Here's my thesis: Poor whites should be supporting the Black Lives Matter movement as if their lives depended on it.
Why do I say that?
Well a lot of people don't realize what BLM is even asking for. If they took the time to look closer they would see that the things they are most strongly advocating for are critically needed by any American who isn't born rich.
Foremost let's consider the call to defund the police.
"Defunding" is a poor word choice, but so it goes with decentralized anything. The best choices don't always become the ones that dominate, which we should all understand from being in decentralized social media.
Anyway, what it really means is demilitarizing and no longer over-funding the police. Basically it means giving poor neighborhoods the same kind of policing wealthy neighborhoods get. You don't see the police roaming around harassing people just for sitting on their front steps or leaning against a wall. Instead the police only show up when called, and they are called for real crimes, not the crime of "looking suspicious."
It means that when someone is having a mental health crisis, you call a mental health worker to intervene, not someone with a gun who is only trained for 6 months, and primarily trained to use force.
It means that when someone falls asleep in their car, you hopefully feel enough connection to your community to go out and wake them up. At the worst you maybe call a tow truck. You definitely do not call someone who sees all behavior they are called in about as criminal behavior requiring enslavement.
And there is the key word in this post: enslavement
The 13th Amendment
Amendment XIII
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Emphasis mine.
And that is the crux of the matter.
The well intentioned 13th Amendment didn't end slavery; it expanded it.
In 2020, slavery is for any poor person, not just blacks. Would it surprise you to learn that not only does the USA have 25% of the world's prison population with only 5% of the world's overall population, but that the majority of those prisoners are poor whites!
Take a look.... 58.70%
Now of course percentage-wise, imprisonment is happening more for non-whites than for whites, because whites make up such a large percentage of the US population and policing is not equally distributed by zip code. But setting aside inequality in how the weapon of legal enslavement is being used according to race, let's pause a moment to let it really sink in just how much the weapon is getting used against Americans period.
This is not happening in other countries. This is a uniquely American problem, and I urge you to stop normalizing it. This is NOT okay. I would argue that the only reason so many whites have been silent about it is because it is seen as a "black problem" and not pertinent to them. This is one of the many ways race is used to separate people with common interests and make them fight each other instead of joining forces to fight for what benefits them all.
As is so often the case, the most vulnerable people's needs are just the tip of the spear. And it is the tip that always must lead if the rest is to follow. Are you reinforcing that tip, or undermining it's power?
Image source unknown
Anarchy and Defunding
If you are an anarchist, even if you are under the delusion that racism is not a real thing in the US, you should still be 100% supporting the efforts by BLM to defund the police. It is the step toward removing power and funding from government institutions that has the greatest traction, support and likelihood of succeeding right now.
We need to form alliances between groups who have shared aims. Even if we don't agree on everything, we must work together where we do agree.
Are you an anarchist?
Do you support "defunding" (demilitarizing and not over-funding) the police?
If not, I'd really like to hear your reasoning within the anarchist framework.
Learn more about the US prison industry
(All text and images (except the AT logo) are by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for HIVE.)
I definitely agree with the basis for this: slavery never ended, it simply changed from pure chattel to "slavery with extra steps."
However, when it comes to BLM, I am far more hesitant to agree. Besides the fact that the organization has received TONS of corporate & billionaire funds, as well as all the corporate media coverage, government support, etc.
The founders are admitted Marxists, and generally the supporters I see en masse are the same folks out chanting for cops to be the only people with guns, supporting authoritarians both left & right, paying their taxes, and otherwise supporting & promoting the status quo as a whole.
If BLM was pushing to abolish the police, and stop charging people the "taxes" for them, that would be one thing... but they're not. Most of the message is about replacing "racist cops" with "woke cops" - and the Democrats have already begun using this as a means to bring the UN in to run the police.
As long as the state exists, oppression will be the norm. Anything that doesn't address the root problems of institutional violence, is at best shuffle chairs on the Titanic, imho.
