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I have also seen little reporting on what I suspect (admittedly, merely judging from photos) has driven a lot of the more confrontational protesting in Portland
I have also seen little reporting on what I suspect (admittedly, merely judging from photos) has driven a lot of the more confrontational protesting in Portland: youthful energy and enthusiasm that doesn’t actually think that much about theory or aims. Press coverage and the attacks of ideological opponents depict these protestors as a focused political force that knows exactly what it seeks and why it is doing the specific things it is doing, but I don't believe that is actually the case.
You would think that after May '68, people would be aware of this. Back then the French Communist Party, the Maoists, and the Situationists who developed elaborate theory and carefully pursued their goals, were seen as boring windbags by the actual masses of young people in the streets. Most of those young people were not coming out with clear policy aims and strategy, but rather they were motivated by a more vague feeling of discontent at the authorities, by the pleasure of rebelling, and by the satisfaction of being part of a community with fellow protestors.
There are well articulated lists of demands from leaders of the movements. Not everyone in the gatherings needs to be super well-versed in the policy details to support them. Here are some examples:
More modest: https://8cantwait.org/ https://8cantwait.org/
Larger scale: https://www.tenforjustice.com/demands https://www.tenforjustice.com/demands
You can probably find more local information from your local BLM or other social justice organizations. Here is a specific example from where I live, the Twin Cities: https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/home https://www.reclaimtheblock.org/home
"Not everyone in the gatherings needs to be super well-versed in the policy details to support them."
It's not that they don't know the finer policy details, it's that many of the on-the-ground protestors probably aren't even aware of every one of these demands. When young people are driven to attend protests because of the general outrage about black victims of police violence, how many of them really know, for example, that payment of reparations is part of a list of demands that has been published somewhere?
Some of these sound reasonable, some of them are completely ridiculous. It's probably for the better of the movement that these demands aren't the subject of (sympathetic) news coverage, because they're way outside the overton window of the general population. In fact, republicans/conservatives could hardly get any better support for their claim that BLM supporters are radical marxists.
Sure. You don't start a negotiation from the middle. Also, most of the actual policy changes would be local. The support of the general population matters much less than the support of those who are impacted. The politicians and leaders need to work out the details and compromises. The point of these protests is that one side has not been listened to, and it is getting people killed, and we're sick of it.
> You don't start a negotiation from the middle.
I agree, but you also shouldn't completely discredit yourself before negotiation has started. What do you even bring to the table? The end of protests? Protests are only being tolerated because of presumed public support, which has been dwindling due to some ugly scenes.
> The politicians and leaders need to work out the details and compromises.
The politicians only need to care about votes. In many areas, the majority already voted in Democrats with the intention of having them fix things, which they didn't.
I would argue that Democrats are generally less principled than Republicans, they're only following what they believe the majority to believe. See the Dixiecrats or their position on gay marriage.
So, without the majority vote you don't have Democrats and without the Democrats, who do you have to support? Republicans? Greens?
> The point of these protests is that one side has not been listened to, and it is getting people killed, and we're sick of it.
I noticed as much, but that doesn't magically bring you into a good bargaining position. MLK was successful because he stayed within the overton window. Malcom X wasn't, because he didn't.
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> What do you even bring to the table? The end of protests? Protests are only being tolerated because of presumed public support, which has been dwindling due to some ugly scenes.
The end of protests and a society that works better for everybody, yes. I'd love to have a public safety force that I felt I could rely on. Currently, I don't.
> In many areas, the majority already voted in Democrats with the intention of having them fix things, which they didn't.
Well, sort of. Here in the Twin Cities, the elected Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to change the city charter to no longer require the Minneapolis Police Department. The charter change would require a vote to approve, which would have let us actually see how locals felt about it. But, it required review by an un-elected Charter Commission, which doesn't reflect the demographics of the city, and chose to use a procedural delay tactic to prevent the question from being put on the ballot this year. So it's not fair to say that they "didn't fix things," but rather weren't allowed to by state law, which requires the charter commission. Republicans control the state Senate.
> So, without the majority vote you don't have Democrats and without the Democrats, who do you have to support?
Progressive candidates, like members of the DSA and politicians they endorse. One thing that has come out of these protests is a rise in progressive candidates, both running at all, and actually winning some primaries. The progressive candidate who won the primary for my state House seat over the long-time Dem incumbent chose to run after the Floyd murder.
The protests themselves have moved the overton window. A single recent example is how public support for protesting athletes has changed. Consider in particular the NFL apology from earlier this year https://abcnews.go.com/US/nfl-apologizes-listening-players-racism-colin-kaepernick-remains/story?id=71122596 https://abcnews.go.com/US/nfl-apologizes-listening-players-r... . It's a long road, and mistakes will be made, but on the whole I think the protests have had a huge positive impact on the problem.
MLK was massively vilified during his lifetime. E.g. [1]:
> According to an early 1968 Harris Poll, the man whose half-century of martyrdom we celebrate this week died with a public disapproval rating of nearly 75 percent, a figure shocking in its own day and still striking even in today’s highly polarized political climate
And [2]
> Back in the 1960s, when King was actually leading protests, just 36 percent of white Americans thought he was helping “the Negro cause of civil rights,” according to historical polling data compiled by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. In a 1966 Gallup poll, more than 60 percent of the public rated King more negatively than positively.
> After King was assassinated, two-thirds of Americans said their strongest reaction to his death had been sadness, anger, shame or fear, another survey found. Another 31 percent, however, said they “felt he brought it on himself.”
This idea that MLK was the respectable, acceptable face of the civil rights struggle is a modern fiction, and worth considering before denouncing those currently seen as going too far:
MLK was seen as going too far. He was hated.
The turning point was his death, and even then millions thought he had it coming. It took many years of reappraisals after his death for him to become the popular icon he is today.
