25 ms·

Yup. Try saying, with genuine honest neutrality, “all lives matter”, “it’s ok to be white”, or “capitalism doesn’t care about race/gender” and see what happens.

matthewmacleod 6y ago
All three of these phrases are political slogans. They are inherently associated with a set of political views, because they exist specifically to oppose another set of views and slogans. It’s unreasonable to echo a political slogan in public and then complain that people don’t assume your neutrality. You cannot say “it’s okay to be white” and expect others to consider it neutral, in much the same way that you can’t say “blood and soil”.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  It's the other way around: these phrases are neutral observations and reasonable opinions, perhaps reasonable reactions to insanity of well-known political slogans - importantly, it's something a random person can come up independently, without reading the exact words first. But at some point, these phrases rapidly become politicized, and this catches a lot of people off guard. You voice your thoughts, fully expecting the audience to consider it neutral, but it so happens that your words pattern-match to a phrase that became a political slogan somewhen in the last few months, and boom, your audience hates you. You just stepped on a political landmine[0]. It seems to me than in the past 5-10 years, social discourse became littered with such political landmines, and at this rate, it's very hard to keep up with the list of phrases that can blow up in your face. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968760
  - matthewmacleod 6y ago
    That's only true in the sense that every phrase can be a "neutral observation" if you choose to ignore the context in which it is used and the associations it has. It's the same concept as dogwhistling at its core. Like the terms "urban", or "big government", or "states' rights", or "law and order". Completely "neutral phrases" that are often used to communicate a hidden message with plausible deniability. I mean after all, who could disagree that "all lives matter" – it's obvious isn't it? I don't really accept it's all that hard to be aware of the implications of the language you use to communicate. I suppose you might theoretically step on a "landmine", but I'll tell you what – I am virtually certain that nobody who has said "it's okay to be white" to their audience has accidentally stumbled upon a neutral phrase with good intentions.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      >Like the terms "urban", or "big government", or "states' rights", or "law and order". Completely "neutral phrases" that are often used to communicate a hidden message with plausible deniability. These are terms used earnestly in neutral ways by academics, professionals and bureaucrats from all over the political spectrum. Does anyone seriously thing the NHTSA or some sociology professor is dog whistling when they use words like "urban environments" or "law and order"? Yes, you can communicate a hidden message with them but you can communicate a hidden message with damn near any words in the english language if you want to.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      The other side of this is that opponents always try to create negative associations for whatever they oppose. So then someone whose politics favors authoritarianism and centralization will propose some federal power grab, opponents will make arguments favoring local control and the authoritarians will try to tar them with slavery and Jim Crow even if the subject is unrelated, e.g. whether the FDA should be overruling the states on whether or not to ban a thing in their state. It's essentially an attempt to prevent anyone from taking the neutral position by making an accusation of guilt by association. Nazis are bad, Nazis built roads, therefore roads are bad.
  - watwut 6y ago
    There was no "all lives matter" until there was "black lives matter" and people wanted to say they don't like the message. It is quite dishonest to claim that this phrase is neutral and not a political slogan.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - peytn 6y ago
      It’s a restatement of the first and most widely-known principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association [1]. I think that is why it resonates with many people. Those people are then caught off-guard when they use the phrase and find themselves labeled “racist.” I just don’t see how the vilification of a specific phrasing of a common sentiment moves us forward. To me it feels like playing power games with words. [1]: https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/principles/1st https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/principles/1st
    - drdec 6y ago
      I think you are forgetting what it was like when the "black lives matter" slogan was first becoming popular. If hadn't already been exposed to it, it was very easy to respond "incorrectly". For example, here's a case of a Democratic governor, running for president, getting caught by this: https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/politics/martin-omalley-all-lives-matter/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/politics/martin-omalley-all-l... And here is Hillary Clinton, falling into the same trap: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/24/417112956/hillary-clintons-three-word-gaffe-all-lives-matter https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/24/41711...
