Or white people in general.

I guess those protesters are no true scotsman either right?

There is a section of BLM (even I won't say all) that thinks all cops are the enemy and therefore must be eliminated by defunding or other methods. In their minds they are advancing the cause of BLM and fighting social injustice. You may not agree but they are BLM none-the-less.

By your own rules you support the police, so that means you also support the white supremacist militias that have shown up at some of the protests. You may not agree, but they are Support the Blue none-the-less.

Nuance is apparently still difficult to grasp.

nuance lol

Like I am trying to explain, this is not about the group, it is about the cause. BLM may be the most closely associated with the cause, but they are only a group and those that align themselves with BLM and do shit like this are not welcome. Like Brian said, nuance can be difficult to grasp.

I find perfect clarity being a supporter of both social justice groups and the police, while also recognizing there are elements of both that need to be eradicated.

For me, there are a number of things BLM supports that I support. There are also a number that I am totally opposed to. So what does that make me? You can't say 'BLM supporter' or 'anti-BLM'. Neither fits.

If you support (let's say) only 50% of key BLM positions, you are very likely not a BLM supporter. If you support 90% of key BLM positions, you are very likely a supporter. So yeah, I can say based on the # of things you support of BLM whether you are a supporter or not. Admittedly there is a grey inbetween area.

Animals that must be hit hard! https://t.co/zrOd9ZUl8o

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2020

Interesting use of the plural. I only saw one person in the video... I wonder what he could mean?

Nobodyhere's attitude has been baked in to our culture. Everything is "us versus them", and the extremes represent everyone on either side. It is sad, really. The reason we can never make progress on anything. Everything is all or nothing.

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Why? If I'm in favor of half of what they say, I'm as much supporter as not. Meanwhile I'm certainly not anti-BLM, I'm not one who merely opposes them in general, I'm not of the more extreme 'they're all terrorists' mindset, etc. I'm not being pedantic here, I'm just saying a binary 'do you support BLM' kind of question doesn't make sense. There are more shades than that and BLM has enough stated aims that there are going to be many variants among those who even know what most of those aims are.

Let's use an example. From the wiki, this is what BLM believes in or wants to accomplish (my numbering for clarity). Please note, when I went to the BLM site, they had a set of "dreams" (my wording) vs demands. The dreams were pretty loosely worded and I think most people would agree with them. I found other sites that seemed more specific but may just have been opinions vs official BLM statements. So let's assume the 13 below are BLM key tenets and for the most part, equally weighted.

If you don't agree with what wiki has listed, feel free to supply others your are more comfortable with but don't think it changes this exercise.


Of the 13, figure out 6 or 7 things you do not agree with (e.g. 50%). I don't see how you can say you only support 50% of BLM tenets and be a supporter. You may say you support BLM but suggest that BLM leadership will say otherwise.

Yes. Why do we have to be either/or so much? Politics shouldn't be akin to sports. Saying "I support some but not all of X aims" should be ok.

Daresay I find it a flaw with decentralized movements like BLM. There are those that call for dead cops. Many call for defunding the police. Many say that looting is justified as reparations. Many call for letting everyone out of jail. The BLM website says we should move away from nuclear families. Many call for Marxism.


Which statements should I take seriously and which ones should I not?

I struggled with this too so I settled on wiki until someone can convince me otherwise.

My knee jerk reaction is to blame this on a two party culture.

And Kodos can STFU about this.

When people are brave/stupid enough to walk up to a police cruiser and shoot them, our society has reached a chaotic point. When our police are stupid/insensitive enough to shoot suspects in the back, our society has reached a chaotic point.

Thank you. This is 100%.

My personal take is that you have a good heart but are resistant to a lot of the core ideas behind the concept of "Black Lives Matter" - I'm not speaking about an organization, but the general concept that we should be protesting on the level that we are (and more) due to our nation's history of systemic racism and that to actually fix that problem we will need to tear down a lot of our institutions and rebuild them - or massively overhaul and reform them. Edward's earlier list from the wiki is a good one - there is systemic racism that puts up barriers in education, in housing, in policing, in the criminal justice system, in access to food and other basic resources, and that all of these things are an intentional part of the founding and operation of our nation for 400 years. All white people are implicitly a part of these institutions even if we do not hold active hate in our hearts and we attempt on an individual level to treat all people equally and with respect. But that is not enough, we are all benefitting from the 400 years of power structure that has been put in place by our leaders, even as that power structure holds most of us (ie not rich white people) back as well, just not as far back as black people.