Worth considering when considering what future generations will think about those demonstrating now.
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-martin-luther-king-had-75-percent-disapproval-rating-year-he-died-180968664/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-martin-luther-kin...
[2] https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/in-1968-nearly-a-third-of-americans-said-mlk-brought-his-killing-on-himself_n_5ac51373e4b0aacd15b7d37b?ri18n=true https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/in-1968-nearly-a-thir...
Any discussion of public disapproval of King post-1965 has to mention that he had begun to speak on class issues and economic empowerment for all Americans, he was no longer limiting his efforts to civil rights for African-Americans. Class struggle in the 1960s was definitely outside the USA’s Overton window.
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> In fact, republicans/conservatives could hardly get any better support for their claim that BLM supporters are radical marxists.
I've read a lot of lists of demands, and most of them seem reasonable to me, and I suspect more would seem reasonable to the general population than you think. I have yet to encounter the demand that private property be abolished in favor of collective ownership, or much else that conforms to actual Marxist ideology.
They're only "Marxist" in the sense that a certain American demographics calls anyone and anything they disagree with "Marxist."
FFS they've called Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama radical Marxists. Greta Thunberg is a Marxist. Literally any leftist, liberal, Democrat and progressive with any visibility is a Marxist. The entirety of mainstream media and social media is Marxists. Fox News criticized the President? Marxists. It doesn't mean anything anymore, it's just a scare tactic.
I generally agree on that point, but that doesn't necessarily matter to public perception. The general public isn't particularly educated on how exactly Marxism might be defined in a textbook.
Rather, in terms of public perception, Marxism is probably best defined as "a bunch of loony leftist ideas". Some of these demands fit that bill perfectly.
Secondly, many BLM protestors are clearly brandishing symbols that are associated with Marxist/Communist ideology, many self-identify as "Marxist", and even officially they refer to each other as "comrades":
https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/ https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/
>Rather, in terms of public perception, Marxism is probably best defined as "a bunch of loony leftist ideas". Some of these demands fit that bill perfectly.
The public has been effectively propagandized and made to turn against one another rather than a corrupt system. If you accept the thesis that endemic racism and corruption in the American justice system exists, that the reason for the anger behind these riots and protests is legitimate, then your personal ideological polarity shouldn't matter.
Unfortunately, it's easy to get people to dismiss the movement wholesale by associating it with the specter of Marxists and Angry Black Men.
And that still leaves reasonable demands being ignored. If you don't support completely defunding and disbanding the police, you could agree that de-escalation training and shifting of funding priorities might be effective. That doesn't need to be slotted into a left-wing political agenda.
>Secondly, many BLM protestors are clearly brandishing symbols that are associated with Marxist/Communist ideology, many self-identify as "Marxist", and even officially they refer to each other as "comrades":
And a lot of BLM protestors, likely a large majority, aren't and don't. There's a difference between some Marxists supporting the movement and the movement itself being Marxist or having a Marxist intent. Black Lives Matter is clearly not about Marxism.
Well, what can I say? Branding matters. Associations matter. If you don't agree that the US should be a white anglosaxon ethnostate, can't you at least agree with the Nazis that there should be immigration reform?
> They're only "Marxist" in the sense that a certain American demographics calls anyone and anything they disagree with "Marxist."
Except for, y'know, the founders of BLM explicitly describing themselves as Marxists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCghDx5qN4s&feature=youtu.be&t=423 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCghDx5qN4s&feature=youtu.be...
OK, she describes herself as a "trained Marxist."
What she didn't do is describe BLM as Marxist, or its purpose as advancing Marxism. I listened to the entire rest of that video and the only thing that was mentioned in regards to BLM was advocacy for black issues, not Marxism.
So no, BLM still isn't Marxist even if its founders are.
"BLM still isn't Marxist even if its founders are."
That doesn’t compute. An organization is ultimately inseparable from the real ideological positions and goals of its leadership. The entire 20th century is replete with examples of front groups, secretly working for the extreme positions held by their founders while using rhetoric that the public would view as more middle-of-the-road, and enlisting supporters and low-level employees that remained apart from the founders’ thought. (Marxist, capitalist, whatever – such front groups existed on both ends of the ideological spectrum of the Cold War era.) Why should we believe that a contemporary organization like BLM cannot be the same?
You can certainly argue that the ordinary people protesting in a general BLM-inspired movement are not necessarily to be identified ideologically with the founders of the BLM organization. But the criticisms of the BLM organization remain valid. And participants in the general movement who attend protests led by the BLM organization can be accused of unwittingly lending support to extreme positions, of neglecting their duty to look into who exactly has planned and organized a particular event beforehand.
Those of us who protested the Iraq War in certain street protests that turned out to have been organized by Communist parties for their own shady purposes, have been burnt and we don’t want antiracism protestors to be exploited in the same way.
>That doesn’t compute. An organization is ultimately inseparable from the real ideological positions and goals of its leadership.
You're assuming the "real" ideological position of a black Marxist starting a black advocacy movement protesting police violence against black people is actually Marxism, whereas the actual evidence from her own mouth is that the "real" ideological position is the black advocacy.
>Why should we believe that a contemporary organization like BLM cannot be the same?
Occam's Razor. It seems far more likely given the context in which the organization arose that it is what it claims to be, rather than that being a front for something else.
>Those of us who protested the Iraq War in certain street protests that turned out to have been organized by Communist parties for their own shady purposes, have been burnt and we don’t want antiracism protestors to be exploited in the same way.
It's entirely possible that a movement like BLM can be co-opted by another agenda, and that's something people who support the movement need to watch out for. But all that's being presented here as evidence of the actual purpose behind BLM being the advancement of Marxism is speculation and extrapolation.