    - jstrong 6y ago
      > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
      - sokoloff 6y ago
- ctdonath 6y ago
  Political only insofar as they call out the disingenuous nature of their opponents' unopposable slogans. I absolutely can, and do, say "it's okay to be white" because there should be absolutely nothing inherently & politically wrong with my skin color - and the phrase was developed to bely the imputed virtue of those who reveal their true stance by freaking out over it. Do black lives matter? absolutely, of course. Is it okay for me to be white? why is your response to berate me for saying so?
DanHulton 6y ago
Because there is no "genuine honest neutrality" behind those phrases. They're shibboleths. They're commonly understood slogans, used to indicate what side you're on (or at least what side you're opposed to) while SOUNDING innocent. The people who know, will KNOW what you mean when you say them. (And in the incredibly unlikely situation where you'd somehow been exposed to enough of the discourse to come up with these phrases on their own, but NOT so much that you hadn't heard them yet, they're still terrible concepts that have been roundly denounced on their own merits. For just one example: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAsrVFXD3Ju/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_mid=61825497-58B4-4DD1-B083-53FECEE86256 https://www.instagram.com/p/CAsrVFXD3Ju/?utm_source=ig_embed...)
- monkeypizza 6y ago
  If you define away neutrality, there is no neutrality, yes. But does everyone agree with your definition? This seems more like a "you're with us or against us" trick. "I care about protecting all children" is still neutral, right? But if someone popularized "ICAPBC", by your argument "ICAPAC" would innately become a shibboleth? Something doesn't seem right here, where neutral positions automatically get converted to dog-whistles without any proof.
  - jawarner 6y ago
    What is neutrality in this scenario? BLM is about protesting anti-black racial injustice in the criminal justice system. Is neutral ground that there is no injustice? That it doesn't matter? Yes, there was violence at a small fraction of protests, and it's fair to have pushback on that. That seems a separate issue than rejecting BLM on the face of it with an expression like ALM.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      Neutral ground is that injustice is wrong, no matter who it happens to. It's wrong when it happens to blacks, it's wrong when it happens to Asians, it's wrong when it happens to Hispanics, and it's wrong when it happens to whites. That's neutral. From there, you look around and you see that blacks and Hispanics seem to have injustice happening to them in ways that don't often happen to whites. (Not sure about Asians; but my perception is that they may experience injustice, but less of it than blacks.) And then, coming from a position that all injustice matters, when you seen injustice happening more to specific groups, you say "That injustice matters." Not that it's the only injustice that matters, or that other injustice doesn't, but that specific injustice seems to happen a lot, and it's not OK. We need to do something about it.
api 6y ago
All three of these are reasonable statements if you remove all contemporary social context. Nobody does that, and the people who use these slogans know that. They're using the difference between abstract context-free understanding and contextual understanding as a gaslighting technique, making obviously political statements and then pretending there is no context and hiding behind "but that's a reasonable statement!" Consider, alternately, these three statements: "The social contract applies equally to all instances of human life." "We should eliminate shame in connection with anyone's race, heritage, or other aspects of their origin over which they have no control." "There is nothing inherent in markets that perpetuates racial prejudice." These mean about the same thing but are formulated in a way that avoids this kind of gaslighting doublespeak. It's not hard to do. I doubt those statements would offend anyone. I assume anyone saying "all lives matter" is racist precisely because it is so damn easy to say the same thing neutrally.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  This game is fun: > "The social contract applies equally to all instances of human life." Clearly you're making an argument against abortion. > "We should eliminate shame in connection with anyone's race, heritage, or other aspects of their origin over which they have no control." Pedophiles make this argument to justify their urges. > "There is nothing inherent in markets that perpetuates racial prejudice." This one might as well be All Lives Matter. It's the common retort against claims of algorithmic racial bias and was used historically in the South to oppose government-mandated desegregation. These are the claims you're using as examples of neutrality, until somebody puts them in a frame where they're not. You can do that with everything because even an actually neutral claim is an opposition to a non-neutral claim by someone else, and therefore has political implications.
