Simon_Jester wrote:Wing Commander MAD wrote:Broomstick wrote:Aside from deaths and injuries, this is just throwing fat on the fire. It discredits the BLM movement which, while not an ideal group has some legitimate grievances and leads to asshats making comments about race wars and "punks".
Broomstick, would you care to elaborate on that statement? My first thought would be the lack of any real structured organization beyond a local level, compared to something like the NAACP (at least as far as I am aware), but I would be interested to hear your reasoning since you have most the board's active posters/readers beat on experience and having witnessed/lived through things first hand.
While I'm obviously not Broomstick, speculatively:
There is an element within the #BLM community that are, frankly, radicals of the sort who give rise to things like this act of terrorism. People who
do believe that there is a racial war going on, that they should be fighting in it. Youths who have a chronic lack of perspective and a lot of bravado and who posture and comment in ways that lend credence to the "they're a bunch of punks angry that criminals get arrested" nonsense the establishment is aiming against the movement as a whole.
There is a lot about the way this country treats blacks that can make people angry, and there is a sliver of the black community which allows anger to rule them. And it was perhaps inevitable that
any movement which, like #BLM, protests the treatment of blacks in America... would be joined by this sliver. Even if having this sliver supporting you is a disadvantage.
Yeah, largely that's the thing - it's a disorganized "movement", more a collection of local groups all roughly protesting the same thing. Because of the very loose organization it would be relatively easy for it to be hijacked by radicals.
If you're not interested in history or reading a bunch more on the topic you can skip what follows:
As I've mentioned, if not in this thread in related ones, there is a segment of the black community that wants a separation of races, who advocate violent revolution, and fuel their viewpoint in part by holding up legitimate grievances. This is nothing new - Marcus Garvey promoted it in the early part of the 20th Century, and could arguably be traced back to the 1850's and John Brown's attempts to violently overthrow slavery
(Brown was a white man, but his group was multi-racial, killed people, sacred the living fuck out of the establishment, and was a factor in bringing on the US Civil War. In some ways he was the 19th Century Charles Manson). Dealing with violent slice of social movements was a constant problem during the mid-20th Century Civil Rights movement. The US educational system emphasizes the non-violent part of the movement and tends to ignore the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam
(which had the tall, convicted felon Malcolm X posing with a big gun stating he'd defend his people "by any means necessary", basically a Big Scary Black Man With A Big Scary Gun posing in a business suit until he went on the haj, discovered real Islam, and repudiated the NoI). The educational system doesn't get much into
why Charles Manson's "family" killed people, which was with the express purpose of trying to trigger a race war.
Now, the Manson Family aside, both the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam survive to this day because they were not entirely about violence - the BP's provided free breakfasts to poor children, community watch organizations, combating police brutality, promotion of decent housing, employment, and education. Former members that are still active in politics
(former Panther Bobby Rush was a member of the US Congress, as an example) still pursue many of those goals. Nation of Islam had a free drug rehab program that counted some success (including Malcolm X), local community security, prisoner outreach and rehab, education, training, and economic self-sufficiency. All of which are social goods but it doesn't erase that those two organizations, along with more forgotten radical groups (like the Mansons),
also were involved in violence, murder, outright assassination: Malcolm X was assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam, Black Panther Bobby Hutton was killed in a shoot-out after ambushing Oakland, California police, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark killed in a joint operation between the Chicago Police and the FBI, with some evidence that both victims had been heavily drugged by an FBI infiltrator, and Hampton was unarmed and unconscious when he was executed by two point-blank shots to the head.
One of the reasons MLK, Jr. had such widespread support among
whites who were in favor of the Civil Rights Movement goals was because the alternatives scared them. The US educational system emphasizes King and his non-violence, peaceful protest techniques and largely ignores the darker side of those years. The official narrative says non-violence won the day but in reality the threat of a violent alternative in the background also had an effect.
So... here we are again. There are legitimate grievances on the table. There is a definite movement of non-violent protests and attempts to work within the law to correct those grievances. And now we have the violent fringe saying that's not enough, change isn't happening (or happening fast enough), and one of those fringe has acted to kill cops.
Here are what I see as flaws in the BLM movement:
1)
Disorganized - as noted upthread, it started as an internet hashtag and was adopted by everyone and his cousin. There is no overall group setting goals, policy, and defining allowable actions
2)
Portrayal of every police shooting as murder - yes, there are bad cops and innocent victims of those cops but not every police shooting is unjustified. As a rather brutal example, the killing of the recent Dallas shooter was arguably necessary for public safety, and the cops shooting back were definitely doing so in self-defense against someone out to kill specifically them. Not that I've heard anyone holding that one up as police brutality, but it's an example of where lethal force is arguably necessary.
3)
Portrayal of all victims as angels - there is a meme of making the victims of violent death out to be "good people", as if whether or not a killing is justified depends upon the moral fabric of the victim. It's not a good road to go down. In recent days I saw on video a frustrated protester expressing his frustration at how they always seem to portray victims as "a good man", and that they shouldn't have to make victims into a "good man", the point is
the killings were unjustified regardless. The police should not be executing people without trial (except in rare situations like the Dallas shooter when there is no other way to protect public safety or their own safety). Even criminals have rights, and it shouldn't be open season on ex-convicts. There shouldn't be "good victims" and "bad victims", if a person was killed unjustly it the killing is unjust regardless of their past sins.
4)
Inability to deal with media manipulation - correcting these flaws is very difficult. It requires a media-savvy, nuanced approach. The grassroots support BLM enjoys is a source of strength but the people who get in front of the TV cameras frequently are
not media savvy, highly emotional, and easily manipulated. Nation of Islam, as a contrasting example, are masters of media management, down to official representatives and members dressing in conservative attire with an emphasis on appearances. It's no coincidence that many of the mid-20th Civil Rights leaders were ministers - they were the trained speakers in the communities who could speak in standard American dialects when addressing the media which, even today, is taken more seriously than black inner city dialects which are perceived as marks of ignorance and lack of education.
The above means BLM is vulnerable to take-over by fringe movements, manipulation by the media and/or establishment, and hijacking by more established interests.
And I should probably end here before this becomes novel length.