Just published this piece because I feel like I laid out my stance on this pretty well in a FB conversation the other day.
Interesting arguments. I think a key issue here is actually that BLM is a decentralized movement. I mean think about how things work here on HIVE and all the different perspectives in our community. We disagree over things as fundamental as whether there should be downvoting allowed, whether we should upvote our own content, bidbots, etc. Yet who gets to speak for HIVE? Any of us who say we do, right?
Similarly in BLM there is all that you say. However, there is absolutely also a call to defund the police and the platform that I think we would call most "official" is focused primarily on taking money away from the police. It is not socialist. It does not want to expand the state, but rather move the money away from the state.
I haven't heard anything that moves into the taxation arena. I don't think that's a part of the BLM platform one way or the other, not increasing or decreasing taxes. But where I think you and I really disagree is on the idea of incremntalism.
I do think that every step of removing power from institutions like the police is massive progress. You get people realizing experientially that things can work better with less money going to the government (which I firmly believe would be the case) and it opens their minds to more ideas about defunding government. Already the "defund the police" call is morphing into "defund the military." And the fact that powerful players are now feeling they have no choice but to get behind it (not because they want to or think it benefits them, I can assure you) just means that this is a battle we are likely to win!
In contrast, I just don't see getting the popular support at levels needed to make change actually happen with an all-or-nothing approach.
I'll take a look at your piece you linked to now.
It is, and it isn't; it's more like when there was Steem AND Steemit though. "BLM" is used as a rallying cry by all sorts of various people, groups, and communities around the country. But it's also the name of a specific organization, which is bringing it millions of dollars in donations, and funneling most of it to the Bernie Sanders & Joe Biden presidential campaigns.
As I addressed in that article - when it comes to groups (especially amorphous or decentralized ones) it's impossible to ever make a "the movement ______" statement, because at any moment, in any place, the "movement" only means whatever it means to the person you're interacting with.
However, when there is an actual organization (like BLM itself), then we can see where the money flows, who the funders are, etc. When I look at those things, for BLM, it doesn't look good. I see a LOT of media, corporate, and government support. I see the money being funneled to support the democratic party. I'm not saying that there is a difference between the parties, but if a person/movement supports the parties, they by definition support the status quo.
But the plan has always been (at least since Agenda 21 was laid out 30 years ago) to eliminate city/state/national police & military and replace them all with the UN/NWO version - which is exactly what the #DefundThePolice movement is currently being used as the justification for.
Very interesting. Thanks for the comments here and for your post, which I just commented on.
Thanks. I do want to say that I really agree with a lot of your points, regarding policing, prison, and the socio-economic focus there.
The part that I highlighted here is one that I find to be extremely important, and one of my main problems with the rallying cry of BLM. I have always been a fan of separate, hyper-focused activist groups/movements, that then support each others work where alignments exist.
There are a LOT of folks who fall into the right/trump/tea/libertarian/etc range of things that would absolutely support a push to cut down on militarization of police, prison-industrial-complex, and so on... if it wasn't the the fact that currently jumping on that bandwagon seems to require accepting/agreeing to a lot of extremely left/socialist/marxist/intersectional assumptions & beliefs.
Have you ever heard of Dale Brown and the Threat Management Centers in Detroit?
He's new to me. Will check him out.
What you're describing is the very problematic "all or nothing" viewpoint that tends to be more prevalent on the left than on the right. It's like you can't work together unless you are in 100% agreement about everything, which is going to necessarily be a small percentage of people. Meanwhile there are issues the needle could be moved on where there is agreement by like 80% of the population, but it just doesn't happen because of this all or nothing mindset. Both sides of the ideological divide do it, but it happens more on the left.
I think it would be impossible for far left and far right to work together on anything at this point. I see anarchists as something else entirely though, and hope to see alliances with the left there.