years3500 6y ago
A quick search of 'Marion Gerald Hood Emory University rejection letter' will show how even in 1959, blacks were treated like scum. There are ways to get an idea of the reality of black people. For those who are ok with videos, here are some good but enjoyable ones. You may use 'NewPipe' from fdroid or the youtube-dl command line utility to download them: [1] How to pretend systemic racism does not exist? (with eng subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ciwjHVHYg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ciwjHVHYg [2] Let's talk about what it's like to be a black person in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD8mWq0Hdcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD8mWq0Hdcw [3] Let's talk about being armed and black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL_IX8yX_JU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL_IX8yX_JU [4] How cops are trained to shoot you in your home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzQrbio2Qw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzQrbio2Qw Other resources include James Baldwin's books and documentaries. His 'The Fire Next Time' is just 120 pages [5]. 'The Price of the Ticket' and 'I Am Not Your Negro' are good documentaries [6][7]. [5] https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-James-Baldwin/dp/067974472X https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-James-Baldwin/dp/06797... [6] https://www.amazon.com/James-Baldwin-Price-Ticket/dp/B01M25WCAS https://www.amazon.com/James-Baldwin-Price-Ticket/dp/B01M25W... [7] https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Not-Your-Negro/dp/B01MR52U7T https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Not-Your-Negro/dp/B01MR52U7T [8] Also the 1965 Baldwin and Buckley debate on the theme "Has the American dream been achieved at the expense of the American negro?" > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxLUbKebYvc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxLUbKebYvc English subtitle download: https://amara.org/en/videos/dGI1henIPVYS/en/1338731/ https://amara.org/en/videos/dGI1henIPVYS/en/1338731/
runarberg 6y ago
If you move this comment one level up it sounds like a clear distinction from the racist right. Making it clear that GP was engaging in a false equivalence. One might say: In a different context this comment is accidentally leftist. You see the context in which you say things matter. If you should “all lives matter” in response to the death penalty, I bet you’d be met with a ton of leftist support. However if you say it in response to “black lives matter” it is pretty clear that you disagree.
thomastjeffery 6y ago
"All lives matter" is a totally meaningless phrase outside the context of "black lives matter". The only reason to say "all lives matter" is to trivialize the phrase "black lives matter". It may appeal to neutrality, but the context is far from neutral.
- morpheos137 6y ago
  Has any rigorous study shown that blacks are more likely to die in police encounters after adjusting for income level and crime rate of where the encounter takes place? If so please provide a cite or link. Although out of thousands of cops in the USA I am sure there are some genuine racists the notion that in 2020 cops would be killing blacks intentionally at a higher rate seems ridiculous. 99.999% of cops want to have an easy shift, get a donut or two, write a couple tickets, watch the years go by, retire early and collect a pension. Plenty of poor and middle class whites have been killed by abusive individual cops over the years and yet the reaction is not tribalism, rioting or generalising the actions of few bad cops to the police force as a whole. I agree America has massive problem with overly militarised police but this is not a racial issue. It stems from the drug war and the ease with which criminals can get high powered weapons in America. See North Hollywood Shootout. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver
  - heterodoxxed 6y ago
    The reason we just had the largest civil rights protests in American history this summer has as much or more to do with the everyday experience with the police as it does the extraordinary events such as deaths. Deaths were the spark, not the fuel. The grinding oppression of every day life in terms of policing has been shown in study after study. It is disproportionately felt by black people, mostly men, but it has been steadily expanding to all demographics for decades now. | Plenty of poor and middle class whites Yeah and a lot of poor and middle class white people were out supporting the protests because of their own experiences too. Daniel Shaver's death is not argument against BLM's goals, it's an argument in favor of them.
AshWolfy 6y ago
You clearly know they are dogwhistles. Just like saying sieg heil doesnt inherently mean anything racist, but everyone knows what you mean when you say it.

