We’re Talking About Black Lives Now

We’re knee-deep in slogans lately; Stop The Steal, Trans Rights Are Human Rights, Abolish The Police, and, of course, Black Lives Matter.

The power of slogans is that, if they’re well chosen, they defy criticism. The slogan Black Lives Matter is so simple, so unambiguous, so true, that criticising the organisation feels dangerously close to criticising the sentiment. So very few people do. It’s a stroke of marketing genius!

In my article, Let’s Just Say It—Black Lives Matter Has Been A Disaster For Black People, I pointed out that while black lives most certainly do matter, the organisation called Black Lives Matter doesn’t seem to agree. Since their founding in 2013, incidents of police brutality have increased, the number of black lives lost to homicide has increased, and the bank balances of the founders have significantly increased.

Millions of dollars worth of donations are unaccounted for, grassroots organisations have repeatedly raised concerns about mismanagement, and if only they’d chosen a less catchy name, we’d be talking about it a lot more. 

Then again, according to Bane, talking is enough.

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Bane:

Your article makes some decent points. Although, in my view, you neglect far more than you bring to the table. The piece is dripping with bias. Perhaps bias was the intent. Either way, outlining or briefly touching upon a less bias perspective, might not only lend more credibility to the article, but it might help mitigate the same divisive blame game that the article purports to condemn from the BLM organization.

Obviously, police brutality is the specific issue and there is a confluence of causal elements there, but using this as a reason to invalidate the progress BLM has made (and will have inevitably done through the historical lens) is quite frankly, the argument of every pleb who’s neatly folded into their own little Dunning–Kruger bubbles.

Look, we’re talking about black lives now, specifically because of BLM…what other current generational movement has done that? Generations of wealth disparity and racism has led to a measurable difference between race with respect to certain crimes, as well as built-in psychological associations with these differences-exacerbated or even initiated through various cultural phenomenon [i.e. systemic racism]… and yes, this may translate to people attempting to regain power where or when they feel they have lost it or been denied it, though, this doesn’t imply universality and may not apply to the Tyre Nichols situation.

The bottom line is that intellectual conversation about race has been around for as long as civilizations, yet, it doesn’t seem to be until a distilled down message can create a little division that people start talking [arguing] and things start to change. Just as the above bias article has me engaging via this response, so too, BLM engaged it’s author as well as many others…

I’d just argue, that despite the techniques; the ambiguity of rhetoric and snippets of talking points, BLM as an organization, has a fairly extensive and in depth view of the multi-faceted issues for which it’s aiming, whereas this article might actually undermine that progress… or it might not…it might contribute, I really have no idea, I just know that the article is no less bias than that which it seems to condemn.

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Steve QJ:

“Look, we’re talking about black lives now, specifically because of BLM…what other current generational movement has done that?”

So what?!

BLM has been a lightning rod for racial division, it's embezzled millions of dollars from donors, it amplified the discourse around abolishing the police, discourse that has led to an increase in black deaths and is almost universally unpopular with poor black people.

Police brutality is up, black deaths due to homicide are up, oh, but two random people, who presumably already supported black lives, are talking about them on the internet, so all good? What progress, exactly, has BLM made? What specifically do you think I'm missing?

Its not bias to talk about the failings of an organisation that manipulated public opinion to enrich its founders, all while making life worse for the people it was supposed to help. Or if it is, it's bias towards actually helping disadvantaged black people in material ways, which I don't feel too worried about to be honest.

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Maybe the problem is that I’m a results-oriented person.

I don’t like meetings about when to have the next meeting, I don’t think ideas are valuable if they aren’t executed, and I don’t think attention is an end in itself. 

There’s no denying that BLM has sparked a conversation about police brutality. They’ve raised millions of dollars. They’ve gained the ear of powerful people who can make real change. This is all commendable and difficult to do. 

But they’ve also turned an issue that everyone should care about into a culture war battleground. They’ve wasted or “lost” a sizeable portion of those millions of dollars. And, however you look at it, they’ve wasted a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve black lives. 

In my article, I suggested the slogan End Police Brutality as a replacement for Black Lives Matter. Not only because it avoids wasted time arguing about whether Blue or White or All lives matter, but because it makes it clear what the goal is. And better yet, whether or not that goal is being achieved.

Maybe that’s why they didn’t choose it.