I'm surprised you see that name "Black Lives Matter" as defying criticism. It would have taken just one numeral to clarify it to the point of defying all criticism. BML2. There is, unfortunately, a lot of dogma from those, quite often millennials, who think they understand the issues and the history perfectly, that readily telegraphs ONL…
I'm surprised you see that name "Black Lives Matter" as defying criticism. It would have taken just one numeral to clarify it to the point of defying all criticism. BML2. There is, unfortunately, a lot of dogma from those, quite often millennials, who think they understand the issues and the history perfectly, that readily telegraphs ONLY Black Lives Matter.
And then there's that undertow that has been there the last fifty years I've lived as the white in-law who married into the family and community (black) and lived there a lifetime. Currently the matriarch of a family of color. I was there because I was from a recently genocided-into-extinction-persecuted-minority who wanted to be around my own kind to the greatest extent possible under the circumstances. But there are reflexes baked into the American psyche that morphs any commonality on that subject into a competition. (I believe it's at the very heart and soul of the racist divide, as in conquer, that glues this mess in perpetuity.)
Consequently, the reflex is to take any statement I make about a shared experience and equality and dish out a dismissal. A competition. It's quite a cracked part of the American psyche, but there it is.
People want to compete with your end-stage racism experience and outdo it. No, you really don't want people using baby's head for a football, and that's going on in every football game, backyard, local, semi-pro to pro, in the country, everywhere, all at once, till you've got no babies left. But that reflex is common as dirt. (I know that sounds unbelievable, but that's the quandary we're in. We were persecuted so sadistically that if we try talking about it, it sounds like WE'RE deranged.)
The end result is an incessant snubbing of my existential dilemna as less than, not as important, not to be considered. Only black lives matter. It's there. It's not just me. I've often heard assorted white or light grumblings to that effect. It's the need persecuted people like us have for the Moral Superiority of the Oppressed. My people have actually been considerably worse about it, part of the reason we got no support when we needed it most. But we needed it all those centuries to survive, however many drawbacks there are to it, and I think I've seen them all. It's a stumbling block that is maintaining the status quo. The stumbling block POC are polishing and reverencing and protecting with all their might.
And yes, like you said, if you balk at that term, there's a knee jerk reflex that you're just being racist. So, of course, likely no one will get to the end of this statement. They will have already instinctively reacted that none of it matters. My people don't matter.
Probably not, I mean, once they've gotten to that Final Solution and the only true accounts about you are buried somewhere on Archive.org, you really DON'T matter at all. Which brings us to that thing I can never walk away from, no matter how much of a pain in the ass people can be. What I see in them. Us, alive and well. I will be in love with that sight for as long as I draw breath. Longer.
If you look at the Amazon reviews for the book just linked, you'll find the very woke one-star review from the punk I'm absolutely sure did not read it, lambasting me that I had the nerve to think that what my family, my people have been through could possibly compare to the racism black America faces. Like I said, who are we to think WE matter? And he says it with the certainty of a religious zealot.
"It would have taken just one numeral to clarify it to the point of defying all criticism. BML2."
Wow, yeah. I think this would actually have been far more powerful than BLM. Still based on a slightly faulty premise, but wipes away the opportunity for divisiveness pretty much instantly.
RE: the idea that ONLY Black Lives Matter in general, we've talked about this before, and I don't want to rehash it, but I'll repeat the point I've made previously, which is I think the trouble you're running into is demanding that people see two different things as the same just because you insist that they're the same.
Racism against black people in America is its own beast that can't be compared easily to other forms of bigotry elsewhere. That doesn't necessarily mean it's *worse*, or that no other groups of people have suffered. But your resistance to acknowledging that it's different will always get people's backs up. Because it makes them feel that you're talking down to them about something you don't understand the details of.
You can recognise that, and find a better way to express yourself and what happened to your people, or you can keep having needless arguments.
I'm surprised you see that name "Black Lives Matter" as defying criticism. It would have taken just one numeral to clarify it to the point of defying all criticism. BML2. There is, unfortunately, a lot of dogma from those, quite often millennials, who think they understand the issues and the history perfectly, that readily telegraphs ONLY Black Lives Matter.
And then there's that undertow that has been there the last fifty years I've lived as the white in-law who married into the family and community (black) and lived there a lifetime. Currently the matriarch of a family of color. I was there because I was from a recently genocided-into-extinction-persecuted-minority who wanted to be around my own kind to the greatest extent possible under the circumstances. But there are reflexes baked into the American psyche that morphs any commonality on that subject into a competition. (I believe it's at the very heart and soul of the racist divide, as in conquer, that glues this mess in perpetuity.)
Consequently, the reflex is to take any statement I make about a shared experience and equality and dish out a dismissal. A competition. It's quite a cracked part of the American psyche, but there it is.
People want to compete with your end-stage racism experience and outdo it. No, you really don't want people using baby's head for a football, and that's going on in every football game, backyard, local, semi-pro to pro, in the country, everywhere, all at once, till you've got no babies left. But that reflex is common as dirt. (I know that sounds unbelievable, but that's the quandary we're in. We were persecuted so sadistically that if we try talking about it, it sounds like WE'RE deranged.)
The end result is an incessant snubbing of my existential dilemna as less than, not as important, not to be considered. Only black lives matter. It's there. It's not just me. I've often heard assorted white or light grumblings to that effect. It's the need persecuted people like us have for the Moral Superiority of the Oppressed. My people have actually been considerably worse about it, part of the reason we got no support when we needed it most. But we needed it all those centuries to survive, however many drawbacks there are to it, and I think I've seen them all. It's a stumbling block that is maintaining the status quo. The stumbling block POC are polishing and reverencing and protecting with all their might.
And yes, like you said, if you balk at that term, there's a knee jerk reflex that you're just being racist. So, of course, likely no one will get to the end of this statement. They will have already instinctively reacted that none of it matters. My people don't matter.
Probably not, I mean, once they've gotten to that Final Solution and the only true accounts about you are buried somewhere on Archive.org, you really DON'T matter at all. Which brings us to that thing I can never walk away from, no matter how much of a pain in the ass people can be. What I see in them. Us, alive and well. I will be in love with that sight for as long as I draw breath. Longer.
https://lindakerescarter.works/as-bad-as-it-gets/
If you look at the Amazon reviews for the book just linked, you'll find the very woke one-star review from the punk I'm absolutely sure did not read it, lambasting me that I had the nerve to think that what my family, my people have been through could possibly compare to the racism black America faces. Like I said, who are we to think WE matter? And he says it with the certainty of a religious zealot.
"It would have taken just one numeral to clarify it to the point of defying all criticism. BML2."
Wow, yeah. I think this would actually have been far more powerful than BLM. Still based on a slightly faulty premise, but wipes away the opportunity for divisiveness pretty much instantly.
RE: the idea that ONLY Black Lives Matter in general, we've talked about this before, and I don't want to rehash it, but I'll repeat the point I've made previously, which is I think the trouble you're running into is demanding that people see two different things as the same just because you insist that they're the same.
Racism against black people in America is its own beast that can't be compared easily to other forms of bigotry elsewhere. That doesn't necessarily mean it's *worse*, or that no other groups of people have suffered. But your resistance to acknowledging that it's different will always get people's backs up. Because it makes them feel that you're talking down to them about something you don't understand the details of.
You can recognise that, and find a better way to express yourself and what happened to your people, or you can keep having needless arguments.
I wrote a response to this this morning. Did it disappear, or is it in moderation? I hope re-commenting doesn't erase it.
No, it didn't disappear, it's below. Looks like you posted it as a reply to the post instead of to my comment.