matthewmacleod 6y ago

All three of these phrases are political slogans. They are inherently associated with a set of political views, because they exist specifically to oppose another set of views and slogans. It’s unreasonable to echo a political slogan in public and then complain that people don’t assume your neutrality. You cannot say “it’s okay to be white” and expect others to consider it neutral, in much the same way that you can’t say “blood and soil”.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
It's the other way around: these phrases are neutral observations and reasonable opinions, perhaps reasonable reactions to insanity of well-known political slogans - importantly, it's something a random person can come up independently, without reading the exact words first. But at some point, these phrases rapidly become politicized, and this catches a lot of people off guard. You voice your thoughts, fully expecting the audience to consider it neutral, but it so happens that your words pattern-match to a phrase that became a political slogan somewhen in the last few months, and boom, your audience hates you. You just stepped on a political landmine[0]. It seems to me than in the past 5-10 years, social discourse became littered with such political landmines, and at this rate, it's very hard to keep up with the list of phrases that can blow up in your face. -- [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25968760
- matthewmacleod 6y ago
  That's only true in the sense that every phrase can be a "neutral observation" if you choose to ignore the context in which it is used and the associations it has. It's the same concept as dogwhistling at its core. Like the terms "urban", or "big government", or "states' rights", or "law and order". Completely "neutral phrases" that are often used to communicate a hidden message with plausible deniability. I mean after all, who could disagree that "all lives matter" – it's obvious isn't it? I don't really accept it's all that hard to be aware of the implications of the language you use to communicate. I suppose you might theoretically step on a "landmine", but I'll tell you what – I am virtually certain that nobody who has said "it's okay to be white" to their audience has accidentally stumbled upon a neutral phrase with good intentions.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >Like the terms "urban", or "big government", or "states' rights", or "law and order". Completely "neutral phrases" that are often used to communicate a hidden message with plausible deniability. These are terms used earnestly in neutral ways by academics, professionals and bureaucrats from all over the political spectrum. Does anyone seriously thing the NHTSA or some sociology professor is dog whistling when they use words like "urban environments" or "law and order"? Yes, you can communicate a hidden message with them but you can communicate a hidden message with damn near any words in the english language if you want to.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    The other side of this is that opponents always try to create negative associations for whatever they oppose. So then someone whose politics favors authoritarianism and centralization will propose some federal power grab, opponents will make arguments favoring local control and the authoritarians will try to tar them with slavery and Jim Crow even if the subject is unrelated, e.g. whether the FDA should be overruling the states on whether or not to ban a thing in their state. It's essentially an attempt to prevent anyone from taking the neutral position by making an accusation of guilt by association. Nazis are bad, Nazis built roads, therefore roads are bad.
- watwut 6y ago
  There was no "all lives matter" until there was "black lives matter" and people wanted to say they don't like the message. It is quite dishonest to claim that this phrase is neutral and not a political slogan.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - peytn 6y ago
    It’s a restatement of the first and most widely-known principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association [1]. I think that is why it resonates with many people. Those people are then caught off-guard when they use the phrase and find themselves labeled “racist.” I just don’t see how the vilification of a specific phrasing of a common sentiment moves us forward. To me it feels like playing power games with words. [1]: https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/principles/1st https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/principles/1st
  - drdec 6y ago
    I think you are forgetting what it was like when the "black lives matter" slogan was first becoming popular. If hadn't already been exposed to it, it was very easy to respond "incorrectly". For example, here's a case of a Democratic governor, running for president, getting caught by this: https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/politics/martin-omalley-all-lives-matter/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/politics/martin-omalley-all-l... And here is Hillary Clinton, falling into the same trap: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/24/417112956/hillary-clintons-three-word-gaffe-all-lives-matter https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/24/41711...
  - jstrong 6y ago
    > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
    - sokoloff 6y ago
ctdonath 6y ago
Political only insofar as they call out the disingenuous nature of their opponents' unopposable slogans. I absolutely can, and do, say "it's okay to be white" because there should be absolutely nothing inherently & politically wrong with my skin color - and the phrase was developed to bely the imputed virtue of those who reveal their true stance by freaking out over it. Do black lives matter? absolutely, of course. Is it okay for me to be white? why is your response to berate me for saying so?

