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  • Why Black-on-Black Crime isn't a Racist Deflection.

    Those links were along the line of LMGTFY. You can find people discussing the issue to your heart's content.

    As for BLM, at some point I begin to question your good faith. BLM isn't about telling someone's neighbor not to kill them, it is about reminding government (you know, a system) about something. Yes, it would be great of the racist next door also stopped being racist, but how about we start with our systems of power no longer perpetuating racism.

    Here is an excerpt from BLM's official description (from their page):

    #BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Global Network 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. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives. . . .

    We are working for a world where Black lives are no longer systematically targeted for demise.

    Notice whose violence they are focusing on and that they are discussing systems.

    Here is a random conversation on the topic of BLM and black-on-black violence from six years ago.


    . . .

    Airing those viewpoints is a service—and there’s a lot to chew on that I won’t address here.

    But it seems to me that the debate about whether to focus on police killings or “black-on-black” killings presumes that reducing the former will not help to reduce the latter.

    What if the opposite is true?

    Black Lives Matter calls for 10 specific changes to policing policy, including body cameras, an end to “policing for profit,” better training, and stricter limits on the use of force.

    . . .

    Black Lives Matter activists are often silent about black-on-black killings. Perhaps that is a P.R. mistake. But the reforms they are urging strike me as a more realistic path to decreasing those killings than publicly haranguing would-be murderers to be peaceful.

    Black Lives Matter participants are civic activists, not respected high-school teachers or social workers or reformed gang members who can influence their former brethren.

    Since police departments are ultimately responsive to political institutions, fighting for police reforms with civic activism is a relatively straightforward project. . . .

    If you want to educate yourself on why black on black violence is not an overarching concern of those discussing systemic racism, the tools to do so are readily accessible.


    And one more, because why not?


    ... Let’s stop losing focus and changing the subject when it comes to police and or vigilante violence against blacks. That is what the Black Lives Matter movement originally brought focus to. A person randomly killing someone is a totally and completely separate issue. For those so concerned about these murders, you need to offer some solutions to stop them. . . .

    Here was my search terms for these articles: "black lives matters response to black on black violence"
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)

    Think of the chaos currently in Minnepolis of #BlackLivesMatter protesters. A lot of damage has been done and I imagine tons injured. If no-one was to contend these blacks, they would slaughter everyone. I say use real guns, kill all violent protestors.Barabmob

    I think the mods should ban this dude because his name is Bomb Arab backwards
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)

    Think of the chaos currently in Minnepolis of #BlackLivesMatter protesters. A lot of damage has been done and I imagine tons injured. If no-one was to contend these blacks, they would slaughter everyone. I say use real guns, kill all violent protestors.

    This socialist regime is weakening the states.

    We need Trump, make sure to vote him in and in the end real justice will take these people. Who cares if they shout racism - this is America. Not your play thing.
  • Were Baby Boomers Really The Worst?

    "The greater experimentation and deviation of the 1960s doesn't make the 1950s a period of conformity. Maybe it was just a period of "normality"."

    I was born in 1959. I remember the years between 1965 and 1968 as being like the scene in the Wizard of OZ, when everything changed from black and white to vivid technicolor. IT was dramatic, disturbing and incredibly exciting. My brother and I felt like we and our peers were from a different planet from our parents. The older generation that we knew were so profoundly out of the loop in terms of their ability to relate to our language a, music, fashion, that it was like the adults in the Peanuts cartoons, who never really make an appearance. Watch a youtube video of a rock group performing on Ed Sullivan or Dean Martin in the mid 60's and you'll see a bizarre scene of musicians wearing outfits that one could still see today as retro-hip fashion on a teenager. But in the audience you'll see a sea of 50's uniforms, suits and ties on the men and formal outfits on the women that could have come from the 30's or 40's. A complete disconnect, except among the kids in the audience. That kind of abrupt schism in a society is a rarity. Its not that each generation doesnt move away fro the previous. Its the extraordinary rapidity of the change that was so unique in the 1960's.

    And at the heart of it wasn't just the desire to party or the effects of television and prosperity. It was something deeper, involving a shift in philosophical worldview. That's what gave the social revolution its power. The twilight zone could frighten people in 1960 because the idea of alternative realities was terrifying to a culture raised on reality as objective truth. By the late 1960's being a freak was a badge of honor and a desirable goal for the counterculture.

    A scene in the documentary Berkley in the 60's encapsulated the change in worldview. The campus activism began in Berkley by earnest students who had cut their teeth on the civil rights movement, and represented a kind of continuity with the leftist and communist movements of the 30's. But somewhere around 1966 a much deeper, more visionary shift took place in their thinking, as hippies and political activists began to cross-pollinate. Student began shifting from chanting 'we shall overcome' to 'We all live in a Yellow submarine'. They had become psychedelicized, seeing their opposition to the old ways not just in the traditional political terms of resistance, but as an entirely new worldview with implications for every aspect of life, for the sexual to the spiritual to the social.
    Certainly the majority of those who grew their hair long, took drugs or participated in Woodstock didn't buy into the most radically life-altering thinking that the leaders of the cultural movement did, but they were a part of it in some way.