I’m an anarchist and 100% supporting the efforts by BLM in the UK
I'm a poor white with a prison number and was raised in the justice system since I was 12 yrs old...
I will not support any racist movement that claims to want equality, yet still separates us by the color of our skin. The BLM is doing this and I find it to be complete hypocrisy.
Either all lives matter or none do, period!
I agree with you.
I also agree with IndigoOcean about most of her post, for example, we must demilitarize the police immediately. That's part of returning to a constitutional republic and not the crony-capitalist fake democracy currently in place. (I just hope this isn't a pretext to bringing in international - maybe UN - troops to keep the peace.)
We also need to spread awareness of what racism actually is. It can exist from and to any ethnicity of people, for example. The lie that only "white people" can be racist is ITSELF a racist idea. Another aspect many people don't understand is that talking about race isn't necessarily racist. Some people think that just saying "black" is racist, for crying out loud. Or that bringing up race, in the context of discussion (like here), is itself racist. That's so misguided. Calling racism on everything means we can't have a discussion.
It was so much simpler as a kid, for me. I used to watch Sesame Street as a toddler, and Gordon was a regular then. A middle-aged black man with a shiny bald head. One day, my parents introduced me to a friend of a friend I'd never met before. They said "what do you notice about this man?"
I said "hmmmm, he looks like Gordon??"
They laughed and said "oh, you mean because he has black skin?"
I looked at his skin, and sure enough, it was black. But I had barely noticed that until they mentioned it. "No, because he's bald!"
Long story short, the adults assumed I was born to notice skin colour above all else, but I surprised them.
I think I want most of the things BLM says they want. It's just that I don't want to get there through more racism. Maybe it's a bit like how I want most of the things modern feminists want, I just don't want to get there through more sexism.
And yeah, I have a penis and fair skin, so people will judge my opinion based on that more than anything else, but I've given this a lot of thought and research. I don't think I've reached my conclusions for selfish reasons, but hey, I'm always open to discuss it :)
I can't argue against any of what you say here.
The problem is, when most simply see through their own perspective, rather than a multitude of perspectives we cannot trust each other to work with
one another.
We need to see the big picture, instead of how 'I see it' or 'my people/culture' sees it, so we can address the real problem at its core. Until then, we will remain divided and by many more metrics than just skin color.
Obsessing about race and using it as a reason, excuse or weapon only takes away from what we have in common. As they say, "divided we fall" and right now, divided we will remain under these short-sighted emotional movements.
I think you're combining ideas about racism and racial prejudice. They aren't the same thing. Most people use the word racism when they are talking about racial prejudice. People in general are a prejudiced species. It's a fundamental part of our pattern-recognizing minds, that filter out things that don't fit previous narratives (more and more as we get older) and amplify our notice of things that do.
All in all I agree with you though. Racial prejudice is one of the most nefarious types of prejudice, and anyone can do it. Dismantling the power structures of racism is a different thing though. When you talk about defunding the police, that's actually fighting racism, not prejudice. It does more than that too, but it actually takes a bite out of the power that is behind racism if it is to be racism.
I hear where you're coming from. I think we have a different perception of the argument BLM is making. BLM isn't making the case that not all lives matter. It is making the case that people who say they think all lives matter seem to not be telling the truth, because when black people are killed where people of other races are unharmed there is no outrage. There are so many things suggesting that actually black lives specifically do NOT matter to a lot of people. How could one possibly address that without mentioning race?
At the same time, the actual platform of BLM would help someone like you as much as someone like me. So the platform isn't differentiating by race at all. Even if you don't support the name of the movement, do you support its aims?
