Quote:
Originally Posted by Secrets
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"Black Lives Matter" is a valid statement. It's something everyone can agree on. It doesn't mean they are superior to other lives, nor lesser than others. It means you treat one person of a specific peripheral construct (race) as the same as another peripheral construct.
Anyone arguing anything other than that (ie; All Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, etc.) means that you support the systematic destruction of a particular group of people that you visually see as inferior based on <attribute here>. You can't say "All Lives Matter" and then kill the fly that accidentally landed on your monitor that's 'annoying you' - the fly has a life too. Bedbugs? Yup, can't kill those, as all lives matter. Those attracted to children? Yeah, can't treat them any different. 'All Lives Matter', right?
Cops are not a race. They're a profession you pick much later in life. You can't look at a cop out of the womb and say "Yeah, this dude's gonna be a cop."
They are a social construct, not one based on your sense of vision. They are based on emotion to a society founded on rules. Society once existed without officers, laws, and political biases. The only thing that hasn't changed is that black individuals are black and still systematically oppressed for centuries.
So instead of being racist, sexist, or whatever -ist, how about propping up the people you are close to and know need help, regardless of the way they were born? After all, we can't judge books by their cover.
Actions speak louder than sitting here on this EverQuest forum saying about how you'll do something instead of actually getting involved and doing your part to make sure it ends.
I personally took it upon myself on multiple occasions and sat with people one-on-one that I care about, and helped them get on their feet, expecting nothing in return. Can you say you've done the same, or have you just posted on message boards and social media about how 'people need to do it' - well, guess what, you are a person. Stop preaching to the choir and start making better choices. |
Humans will by and large tend to associate and agree with people they feel are similar to them, and the easiest way to associate is by looks. Skin color stands out the most, so most people of a certain race will tend to sympathize with a message coming from people of the same race. We do it with lots of things besides race too, by profession, hobby, where you're from, and what political party you support. That's why good salesmen will try and find a way to "relate" to you by trying to find a connection (either real or fake.) In politics people will sympathize more with their respective voter base (or who they think is their voter base.) If you're liberal and I talk about uneducated racist white people, you're more likely to want to view them with disdain rather than sympathy, while viewing poor racist black people as simply misguided. The right does this too, claiming poor black people are thugs and all the black communitys problems are their own doing, which is false. I think a fear a lot of americans have with the BLM movement is that these different expectations are going to be upheld as the mainstream, acceptable view. If you look just at the NFL, Drew Brees said "I will never agree with someone kneeling for the flag." His own team mates called him out instantly, stopped following him on IG or whatever. Probably like 1/2 the leagues players specifically called him out. Meanwhile DeSean Jackson posts "hitler was right" with some fake hitler quotes, and it took probably at least a day for any current player to call him out. I think maybe 5-10 players have called him out specifically at all, most people just saying "we can't accept any sort of hate" without specifying the incident at all. They're basically "all lives mattering" this situation, it's a joke. You can pretty easily say that "they don't represent the majority of the BLM movement" which is true, and that leads to my next point.
BLM is, at the moment, a pretty decentralized movement. That can be good for the movement but also bad. In todays political climate if there's a clear leader then it's easy to point to a figurehead and say "those are the policies this group supports." BLM doesn't really have this, except for when ultra conservaties will point to their "leaders" being trained marxists or something. The "movement" is difficult to criticize at the moment, because it's not really clear what policies they support. At the same time the organization will lack direction due to leadership. Look at what's happened politically, and I really don't think much of what's happened will have a positive impact on black lives much.