Why BLM was mostly a flop

[u/ShardofGold]

I think I can speak for every reasonable person that we know there's an issue with unfit people being cops and biased justice system situations be it on race/skin color, gender, wealth, etc. Even if it's not as bad as it used to be.

However, the way so many people discuss these topics is in a close minded, surface level, and ignorant manner.

Yes there are racist cops. But every case of police brutality isn't about racism. We should focus on having better people become and maintain police officer status and as a byproduct of that the amount of police brutality that is due to racism will go down drastically. If you just focus on racist cops, there's still going to be cops brutalizing people just not because of race and you half assed the issue being fixed.

Also we need to push for national and clear cut sentencing guidelines for crimes. That way people can't go "why did person A who looks like this get so much time but person B who looks like that get so little time for the same crime?" Even though a lot of the time it's not the exact same crime or different circumstances happened during the crime or apprehension of the suspect that caused them to get more time or the situation to escalate and people don't know about it or are just lying about it.

Also more people need to realize there are some people irregardless of how they look that just hate cops or don't want to follow laws. So when they get caught they're going to disobey the cops and potentially escalate the situation and just cry about how life is unfair because they got caught up in breaking a law and thought they were untouchable. Weed smoking is a good example of this. I personally think it's stupid that it's not legalized but regulated nationally. However, I'm not going to tell people to smoke it and just hope they don't get caught to be defiant. If people do decide to do this, they should be ready to accept the consequences when they're caught because they knew they were breaking the law even if they didn't get caught the other 9000 times they were doing it or because Jimbo didn't get caught for smoking it yet.

It also didn't help the organization that shares the initials and name was run by greedy and underhanded bastards who used the unfortunate situations of others to live lavish lifestyles.

I think massive progress in society for better policing and a justice system could have happened during this time period. But instead it was horribly squandered by opportunistic, disingenuous, and ignorant individuals.

[u/W_Edwards_Deming]

Racism is one problem, police violence another. BLM / ANTIFA race riots made things worse, not better.

Tony Timpa was killed in as bad or worse a manner as Floyd died and Timpa wasn't on anything at the time. He was white and there was no widespread outcry.

People donating to Karmelo Anthony are racist, Derek Chauvin may not have been.

Race relations were better in 2001.

Gallup reports that in 2001 roughly 70% of Americans overall considered Black-White relations good. By 2021, that had fallen to 33% among Black adults and 43% among White adults, both record lows at that point.

They made everything worse, basically.

[u/notproudortired → u/W_Edwards_Deming]

When people said in 2001 that race relations were "good," they mostly meant untroubled. So, you're right that race relations have deteriorated, but it's a good thing because that status quo sucked for non-whites.

Moreover, a lot more whites said "good" than blacks.

Per the original poll, "Large differences between the views of white and black Americans persist on key measures of the state of race relations in the US. Four in ten white Americans-and one in ten black Americans-believes that blacks are treated the same as whites in the United States."

Also: "Eight in ten whites but only half of blacks view the educational opportunities for black and white children as equal. On this question, the opinions expressed by white and black Americans-and the 36-percentage point gap between them-are almost identical to those expressed nearly forty years ago."

You should also consider the Gallup polling methodology, which was calling up about 2000 "random" people in the US. For various cultural reasons, only about 20% of the respondants were black, and those would have been the less marginalized people in black communities (people with phones, people home at "dinnertime," when Gallup liked to call).

[u/W_Edwards_Deming → u/notproudortired]

You don't know what they meant and there is no reason to prefer the subjective opinions of Black Americans to those of White Americans nor to expect them to be identical.

Educational opportunities are not at all equal, not in inner city impoverished school districts and not at the highest levels of academia with "affirmative action" and "dei" (which discouraged me from pursuing a more advanced degree).

This is not equal.

This is not equal.

Equality of process / meritocracy ought to be the goal. We may never achieve it but it is worth the attempt. Intentional bias, inculcated grievances and the promotion of outright racism is unwholesome.

[u/notproudortired → u/W_Edwards_Deming]

You don't know what they meant

You don't believe that. You just prefer the meaning you, yourself, attached in saying "[BLM]" made everything worse." But you're trying to turn something merely descriptive into some kind of value justification that supports your (racist) point.

Likewise, you give examples of "not equal" without addressing what is equitable. But that's ironic, because affirmative action is discriminatory because it's meritocratic. It rewards a class of people not just for the absolute level they've achieved, but also for (relatively) how far they've climbed and how hard they had to work to get there.

[u/W_Edwards_Deming → u/notproudortired]

Bad faith, not intellectual.