This takes a large amount of active learning to work on dismantling, at an individual level, from all white people. Many here get extremely angry if there is any suggestion at all that they might have benefited from systemic racism and oppression, even in the smallest of ways.


So I think you are a very thoughtful person, an educated person, and you're not a hateful person, but you have an awful long way to go.

I don't really like the idea of the "yes/no" 'flag' "do you support BLM" as a label, just like I get frustrated when we argue for pages "is a person racist" when that yes/no binary is so unproductive compared to judging each individual action as its own.



And please note that I'm not sitting on some ivory tower thinking I'm dispensing knowledge and that I'm better and I'm not part of the problem. I am. It's only been in the last two years or so that I've started seriously working on myself in the same ways that I'm talking about above. I'm an upper middle class straight white male dripping with privilege. I have benefited from the systems of oppression that exist in our country immeasurably, as did my parents. But its going to take hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of white people actively working to understand a systemic problem that we can easily ignore if we want to, in order to begin to fix it.

I know that's a crazy roundabout answer to "where do you think I stand on BLM" - but, that's the way I think your statement should be analyzed.

He Was the Neo-Nazi Who Inspired ‘American History X.’ His Nazi Pals Are Now Cops.

I'm not saying supporting half makes me a supporter. I'm saying it doesn't make me not a supporter. I.e. that it's just more complicated than that. I think 50% doesn't make you either one of those things. Even on the list, there are some I agree with (decarceration, I've long been on record for the flat-out abolition of the prison system in its entirety), some I disagree with (removing police from schools as one example), but a lot where it's just not that simple (i.e., I'm in favor of changes in education policy but probably not the ones they want, there's widespread debate about what reparations even means, etc).

Thanks for the generosity you've shown repeatedly on this issue. It does not go unnoticed. I'm resistant, as you put it, because I think a lot of the rhetoric clearly flies in the face of the available facts (not as I see them by the way - I think the fairest way to get an overall picture that I know of are various studies that have been discussed, polling done among the black community, etc. as they are the ones who have experienced what their life is like not me and therefore they get to define what that experience is). I think a number of proposed solutions will make things worse, not better. If I'm wrong so be it, but I don't think it would be any righter to advocate for that which I believe would not be beneficial.

My assessment of the general level of discussion from this thread, from BLM leaders, from social media leaning in that direction, etc. is that it's simply something that we (royal we, not meaning you and I) can't productively discuss. There's simply no common ground for exchange. Logical fallacies that Trump et al would be rightly eviscerated for are utilized routinely. The rhetoric given doesn't match the polling I referred to in the previous paragraph. Any counter-source one might wish to employ is either (if they aren't black) derided as having their opinion invalidated due to priviledge or (if they are black) cast aside as a wind-up act, a 'token black influencer' deployed as a pawn, having seen there is a path to success as a grifter and therefore not taken seriously for that reason either. This is a great setup if what is desired is insulation, but it doesn't work so well in terms of a dispassionate search for truth, something I aspire to in all matters though sadly achieve less frequently. . The person I regard to be the most important living intellectual on matters of racial inequality I never bring up for that reason; it wouldn't matter what their qualifications, life experience, validity of arguments or data, etc. there's just no way in. There isn't agreement on even the basic terms of debate, and the perspective & motivations are pre-impugned before assessing the factual basis of claims.

Because of that, for the most part I stay clear of the actual arguments vis a vis race, and simply engage only with the kind of general characterizations that brought me back into this thread. It's the only activity I can usefully do.

We'll agree to disagree. My POV is if you only support 50% of the key tenants of some belief, you really aren't a supporter (maybe it's the definition of what a "supporter" is).


Sure, we can discuss all the nuances but when it comes down to it, ask yourself the question - of the 13, you tell a BLM group that you don't support 6 or 7 of them, will they think you support BLM?

8 out of 10 times, willing to bet they will say "nah, not really".

Two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies are fighting for their lives after they were shot multiple times at point-blank range in an ambush, authorities said.

Crowds of protesters blocked the entrance to St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, where the wounded officers were in a critical condition, police said. Some protesters chanted "we hope they die," the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office said on Twitter. A witness told ABC7 that some had tried to break into the hospital's emergency room.