As long as this broader movement insists on using phrasing that is divisive, requires explanation AND the redefinition of words, it's just going to create division, a lack of understanding and more problems. Phrases like "Black Lives Matter" and "White Privilege" are divisive whether they intend to be or not. It makes people reflexively defensive. And then phrases like "defund" the police are used when it doesn't mean that at all. This sort of thing seems more intentional than an accident of decentralization especially when large portions of it are not decentralized at all. For better or worse, the English language works a certain way. "Black Lives Matter" implies other lives don't or that you have no opinion on them. I know that's not the intent but that's the English language. That's why the reflexive response is so often "All Lives Matter". Don't even get me started on the phrase "white privilege". And for the record "defund" means "prevent from continuing to receive funds." Decentralized or not, BLM and associated groups really need to work on their messaging. "Black Lives Matter Too"...there, just made one of the phrases 1,000% better...
Want to demilitarize the police and reduce funding. Great! But if you just want to funnel that back into other types of government workers with authority then what's the point? No thanks.
We live in an overpoliced society. While it affects everyone, black communities are hit hardest because they are, on average, more poor. Poor communities have more crime, more drug problems, etc. Higher crime communities are going to have a greater police presence. A greater police presence results in more crimes being caught, more interaction with police, etc. It's a vicious cycle because having a criminal record makes it that much harder to break the cycle of poverty. Eliminating victimless crimes might help at least some. Unless we can address the root cause of that (poverty in black communities), reducing police department funding isn't going to change the lopsided statistics (though it may reduce police violence and killing overall). I don't think this is about racism by police. I mean, I don't doubt that there are individual police officers who are racist and even the occasional police department that might have those views institutionalized but I just don't think that is common or at least not on a scale large enough to create such lopsided statistics.
You say that when black people are killed there is no outrage but what is one example of a white, asian, etc. person being killed and riots erupting? The issue isn't that there is outrage when whites are killed and none for blacks. The issue is that people aren't outraged enough that the police often get away with murder. Police Brutality Matters.
I am neither entirely in agreement or disagreement with you. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your comment.
Really? Well when whites have been killed during many of these demonstrations BLM didn't say one word about them...
Example, during the Furgeson, MO riots a white man was shot by Omaha, NE Police in the back while jumping a fence after stealing from a Family Dollar and no one stood up for him...
I could go on and on with examples.
Look at the context though. You're saying that within a conflict that involved mostly black people an incident involving a white person wasn't amplified. But lots of additional blacks have been killed during the protesting, and you haven't heard about them either. That's just a function of signal to noise ratio.
I think a much more telling situation is when a crime gets committed, how do the police respond? Do they really respond as if all lives have equal value to them?
If they do, how do you explain death sentence carried out immediately for selling loose cigarettes or running from the police, but a man who shoots 6 people dead in a church being not only taken alive, but driven to a Burger King for a meal before being taken to the station for arrest?
How can you possibly explain those differences without concluding that at least to those cops, black lives definitely do not matter as much as all other lives.
Hmm, I'm not sure your examples are relevent... Because 'a' white murderer was taken alive black lives matter less to those officer's? You are jumping in way deeper than the evidence available.
If one wants equality, they themselves need to stand on the issue as if we are all equal or they are simply being the same as those they oppose.
Stand up for all lives, rather than just one skin color or all others, but one(white) and maybe it will be taken seriously by the majority.
Right now I see a group that divides by skin color calling out those of all skin colors for killing those with dark skin(even dark skinned officers), because they are brothers with those like them, but not whites.
Complete and utter hypocrisy... And anyone who thinks critically, instead of being drawn in by emotion sees right through it.
BLM in itself is racist!
I will never side with such a group, because I'll be their victim next.
By the way, the incident I mention was a white man getting the death penalty on the spot for stealing something worth the same as cigarettes.
More whites are incarcerated and killed by police...period.
This is NOT a race issue.
I think you're interpreting the argument in reverse. It's not to say that the white murderer should have been killed. It's to say the black men who had committed far lesser crimes (if any crime at all) should certainly have been taken alive. (No trip to Burger King required.) That they are killed so automatically for such minor offenses indicates that it is a lie to say that all lives matter. Clearly black lives did not matter to the cops who killed them for so little reason. Meanwhile, the life of the white murderer clearly did matter to them, which is why they took the risk of apprehending an armed man instead of just shooting him on sight.
