Why "All Lives Matters" is wrong
- Thread starter jackelgull
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CavLancer
This aint fertilizer
I'm willing to accept that any group's lives matter. The question then becomes to whom? Who is in charge of having any group's lives matter to that person? Does he or she have a list of whose lives matter?
Terxpahseyton
Nobody
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It is just a slogan. It does not really mean anything, by itself. If that is what you are getting at.
@Flying Pig
I would not call it "decency". Social markers or something neutral like that is more accurate and fitting. Anyway, it is both. Did not mean to suggest that an individual can just escape racism like that. But if you look at successful black people in good but normal jobs - chances are they seem more "white" than the black cashier at wall mart. And I don't think this is just correlation (though that, as well).
Since we are arguing with slang words now - when I went to a Texan High School, I became familiar with the word "oreo cookie" for a black person who "acts white". You know, black on the outside, white on the inside. It was a harmless joke in the context I saw it used. But that this would even be a thing speaks volumes about the problem of cultural division I am referring to.
I wasn't even going to address this point, because if someone wants to have this discussion by hand-picking what he likes like that, we are already beyond what I consider a worthwhile discussion. It is a bit like a climate-change-denier pointing out a snowy month. But nice find.
@Flying Pig
I would not call it "decency". Social markers or something neutral like that is more accurate and fitting. Anyway, it is both. Did not mean to suggest that an individual can just escape racism like that. But if you look at successful black people in good but normal jobs - chances are they seem more "white" than the black cashier at wall mart. And I don't think this is just correlation (though that, as well).
Since we are arguing with slang words now - when I went to a Texan High School, I became familiar with the word "oreo cookie" for a black person who "acts white". You know, black on the outside, white on the inside. It was a harmless joke in the context I saw it used. But that this would even be a thing speaks volumes about the problem of cultural division I am referring to.
Whoopsy.
I wasn't even going to address this point, because if someone wants to have this discussion by hand-picking what he likes like that, we are already beyond what I consider a worthwhile discussion. It is a bit like a climate-change-denier pointing out a snowy month. But nice find.
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Terxpahseyton
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wrong thread...
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timtofly
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Are not 2 Hispanics worth 1 African? "All lives matter" only when we start given value to them. But yes, what is value other than an economic equation.
When it comes to the issue of races, some white people could care less about the value of their own existence. So one race does not have any more claim to being successful than any other race. But the fact we even make a distinction between races, is because we are racist. Until we admit that, and let it go, we will not give value to ourselves much less other humans.
When it comes to the issue of races, some white people could care less about the value of their own existence. So one race does not have any more claim to being successful than any other race. But the fact we even make a distinction between races, is because we are racist. Until we admit that, and let it go, we will not give value to ourselves much less other humans.
Terxpahseyton
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You are talking value you can express in numbers.
I have to say I never felt numerically.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
I am still waiting for a cosmologist to discover something amazing about black matter, so that we can get a headline in a paper that reads: "BLACK MATTER LIVES"
As for BLM, they aren't taken very seriously in Canada at all. They have a history here north of the border of very questionable.. tactics. They even managed to split the GLBTQ community in two by blocking their parade late last year. Most people here view them as a group that's making racial tensions a lot worse, not better.
Looking south of the border it seems that a group like BLM is needed, as the conditions in the U.S. are a lot different than here in Canada. However, I do disagree with their tactics, as well as the violent and bigoted parts of their platform, assuming it's the same in the U.S. as here in Canada
As for BLM, they aren't taken very seriously in Canada at all. They have a history here north of the border of very questionable.. tactics. They even managed to split the GLBTQ community in two by blocking their parade late last year. Most people here view them as a group that's making racial tensions a lot worse, not better.
Looking south of the border it seems that a group like BLM is needed, as the conditions in the U.S. are a lot different than here in Canada. However, I do disagree with their tactics, as well as the violent and bigoted parts of their platform, assuming it's the same in the U.S. as here in Canada
Gori the Grey
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"All Lives Matter" does not imply an alliance between all Americans. As has been posted, it is a counter-slogan that arose to undercut the claims made by the slogan "Black Lives Matter." The original implied contrast of the slogan "BLM" was "as opposed to not mattering (as would seem to be the case from the few opportunities our society provides them, harassment by the police, unequal rates of incarceration, etc.)"
So the implied contrast is "as opposed to not mattering." "All Lives Matter" reframes the implicit contrast in "BLM" to "The lives of black people matter, as opposed to the lives of people of other races." To be more succinct, it takes a slogan that asserts "Black Lives Matter" and acts as though it was asserting "Black Lives Matter," so that that slogan can be summarily dismissed.
"All Lives Matter" was never intended as an assertion that white people, like the hiring manager in your scenario, would help black people. Almost the opposite is the case. It was devised so that white people could close their ears to calls by the black community to treat them as though they matter.
timtofly
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I was making fun of the point humans are seen as just numbers. ; )
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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That's the sort of tripe churches ask you to ponder, kneeling in the dark by yourself, in order that you might forge your understandings into a superior product. How passe.
civvver
Deity
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Well said. It was a reactionary slogan meant to undercut and take the wind out of the black lives matter slogan. OP never said that though, just went on some rant about white people siding with bigots.
Perfection
The Great Head.
Addict lives matter
jackelgull
An aberration of nature
The people I know who use that phrase are well meaning conservatives who think racism is over and that black lives matter are just making trouble with the police. Fair enough though, that it is widely used by reactionaries to suggest "Black Lives Matter" means "Only Black Lives Matter"
Timsup2nothin
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Notice that the white people parroting "all lives matter" as a reaction to Black Lives Matter and their valid complaints are, in fact, siding with bigots.
That's basically the problem. Most white people apparently aren't bigots, but when it comes down to white bigots being challenged by minorities those white people who aren't bigots seem to side with the white bigots, generally speaking.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
I'm pretty sure I've seen an Asian with a "____ Lives Matter" thing somewhere. But maybe he was half white.
danjuno
Cole Phelps, Badge 1247
Exactly. In isolation, All Lives Matter would not be a controversial statement. The fact that it is being used to shout down BLM is the issue.
Manfred Belheim
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Why can the hiring manager not get fired in the "All Lives Matter" universe, but fears for his job in the real one? Is employment law the difference between the two worlds?
And no-one ever screams about reverse racism.
And no-one ever screams about reverse racism.
Berzerker
Deity
nobody had to