DanHulton 6y ago

Because there is no "genuine honest neutrality" behind those phrases. They're shibboleths. They're commonly understood slogans, used to indicate what side you're on (or at least what side you're opposed to) while SOUNDING innocent. The people who know, will KNOW what you mean when you say them. (And in the incredibly unlikely situation where you'd somehow been exposed to enough of the discourse to come up with these phrases on their own, but NOT so much that you hadn't heard them yet, they're still terrible concepts that have been roundly denounced on their own merits. For just one example: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAsrVFXD3Ju/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_mid=61825497-58B4-4DD1-B083-53FECEE86256 https://www.instagram.com/p/CAsrVFXD3Ju/?utm_source=ig_embed...)

monkeypizza 6y ago
If you define away neutrality, there is no neutrality, yes. But does everyone agree with your definition? This seems more like a "you're with us or against us" trick. "I care about protecting all children" is still neutral, right? But if someone popularized "ICAPBC", by your argument "ICAPAC" would innately become a shibboleth? Something doesn't seem right here, where neutral positions automatically get converted to dog-whistles without any proof.
- jawarner 6y ago
  What is neutrality in this scenario? BLM is about protesting anti-black racial injustice in the criminal justice system. Is neutral ground that there is no injustice? That it doesn't matter? Yes, there was violence at a small fraction of protests, and it's fair to have pushback on that. That seems a separate issue than rejecting BLM on the face of it with an expression like ALM.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    Neutral ground is that injustice is wrong, no matter who it happens to. It's wrong when it happens to blacks, it's wrong when it happens to Asians, it's wrong when it happens to Hispanics, and it's wrong when it happens to whites. That's neutral. From there, you look around and you see that blacks and Hispanics seem to have injustice happening to them in ways that don't often happen to whites. (Not sure about Asians; but my perception is that they may experience injustice, but less of it than blacks.) And then, coming from a position that all injustice matters, when you seen injustice happening more to specific groups, you say "That injustice matters." Not that it's the only injustice that matters, or that other injustice doesn't, but that specific injustice seems to happen a lot, and it's not OK. We need to do something about it.

api 6y ago

All three of these are reasonable statements if you remove all contemporary social context. Nobody does that, and the people who use these slogans know that. They're using the difference between abstract context-free understanding and contextual understanding as a gaslighting technique, making obviously political statements and then pretending there is no context and hiding behind "but that's a reasonable statement!" Consider, alternately, these three statements: "The social contract applies equally to all instances of human life." "We should eliminate shame in connection with anyone's race, heritage, or other aspects of their origin over which they have no control." "There is nothing inherent in markets that perpetuates racial prejudice." These mean about the same thing but are formulated in a way that avoids this kind of gaslighting doublespeak. It's not hard to do. I doubt those statements would offend anyone. I assume anyone saying "all lives matter" is racist precisely because it is so damn easy to say the same thing neutrally.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
This game is fun: > "The social contract applies equally to all instances of human life." Clearly you're making an argument against abortion. > "We should eliminate shame in connection with anyone's race, heritage, or other aspects of their origin over which they have no control." Pedophiles make this argument to justify their urges. > "There is nothing inherent in markets that perpetuates racial prejudice." This one might as well be All Lives Matter. It's the common retort against claims of algorithmic racial bias and was used historically in the South to oppose government-mandated desegregation. These are the claims you're using as examples of neutrality, until somebody puts them in a frame where they're not. You can do that with everything because even an actually neutral claim is an opposition to a non-neutral claim by someone else, and therefore has political implications.

