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How in any possible reality is BLM not a civil rights issue? Did you read about the murder of George Floyd? You're totally wrong.

rayiner 6y ago
Police brutality against Black people is a civil rights issue. BLM is a group of affiliated political organizations, and a slogan coined and popularized by those same organizations. Those organizations view the policing issue as just one symptom of a larger societal problem and advocates particular solutions not only to that problem, but to other problems that are, within their intellectual framework, related. It’s the difference between “child malnutrition” and activist organizations that have particular explanations for and proposed solutions to that problem.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Police brutality against Black people is a civil rights issue. BLM is a group of affiliated political organizations, and a slogan coined and popularized by those same organizations. That's historically false. The slogan was popularized before the key organizations existed; the organizations were, in part, a response to the criticism that the movement united by the slogan lacked a clear and coherent agenda.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    My understanding is that Alicia Garza and the other founders of the BLM organization coined the phrase itself: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/blacklivesmatter-hashtag-first-appears-facebook-sparking-a-movement https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/blacklivesmatter... > Outraged and saddened after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the Florida man who killed a Black teenager in 2012, Oakland, California resident Alicia Garza posts a message on Facebook on July 13, 2013. Her post contains the phrase "Black lives matter," which soon becomes a rallying cry and a movement throughout the United States and around the world. https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/BLM https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/BLM > In 2013, three female Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — created a Black-centered political will and movement building project called Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter began with a social media hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin back in 2012. > According to the Black Lives Matter website they were "founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > My understanding is that Alicia Garza and the other founders of the BLM organization coined the phrase itself Yes, they created the slogan and hashtag in 2012 and the Foundation in 2013, and the Movement for Black Lives was founded in 2014. (Much of this is express in the excerpts you cite.) The organizations did not exist until well after the slogan was popularized, and the various organizations within the movement (even the big two) mentioned are not without disputes over both policy recommendations and priority between them; the slogan isn’t a sales technique for the programs of one organization or the other, the organizations are working to try to establish how to make the slogan concrete.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        How is that responsive to my point? The folks who created the slogan built a political organization around it, and that organization has a specific political platform. Put differently, it’s not like the slogan was some pre-existing neutral concept that happens to be used by these organizations. There is a direct relation between the slogan and these organizations. Demanding that people repeat and affirm the slogan, therefore, seems risks demanding they endorse the organizations.
        tptacek 6y ago
        Do you actually believe this is a real risk? Can you articulate how the dangerous outcome you're referring to actually plays out?
        rayiner 6y ago
        At Northwestern, there were demands for former Dean Yuracko to recite the “Black Lives Matter” slogan. She released messages condemning the “horrific racial injustices faced by African-Americans on a regular basis” and developing an action plan for the school. But she was condemned for “not explicitly stating, ‘Black Lives Matter.’” (https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2020/7/9/21310596/northwestern-law-pritzker-nlawindifference-george-floyd https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2020/7/9/21310596/nor...). And she was ultimately removed from her job. I don’t know Dean Yuracko’s inner thoughts. But I suspect she has fairly progressive views given the nature of her research (gender equity) and that she believes “black lives matter” as a literal factual statement. But being pressured to repeat that statement, as the slogan, and the name of an organization with some fairly radical ideas, is a differently thing entirely. In America, we don’t go around forcing people to express solidarity with a political movement, no matter how meritorious the movement.
remarkEon 6y ago
This is precisely what I’m talking about. You’re continuing to assert that if you support civil rights you must support BLM. Others have pointed out why this comes from a faulty assumption.

rayiner 6y ago

Police brutality against Black people is a civil rights issue. BLM is a group of affiliated political organizations, and a slogan coined and popularized by those same organizations. Those organizations view the policing issue as just one symptom of a larger societal problem and advocates particular solutions not only to that problem, but to other problems that are, within their intellectual framework, related. It’s the difference between “child malnutrition” and activist organizations that have particular explanations for and proposed solutions to that problem.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Police brutality against Black people is a civil rights issue. BLM is a group of affiliated political organizations, and a slogan coined and popularized by those same organizations. That's historically false. The slogan was popularized before the key organizations existed; the organizations were, in part, a response to the criticism that the movement united by the slogan lacked a clear and coherent agenda.
- rayiner 6y ago
  My understanding is that Alicia Garza and the other founders of the BLM organization coined the phrase itself: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/blacklivesmatter-hashtag-first-appears-facebook-sparking-a-movement https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/blacklivesmatter... > Outraged and saddened after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the Florida man who killed a Black teenager in 2012, Oakland, California resident Alicia Garza posts a message on Facebook on July 13, 2013. Her post contains the phrase "Black lives matter," which soon becomes a rallying cry and a movement throughout the United States and around the world. https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/BLM https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/BLM > In 2013, three female Black organizers — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — created a Black-centered political will and movement building project called Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter began with a social media hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin back in 2012. > According to the Black Lives Matter website they were "founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > My understanding is that Alicia Garza and the other founders of the BLM organization coined the phrase itself Yes, they created the slogan and hashtag in 2012 and the Foundation in 2013, and the Movement for Black Lives was founded in 2014. (Much of this is express in the excerpts you cite.) The organizations did not exist until well after the slogan was popularized, and the various organizations within the movement (even the big two) mentioned are not without disputes over both policy recommendations and priority between them; the slogan isn’t a sales technique for the programs of one organization or the other, the organizations are working to try to establish how to make the slogan concrete.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      How is that responsive to my point? The folks who created the slogan built a political organization around it, and that organization has a specific political platform. Put differently, it’s not like the slogan was some pre-existing neutral concept that happens to be used by these organizations. There is a direct relation between the slogan and these organizations. Demanding that people repeat and affirm the slogan, therefore, seems risks demanding they endorse the organizations.
      - tptacek 6y ago
        Do you actually believe this is a real risk? Can you articulate how the dangerous outcome you're referring to actually plays out?
        rayiner 6y ago
        At Northwestern, there were demands for former Dean Yuracko to recite the “Black Lives Matter” slogan. She released messages condemning the “horrific racial injustices faced by African-Americans on a regular basis” and developing an action plan for the school. But she was condemned for “not explicitly stating, ‘Black Lives Matter.’” (https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2020/7/9/21310596/northwestern-law-pritzker-nlawindifference-george-floyd https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2020/7/9/21310596/nor...). And she was ultimately removed from her job. I don’t know Dean Yuracko’s inner thoughts. But I suspect she has fairly progressive views given the nature of her research (gender equity) and that she believes “black lives matter” as a literal factual statement. But being pressured to repeat that statement, as the slogan, and the name of an organization with some fairly radical ideas, is a differently thing entirely. In America, we don’t go around forcing people to express solidarity with a political movement, no matter how meritorious the movement.

remarkEon 6y ago

This is precisely what I’m talking about. You’re continuing to assert that if you support civil rights you must support BLM. Others have pointed out why this comes from a faulty assumption.