4 ms·

What are the numbers? Ten times as many black people die from black-on-black homocide as police killings? Even if it were just twice as many- I think it would

What are the numbers? Ten times as many black people die from black-on-black homocide as police killings? Even if it were just twice as many- I think it would be reasonable to wonder, if you were being utilitarian, what approach would save the most lives. An uncharitable reading of your comment might interpret that fighting racism is so relatively important it's worth sacrifing some net black lives for it.

csallen 6y ago
Is there any evidence that reducing the public's focus on fighting racism will increase its focus on fighting black-on-black crime, reducing poverty, reforming prisons, etc.? I doubt it. Some issues are great for publicity, and others are much more difficult to get into the hyper-competitive limelight. In fact, I'd bet that there are spillover effects where attention and donations to other pro-Black causes increases while BLM is in the spotlight.
- antepodius 6y ago
  Maybe. I think one problem is the idea of racism itself, which has at least three meanings: intent (i.e. if you want to genocide [race], you're a racist), facts/beliefs (you could imagine someone with no hatred or ill-intent who believed things about e.g. population statistics- you might call those beliefs racist even if there was no 'racist intent' behind them) And outcomes (something ends up disproportionately impacting one racial group, not necessarily with any racial animus involved at any point. You might call this structual racism). If we had different words for these three things, I think it would make it a lot easier for people to agree to get stuff done. As it is, they all get mixed up- and an approach that assumes racism no.1 won't help 2 or 3, or might exarcerbate things. If I had to guess, I'd say a lot more of what's going on is 3 than 1, but I could be wrong. (And calling 3 'structural racism' probably won't do the job, because it's that's too easily conflatable with 1, so a lot of people won't support it.) I don't know. I'm personally interested to see what'll happen if more police precints get abandoned/burned down, and people set up more anarchist/warlord-controlled areas across the U.S.

csallen 6y ago

Is there any evidence that reducing the public's focus on fighting racism will increase its focus on fighting black-on-black crime, reducing poverty, reforming prisons, etc.? I doubt it. Some issues are great for publicity, and others are much more difficult to get into the hyper-competitive limelight. In fact, I'd bet that there are spillover effects where attention and donations to other pro-Black causes increases while BLM is in the spotlight.

antepodius 6y ago
Maybe. I think one problem is the idea of racism itself, which has at least three meanings: intent (i.e. if you want to genocide [race], you're a racist), facts/beliefs (you could imagine someone with no hatred or ill-intent who believed things about e.g. population statistics- you might call those beliefs racist even if there was no 'racist intent' behind them) And outcomes (something ends up disproportionately impacting one racial group, not necessarily with any racial animus involved at any point. You might call this structual racism). If we had different words for these three things, I think it would make it a lot easier for people to agree to get stuff done. As it is, they all get mixed up- and an approach that assumes racism no.1 won't help 2 or 3, or might exarcerbate things. If I had to guess, I'd say a lot more of what's going on is 3 than 1, but I could be wrong. (And calling 3 'structural racism' probably won't do the job, because it's that's too easily conflatable with 1, so a lot of people won't support it.) I don't know. I'm personally interested to see what'll happen if more police precints get abandoned/burned down, and people set up more anarchist/warlord-controlled areas across the U.S.