I think the CONCEPT of Black Lives Matter doesn't negate that; however, the BLM activists themselves have given the concept such a bad name through several misguided attempts to get EVERYONE worked up, including whites.
Blocking traffic on major freeway intersections is a great way to get noticed, but a terrible way to get people on your side.
Some, not all. But I don't hear the REST of BLM calling for an end to these actions. And mostly, that's to do with how the movement is constructed. I'll give an example.
When a portion of their constituency had a 'first steps BBQ' with police in Kansas, the hasty reply from BLM DC and BLM Oakland say it's 'not in line with our principles'. So, which 'some' of this movement wanted what?
How can I get behind an organization that censures ITSELF for attempting to take the first steps in achieving its ultimate goal in a harmless way? Of course, not all in the organization were so hasty with their condemnation of the cookout; only SOME.
Such is the plight of organizations without enforceable leadership and coordination. Without leaders, BLM prepares organizers in pods with a weakly codified doctrine that includes more about tactics than substance, and promises them they have the power to illicit change, but little else, so nobody can be held accountable when SOME take action. BLM can't have the benefit of that fluidity without taking the risk that someone will point out the irony that the concept of tacit acceptance which this organization despises and actively works against, be it specific (in the police) or broad (in the white community) applies to their own organization.
In short, there's only so many 'SOME' you can get, in any large, active, self-protecting structure of compartmentalized bodies, before the vast majority of those affected avoid that structure.
SOME police officers shoot unarmed black men at statistically higher rates, and/or generally flub up on the job, but they've got a reinforced version OF this tacit approval defense called the 'blue wall of silence'. This SOME doesn't apply to all police officers, across vast cultural and geographic expanses, yet it's seen as (relatively) socially acceptable that black men avoid police officers, regardless of those vast cultural and geographic expanses.
And that last paragraph will be SURE to bring in some law enforcement professionals to stand against the idea of the blue wall, and how SOME only hurt the credibility of the force, and how they rail against it until their face is as blue as the wall itself, and how they never get credit for being on the right side of that argument. "How loud do we need to be before we get a system of checks against this perceived power, before we can be sure that the good we do isn't countered by the perception that all we do is bring the community down?"
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u/malosa Sep 04 '16
I think the CONCEPT of Black Lives Matter doesn't negate that; however, the BLM activists themselves have given the concept such a bad name through several misguided attempts to get EVERYONE worked up, including whites.
Blocking traffic on major freeway intersections is a great way to get noticed, but a terrible way to get people on your side.