    What I miss most about that period between 1962 and 1972 is the incredible momentum of movement of thinking, making movies from 1959 seem like a different century from those of 1969. It spoiled me. I assumed that this rate of social change would persist in to my adulthood. instead what I encountered was a retrenchment, increasing cautiousness and endless regurgitating of themes that emerged in that era. It's been 50 years since that era, and yet
    the derivative Zizek , Butler and the anti-hegemomic tropes of #metoo and #blacklivesmatter are all we have to show for it.
  • Is consciousness a multiplicity?

    "why this idyllic scene does take place in faraway Ecuador?"
    I don't know Maybe because it's 5 degrees and snowing here in Chicago.

    "Most of the machinic subjectivities are entirely relevant from the point of an adjustment of a subject to the social, cultural, and working environment." "When you engage with your friend, both of you adjust to mutually shared socio-cultural established norms of communication,"

    But you know, each of us interprets the meaning of those so-called cultural norms differently. This is why today there are violent disagreements in the U.S. concerning social and ethical and political norms.The understanding of the norms themselves differ from person to person, but normally so subtly that it appears as though those of us within a particular community(urban vs rural) united by those norms believes that we just assimilate them automatically. But even within a community of supposedly shared norms, even within a single family, there can be violent disagreements over the meaning of those 'norms'.

    "If the harmony prevails, there is no place for questioning and problematization."
    An ideal harmony generally does not prevail in social situations, in direct proportion to the failure of the participants to slip into the perspective of the other. This is especially true in today's political climate.

    Identity politics, the #metoo movement, #blacklivesmatter, are just some examples of the way we on the one hand recognize each others' differences more effectively over time, and yet fail to understand why those who we blame fail to live up to our standards.
    Most of the philosophical underpinnings of these movements, particularly marxist ones, contain an underlying moralism that drives the blamefulness of their rhetoric. A Foucaultian-Deleuzian account
    avoids the moralistic-blame of emancipatory positions because it doesnt try to organize thought around a developmental telos. And yet, it still blames in the sense of pointing a finger at arbitrary sources of conditioning. We are 'shaped by', 'adjust to', 'conditioned by' the affect, social, physical worlds.
    Relevance, significance is not what conditions you and me , but what you and I interpret uniquely within what would supposedly 'condition' us.
  • Disproportionate rates of police violence against blacks: Racism?

    In many social science departments of many western universities, they now teach that the west is fundamentally patriarchal, and fundamentally white supremacist. Racism is "power + privilege". They accept it as a brute fact that whites have all the power and all the privilege in the west, making all white people racist. It's hard to believe that this comes out of actual university curriculum, but it's becoming more and more evident. We're being told that as white men we're unaware of the naturally ingrained systems of oppression, which can be complex and subtle, that benefit us at the expense of women, of people color, even more so at the expense of women of color (and so on with a litany of possible identities which might entail facing any sort of obstacle in life which white men might not face). "Intersectionality" they call it, which is in itself worthy of it's own discussion.VagabondSpectre

    I don't agree with this...I would argue that academia teaches that because blacks are a minority that they will have a psychological propensity to view the majority white culture with suspecion especially in a historical context.
    I imagine that if I was a minority ethnicity it would have some psychological effect on me as well.

    The view that this automatically amounts to racism is more popular among minorities sure...but I would still suggest the majority of minorities don't believe it.
    And certainly the majority of whites do not believe it.

    We have real examples of history to informs us what white supremacists institutions and policies look like.
    And that is not what our current system is.

    The same goes for patriarchy, we have real examples of cultures where women amount to property...and that is not how the west operates in terms of social values.

    At least in my experience most people don't agree with such views...I would say that is more of an extremist fringe.

    In some ways, any would be leader of the BLM movement is going to somehow have to put the "black" in "#BlackLivesMatter". It is very difficult to do this without amplifying a racial lens, but my own approach would be to address the issue of police use of force without focusing on racism or race as a fundamental causative factor behind the problem, and to also address the larger issue facing the black community, which leads to many of the events which spark BLM protests, which is crime in and of itself in black communities. The discussion must necessarily involve economics, politics and culture, and while it runs the risk of being obfuscated by likewise presuming that the economic, political, and cultural realities facing many black communities are symptoms of that larger white supremacist system contemporary schools of thought point to, it could still bare fruit. In summation, the BLM rhetoric at large is not outwardly "us against them", it is rather an idea lurks just under it's surface, and because of lost complexity and some inherently evocative underpinnings, it's now beginning to rear it's ugly head.VagabondSpectre

    Agree that BLM should have a more inclusive tone...after all police brutality affects all of our society.

