The Murder of George Floyd and the Response To It

[Voronwë the Faithful]

According to testimony today, just having your hands cuffed behind your back restricts breathing even if you're not on opioids. In other words, the treatment of Floyd after he was cuffed was just wrong no matter what was or wasn't in his blood stream.

Lt. Zimmerman also pointed out that standard procedure when you do have to restrain a suspect is to keep them on their side because having them lying facedown also restricts breathing.

And that is before you even taken into account pressing your knee into his neck for almost 9 and half minutes.

[Beorhtnoth]

I am troubled by race. Not personally. I am content to describe myself as a lifelong anti-racist (I fought the right on the streets of my home town in the 80s when I was active in the ANL (Anti-Nazi League) and I have maintained my commitments). However, I find BLM difficult. Too many advocates overstep the mark, progressing from championing Black rights to overt anti-white rhetoric.

I am reminded of the comments from Professor Priyamvada Gopal, of Cambridge University, who was castigated for stating "White lives don't matter." This would be a prime candidate for the aforementioned overstepping, except that hers was a partial quote. The full quote was, "White lives don't matter. As white lives." which has a wholly different emphasis. And who would argue that it is the life that matters, not the whiteness?

However, this can be extended, and the resulting extension is uncomfortable.

"Black lives don't matter. As black lives."

The conclusion has to be, if white lives don't matter as white lives, surely black lives don't matter as black lives, and the "Black Lives Matter" movement requires qualification, especially considering the vehemence of the reaction to "All Lives Matter".

I am reminded of George Orwell's Animal Farm; "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

[Frelga]

The response to that which made the most sense to me was, all houses matter but the house that is on fire at the moment is the one that matters at the moment.

That's quite a history you mentioned. I wouldn't mind hearing some stories.

[Beorhtnoth]

I think all the houses are on fire, but the choice of which to fight, and when, is determined by "fashion".

до свидани

[yovargas]

The whole debate could have been avoided if they had picked the much clearer slogan "Black Lives Matter Too". So much easier to understand the intention of that phrase.

In general, I think progressives and far-leftists are extremely bad with how they try and communicate their ideas (see the recently popular gem "defund the police").

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I thoroughly disagree. When a house is burning, you don't say "save this house, too!" You say "save this house!" That doesn't mean that other houses don't matter, but it is an acknowledgement of which house needs immediate attention.

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[yovargas]

The house burning analogy is pretty terrible.

A common thing I see, when people often misunderstand the intended ideas behind a lot of the (poorly phrased) leftist messaging, instead of saying "hmm, our message isn't getting across properly to many people, maybe our communication is flawed", they'll say some equivalent of "hmm, our message isn't getting across properly to many people, they must all be ignorant bigots".

[Dave_LF]

A common thing I see, when people often misunderstand the intended ideas behind a lot of the (poorly phrased) leftist messaging, instead of saying "hmm, our message isn't getting across properly to many people, maybe our communication is flawed", they'll say some equivalent of "hmm, our message isn't getting across properly to many people, they must all be ignorant bigots".

x100

[elengil]

The house burning analogy is pretty terrible.

A common thing I see, when people often misunderstand the intended ideas behind a lot of the (poorly phrased) leftist messaging, instead of saying "hmm, our message isn't getting across properly to many people, maybe our communication is flawed", they'll say some equivalent of "hmm, our message isn't getting across properly to many people, they must all be ignorant bigots".

It's not a Left vs Right thing, that's pretty much across the board, it's just the Right's version is "Hm, our message isn't resonating with voters, maybe we should shift our platform," they say "Hm, our message isn't resonating with voters, we need to stop people from voting if they aren't voting for us."

[yovargas]

It's not a Left vs Right thing, that's pretty much across the board, it's just the Right's version is "Hm, our message isn't resonating with voters, maybe we should shift our platform," they say "Hm, our message isn't resonating with voters, we need to stop people from voting if they aren't voting for us."

I'm not talking about simply disagreeing with a message. I'm talking about literally not understanding what the intended message is at all. Messaging from the right is usually pretty straightforward. Nobody misunderstands what is meant by "build the wall" or whatever.

[elengil]

It's not a Left vs Right thing, that's pretty much across the board, it's just the Right's version is "Hm, our message isn't resonating with voters, maybe we should shift our platform," they say "Hm, our message isn't resonating with voters, we need to stop people from voting if they aren't voting for us."

I'm not talking about simply disagreeing with a message. I'm talking about literally not understanding what the intended message is at all. Messaging from the right is usually pretty straightforward. Nobody misunderstands what is meant by "build the wall" or whatever.

