my way into a Black Lives Matter protest to try to change their story. Theirs is true - they are black and their lives matter. Their lives are the ones being systematically undervalued. I was only targeted because the cop was having a bad night, they're targeted every day by racists who think they're doing the right thing for society.
I think they feel that all lives matter (except maybe cops and cop supporters). But that doesn't help the point of focusing on those who are the most under attack and the racism causing it.
And you really think that people protesting police shootings in general, and e.g. shouting "all lives matter", whether the victim is black, latino, asian, white or whatever would harm things?
It's the NON PROTESTING that's the problem, not the change of angle from "black lives" to "all lives". If anything insisting on "black lives" is only just addressing a narrow part of the problem and alienates people from the more general cause to boot.