General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Political Awareness Matters: How Black Lives Matter Are Screwing Themselves -- And the Rest of Us [View all]daredtowork
(3,732 posts)The question is - can anyone claim to be that leadership? As several have pointed out, that was part of the downfall of OWS.
I agree with your general points about #BLM - I've been a strong supporter of that movement, and I've been particularly worried about the obsession of white liberals with establishing "All Lives Matter" as a humanist idea and principle of universal reason - I've been constantly having to re-explain #BLM to no avail to people who should be strong allies. I suspect there IS pressure, not from White Supremacists but from White Intellectuals Who Think They Know It All, for political representatives to signal "All Lives Matter". This gives a very real "White Liberal" presence among us for #BLM to be talking back to: we just don't recognize it when they use they use the term "White Supremacy" because we associate it that with lynching and the confederate flag. The "white supremacy" they have in mind is the more subtle kind that ultimately stems from white privilege, and that is abetted from using white as the default color of "the universal".
Definitely worth talking about. Definitely worth a critique. I've had numerous arguments with very smart white liberal acquaintances on this matter who surprised the heck out of me by saying "All Lives Matter" (and who were in a position to be providing subtle political pressures regarding use of that term).
NOT worth disrupting Bernie Sanders events when that is his only method of conducting his campaign in lieu of having any money. And he's been disrupted twice now! There needs to be an unwritten rule that all candidates need to be disrupted an equal amount with equal ramifications before another round starts.
Regarding Bravenak, the posts I looked at just did not rise to a level of a time-out. I've been on a lot of juries and DU sets the bar for language low and the bar for free speech high. I still see Bravenak as primarily guilty of dissent and being a lightening rod for messages that people don't want to hear.
Hey, I don't want to hear them either. As a Bernie supporter, I dislike this "divide the economic from the social" stuff, and it benefits Hillary's camp so much that I suspect her or a wealthy supporter of bankrolling it at some point in the discourse stream. And it even annoys me on DU when someone claims to be a POC speaking for ALL POC and insists that problems of race are free-floating and non-caused by the economic despite poverty and employment discrimination being two of its outstanding features. (This actually totally baffled me until today when I saw there was a meme about problems of racism being buried under general economic problems - the fact that #BLM is trying to prevent that needs to be articulated more clearly).
Despite the annoyances and disagreements, I'd rather have he information and debate in front of me on DU than in some back channel where it will total catch me by surprise later.