I suppose the hospital employees need to "get uncomfortable."

L.A. Protesters Try to Break Into Hospital Where Two Officers Are in Critical Condition After 'A Cowardly' Shooting

In the videos I've seen there were, at max, 6 people, but I think the video with 2 shows people that are also in the video with 4. They're assholes, but there was no large group blocking the hospital.

As of yesterday, it sounded like both deputies will survive. Hopefully they won't have to struggle with long-term effects of the shootings.

In the meantime 3 white guys were involved with murdering an innocent jogger, and they were deemed innocent by local police, and walked free for months.

Unless this is on video, I'd take it with a grain of salt. Like the other million times they lie about a Starbucks employee calling them a pig or something.

Am I the only one who thinks the LA shooter looks like a kid or a woman? Something about the stature, stance, and how they run away doesn't seem...well, just seems weird.

I really couldn't get anything from the video. I have exactly zero feel for who it was.

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Not to ignore the rest of your reply, but I'd be very interested in learning who this is. If you're comfortable DM'ing me a name that would be fine, I promise not to clutter this thread or any other based on it.

That was my thought - the shooter looks like a kid

That was my first thought with the video - that it was a teen

SI

My thought too and strongly suspect it may be a gang initiation.

I thought it was the angle but after looking at it again, you are right, looks like a shorter person.

I thought it was a teen as well. I think the gang initiation theory is valid.

12 million settlement for the family of Breonna Taylor.

The person has a weird and memorable gait. I’m sure that will lead to an arrest eventually.

Latest Pew poll on BLM. Support for BLM is in decline in all groups except for blacks. Only one survey question so no polling analysis as to why it has dropped.

Black Lives Matter support down since June, still strong among Black adults | Pew Research Center

I personally think that's likely just reverting to whatever the baseline is going to be. The freshness of the protests fading, news cycle, etc.

There's also an inability for some to separate the movement from the organization. There was a massive uproar on the WVU boards over the use of BLM stickers on helmets until Neal Brown explained what it was supporting.

Didn't think about a baseline. Here's Pew from 2016. Not sure if question is phrased exactly the same. Even with recent dip, it shows that more American support BLM now than back in 2016. However, the new survey does not break down strongly support or somewhat support like 2016. That would be an interesting data point.

How Americans view the Black Lives Matter movement | Pew Research Center

There's a video below, one part was taken with sound and another black-and-white without sound. If the CNN report below is accurate, I would think it was self-defense.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/21/us/ne...ide/index.html

Footage from Omaha shooting that killed James Scurlock | Video | omaha.com

Apparently there was more evidence but don't know what.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...death-73059253

Too many guns in this damn country. There is zero reason IMHO for any guns on the street except police and criminals. I am fine letting people that are scared of home invasion or whatever to have a hand gun or two at home and the typical hunting rifle but that is it. Guns being carried in the streets especially concealed weapons I don’t want. I have literally been in war zone where there were less guns than this fucking country.

Alcohol, men and guns definitely is a bad combination. In this case it's an alcohol establishment but same difference.

'State of Emergency' declared by LMPD as Breonna Taylor decision looms | News | wdrb.com



You do this because you're going to announce a fair and just decision that no one would protest, right?

SI

I respectfully disagree. I don't think that criminals on the street should have guns. However, if they're convicted felons, the problem is self-correcting because they aren't allowed to own firearms or ammunition.

After re-reading it I see your POV. But don't think he really meant it that way.

they do this so they can shoot more people

1) police murder innocent people
2) police get away with murdering innocent people
3) make a big show about potential upcoming property damage because you know that you're full of shit regarding #2.
4) OH GOD LOOK AT THE PROPERTY DAMAGE. WHY CANT WE JUST END LIFE IN PEACE ANYMORE?! THE HUMANITY (of the property, not of the people, who have no humanity)

sprinkle in some of:

1) fucked up devious plots to try to make it seem like the sleeping woman you murdered might be a bad person, as though that changes murder.
2) invite and laugh along with militia groups with their AR-15's just begging to self-defend
3) corral protestors towards militia groups
4) hey what about that law being proposed in that other state that would make it legal to drive your car into crowds of protestors as long as the protestors are black? I wonder if they can delay the announcement that the police are about to get away with murder long enough to enact that?