    I did do a google search and reviewed two different BLM sites.
    The rhetoric was very racially charged and as a white male I felt alienated by that message.
    As though my support or involvement would not be welcomed as anything but part of the problem.
    That is sad to me...I am certainly not motivated to be sympathetic to such a view.
  • Disproportionate rates of police violence against blacks: Racism?

    There's really a lot going on with the BLM movement...

    One part of the movement is the reactionary protests to police killings of black civilians. This is the origin and core of the movement, and ideologically speaking it's only inherent message is "state killing of civilians is bad, with the awareness that blacks are being subjected to it way more often than any other race", which is quite unassailable, morally speaking. It's also in my view the main phenomenon which renews and expands BLM activism on the whole as a sustaining force. It is a very emotionally evocative entry point into the movement. When we see video of police literally murdering an unarmed black man, the thought "There is a serious problem." rightfully passes through our minds, but I think our extreme moral disgust over what we just witnessed primes us to have emotion and bias cloud, oversimplify, or otherwise inhibit our attempt at understanding the issue with sufficient depth and clarity.

    Sometimes protests are more organized and leaders with actual formed messages or demands emerge, and while they all seem to have fallen under the moniker of "#BlackLivesMatter", they can have somewhat different standards, messages, and approaches. This is where a major layer of diversification and simplification occurs. The emergence of specific slogans and chants is one obvious example that shows diversity in the movement. "Hands up, don't shoot" is one that cuts very close to the real issue of police practices when interacting with civilians, as well as civilian behavior when interacting with police; I could not come up with a better slogan. ""We have nothing to lose but our chains" has seemingly become quite popular among university crowds, and I find it fascinating. The interesting history of this phrase is somewhat irrelevant to how it is wielded and the point I'm making, but originally it was a popularized English interpretation of a slogan from the communist manifesto "Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!". Re-coined with modern meaning by Assata Shakur, a polarizing figure to say the least, it is a part of a larger quote that is chanted repeatedly and with frequency by protest groups, and also repeated as a kind of oath at some speaking events. It strikes me that the picture of America that this paints is figuratively no different than institutionalized slavery in the southern U.S states circa 1830. There's an inherent contradiction to being a university student and having nothing to lose but chains, but that aside, this slogan is exceptionally emotionally evocative, and it also stokes racial resentment/guilt. The final slogan I'll use as an example to show this diversity has seen much less actual usage than the others I've mentioned, which I'm grateful for, because it's terrible and represents the worst of and a minority of the BLM protestors. It speaks for itself: "Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon"...

    The most organized leaders in the BLM movement are well connected with campus groups, are very savvy with social media, and have been able to reach may traditional media platforms such as news and talk show interviews. These leaders are typically very intelligent and in my opinion very moral people. They distance themselves and the BLM movement as a whole away from any rhetoric that might call for violence, but the grassroots and reactionary nature of some BLM protests on the ground unfortunately renders them somewhat less of a governing force than might be ideal. Of these most organized and well connected leaders, most of them subscribe to the same school of thought when it comes to viewing inequality in the west. In many social science departments of many western universities, they now teach that the west is fundamentally patriarchal, and fundamentally white supremacist. Racism is "power + privilege". They accept it as a brute fact that whites have all the power and all the privilege in the west, making all white people racist. It's hard to believe that this comes out of actual university curriculum, but it's becoming more and more evident. We're being told that as white men we're unaware of the naturally ingrained systems of oppression, which can be complex and subtle, that benefit us at the expense of women, of people color, even more so at the expense of women of color (and so on with a litany of possible identities which might entail facing any sort of obstacle in life which white men might not face). "Intersectionality" they call it, which is in itself worthy of it's own discussion.

    In some ways, any would be leader of the BLM movement is going to somehow have to put the "black" in "#BlackLivesMatter". It is very difficult to do this without amplifying a racial lens, but my own approach would be to address the issue of police use of force without focusing on racism or race as a fundamental causative factor behind the problem, and to also address the larger issue facing the black community, which leads to many of the events which spark BLM protests, which is crime in and of itself in black communities. The discussion must necessarily involve economics, politics and culture, and while it runs the risk of being obfuscated by likewise presuming that the economic, political, and cultural realities facing many black communities are symptoms of that larger white supremacist system contemporary schools of thought point to, it could still bare fruit. In summation, the BLM rhetoric at large is not outwardly "us against them", it is rather an idea lurks just under it's surface, and because of lost complexity and some inherently evocative underpinnings, it's now beginning to rear it's ugly head.

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