years3500 6y ago

A quick search of 'Marion Gerald Hood Emory University rejection letter' will show how even in 1959, blacks were treated like scum. There are ways to get an idea of the reality of black people. For those who are ok with videos, here are some good but enjoyable ones. You may use 'NewPipe' from fdroid or the youtube-dl command line utility to download them: [1] How to pretend systemic racism does not exist? (with eng subtitles) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ciwjHVHYg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4ciwjHVHYg [2] Let's talk about what it's like to be a black person in the US. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD8mWq0Hdcw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD8mWq0Hdcw [3] Let's talk about being armed and black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL_IX8yX_JU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL_IX8yX_JU [4] How cops are trained to shoot you in your home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzQrbio2Qw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzQrbio2Qw Other resources include James Baldwin's books and documentaries. His 'The Fire Next Time' is just 120 pages [5]. 'The Price of the Ticket' and 'I Am Not Your Negro' are good documentaries [6][7]. [5] https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-James-Baldwin/dp/067974472X https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Next-Time-James-Baldwin/dp/06797... [6] https://www.amazon.com/James-Baldwin-Price-Ticket/dp/B01M25WCAS https://www.amazon.com/James-Baldwin-Price-Ticket/dp/B01M25W... [7] https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Not-Your-Negro/dp/B01MR52U7T https://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Not-Your-Negro/dp/B01MR52U7T [8] Also the 1965 Baldwin and Buckley debate on the theme "Has the American dream been achieved at the expense of the American negro?" > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxLUbKebYvc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxLUbKebYvc English subtitle download: https://amara.org/en/videos/dGI1henIPVYS/en/1338731/ https://amara.org/en/videos/dGI1henIPVYS/en/1338731/

runarberg 6y ago

If you move this comment one level up it sounds like a clear distinction from the racist right. Making it clear that GP was engaging in a false equivalence. One might say: In a different context this comment is accidentally leftist. You see the context in which you say things matter. If you should “all lives matter” in response to the death penalty, I bet you’d be met with a ton of leftist support. However if you say it in response to “black lives matter” it is pretty clear that you disagree.

thomastjeffery 6y ago

"All lives matter" is a totally meaningless phrase outside the context of "black lives matter". The only reason to say "all lives matter" is to trivialize the phrase "black lives matter". It may appeal to neutrality, but the context is far from neutral.

morpheos137 6y ago
Has any rigorous study shown that blacks are more likely to die in police encounters after adjusting for income level and crime rate of where the encounter takes place? If so please provide a cite or link. Although out of thousands of cops in the USA I am sure there are some genuine racists the notion that in 2020 cops would be killing blacks intentionally at a higher rate seems ridiculous. 99.999% of cops want to have an easy shift, get a donut or two, write a couple tickets, watch the years go by, retire early and collect a pension. Plenty of poor and middle class whites have been killed by abusive individual cops over the years and yet the reaction is not tribalism, rioting or generalising the actions of few bad cops to the police force as a whole. I agree America has massive problem with overly militarised police but this is not a racial issue. It stems from the drug war and the ease with which criminals can get high powered weapons in America. See North Hollywood Shootout. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Daniel_Shaver
- heterodoxxed 6y ago
  The reason we just had the largest civil rights protests in American history this summer has as much or more to do with the everyday experience with the police as it does the extraordinary events such as deaths. Deaths were the spark, not the fuel. The grinding oppression of every day life in terms of policing has been shown in study after study. It is disproportionately felt by black people, mostly men, but it has been steadily expanding to all demographics for decades now. | Plenty of poor and middle class whites Yeah and a lot of poor and middle class white people were out supporting the protests because of their own experiences too. Daniel Shaver's death is not argument against BLM's goals, it's an argument in favor of them.

AshWolfy 6y ago

You clearly know they are dogwhistles. Just like saying sieg heil doesnt inherently mean anything racist, but everyone knows what you mean when you say it.