I will give you that the Right can be brutally honest when it comes to their slogans - Make Libs Cry Again certainly did not need any explanations. Fuck your Feelings was pretty straightforward. Though I'm still waiting for an explanation of Make America Great Again - either when did we stop begin great, since any suggestion of such on the Left is immediately met with "if you don't like it, leave" - but more importantly, when we were last great, and great for whom.

But at other times the Right can be just as squirrly and dishonest as they can be. We were constantly told we didn't understand Trump's messages. They're jokes, they're metaphors, that isn't what he meant, stop taking him so literally- Mexico will pay for it? Where did that get lost in translation? How did we misunderstand that?


Not understanding a slogan may account for a small portion of it, but from my view it's willfully refusing to understand it. It's being told by Fox or OAN or Alex Jones that it means something entirely other than indented and then not allowing for anything to change your mind.

So no, I don't believe that the problem is that the Left comes up with such bad slogans that nobody on the Right is capable of understanding them - apparently I give the Right more credit for brains than that. It's that the Right chooses not to understand them and wants the Left to come up with something else. Instead of actually addressing the issue they want to quibble over the name. And I am given no reason to believe the Left finding a different slogan will improve the situation - the right will simply find something else about that slogan they don't like and will fight it over and over based on the name and never, ever address the issue.

After all, nobody seems to misunderstand SAVE THE WHALES as meaning fuck every other kind of wildlife. Or Breast Cancer Awareness means other cancers don't matter. There is bad messaging, and then there is willful misunderstanding.

[edited slightly]

[Frelga]

What elengil said.

I submit that the if Black Lives Matter "does not resonate", it's not the slogan that's the problem.

Let's also remember that the Right's response to BLM was Blue Lives Matter, yet there was zero outrage at police officers being beaten with thin blue line flags. If you don't care about your slogans meaning anything beyond a dog whistle, they are easy to come by.

What does that mean, to be uncomfortable with race?

[Beorhtnoth]

I must confess, I am puzzled by what is determined, and accepted as, "left".

It appears that "socially liberal" has usurped and replaced "left".

As an anarchist syndicalist with Trotskyist leanings (perpetual revolution is fundamental to eradicating corruption), I find the argument confusing.

[Frelga]

Land for the peasants
Factories for the workers
Peace for the people

That was one successful slogan. Don't think America will go for it, though.

[Beorhtnoth]

Land for the peasants
Factories for the workers
Peace for the people

That was one successful slogan. Don't think America will go for it, though.

More fool America?

[Túrin Turambar]

I think it’s basically beyond doubt that the social justice left consistently undermines itself by making arguments which are confusing, unfalsifiable, or would look indistinguishable from the claims of the alt-right if they were made about other demographic groups. For example, the invitation to this workshop on ‘Niceness is Not Anti-Racism’, which I saw kicking around on Twitter last week:

It’s not a secret that white women have continually failed Black women as allies. In this workshop, we will encourage white woman-identified participants to think more deeply about their allyship, discuss their failings honestly to overcome white fragility, and decide on some actions to improve. Presenters will deliver content and provide space for discussion around two main themes: 1) Intersections of white supremacy and patriarchy and 2) Anti-blackness.

A sentence in the form “it’s not a secret that [people from racial group X] have continually failed [to do Y]” could come comfortably out of the mouth of Richard Spencer. The second sentence makes the workshop participants responsible for the behaviour of all white women (or white women-identified people). It isn’t clear what standard the workshop convenor expects individual white women to meet. The workshop participants are assumed to be racist and any argument to the contrary is treated as evidence that they are racist and refuse to accept the fact. The entire thing puts me in mind of Christopher Hitchens’ critique of Christianity, we are “created sick and commanded to be well”.

[Inanna]

Who is the audience for this workshop? It sounds, well, stupid.

But please you can find stupidity everywhere. (See what I mean Bëor?)

[Túrin Turambar]

Who is the audience for this workshop? It sounds, well, stupid.

It was run by UW-Madison, and advertised to faculty and students.

[yovargas]

The workshop participants are assumed to be racist and any argument to the contrary is treated as evidence that they are racist and refuse to accept the fact.

Yes, a common variant of what I mentioned above. The extremely common and successful tactic of "any criticism of my idea is proof that my idea is correct" is one of the most insidious aspects of what's happening in the modern progressive left. It is nearly impossible to fight. It feels more like the kind of tactic that many cults use to prevent the questioning of their unquestionable dogma. But I suppose political cults aren't exactly a new thing.

[Frelga]

Was the workshop compulsory?