Make is make sense. Make the cops treat the black men the same as they treat the white men.
Again, your example of the white looter during the riots doesn't measure up the same because one is during a riot. That one white man's death wasn't amplified in their context, and neither were all the black deaths in that same setting that you clearly haven't even heard of at all. Even right now during these riots, lots of people of all races are being hurt/killed/blinded and you aren't hearing about them.
But BLM is specifically focused on amplifying that for too many people black lives matter less than all other lives, and that's resulting in us dying when anyone else would have been allowed to live. That's the point, so no, they aren't going to go out of their way to make other points too.
The point is the issue IS about equality/inequality, but not between the races. You are jumping to a false conclusion for most of these incidents.
It's about power and the inequality between those in power and those under their power.
Any movement that makes this anything else is just being used as a pawn and is guilty of the same injustices they claim to stand against.
If you are viewing this through a colored lens, you too are part of the problem.
The discrepancy by race in America when it comes to especially criminal justice, but all sorts of walks of life is not an opinion or some anecdotal fuzzy idea. It's statistical fact you can easily look up.
76.5% of the country is white.
13.4% of the country is black.
First line from the study linked above...
Is this also a power issue between the have's and the have-nots? Sure, it can be that and ALSO overlap with race, which it clearly objectively does.
The argument you're making is that if someone shoots my brother and I go march in the street for justice for him, I'm a hypocrite if I don't also march for your brother who also got shot? If I don't march for him, I'm saying his life doesn't matter? If I made a group to march about all police violence in the US am I a hypocrite for not also making a group to defend police violence against Palestinians? Am I anti-Palestinian for addressing the problems of Americans. You can go on like this forever.
If today is my birthday and I walk into a room and say "Happy Birthday to Me!" Would you jump up and say "ALL BIRTHDAYS SHOULD BE HAPPY!" Would you assume that by me saying Happy Birthday to me, that I'm saying you should have a sad birthday?
The all lives matter talking point is a trick. It's a trick to making the act of addressing the problems of black people into a debate. Into somehow a bad thing. Don't fall for it.
Funny, ppl make themselves a 'them' or 'you ppl' then call it racist when you refer to them as 'them'...
You can't have it both ways! We are all brothers and sisters or we are not.
Also, it's funny how ppl pick stats that fit their narrative. This is called 'confirmation bias'.
There are many arguments that make the percentage moot and the same for the reciprocal. It's your choice to see the big picture or not. All the stats and details behind them matter, not just the cherry picked ones.
I'll always include all the details in my opinions. My point was that I've lived the life that the poorest black has and have been treated exactly the same. No White Priviledge here.
As a matter of fact, that claim is a load of shit and I'm the proof of it and the larger amount of my kind that lived a similar life. Of course, I've seen the same amount of racism from all ethnicities.
Finger point all you want, we 90%'ish are all in the same boat when it comes to the law. Talking the walk will never replace walking the walk. If you point a finger, you need to make sure the reason behind it doesn't also include yourself...
Anecdotal examples aren't really useful. I bet that if I took the time to look I could find counter-examples. One that I remember off-hand... Police responded to a store because of reports of a suspicious person. Police arrive and see a person who matched the description. The person's back was to the officer and the officer shouted for him to turn around and put his hands up or something to that effect. The person didn't hear because he had headphones on. He finally turned around either because he finally heard them or noticed the flashing lights. His hands were in his pockets. The police shot him. He was white. So where is the difference there?
I bet you can also find plenty of examples where a black individual who committed a crime was treated nicely too. You can't just pick a couple examples that fit the narrative you believe and present them as the way it always is. Also, unless the comparisons you are making are by the same police officers it is especially meaningless. Maybe the particular officers who took the white guy who shot 6 people to get food often do that sort of thing with suspects they catch regardless of their race?
While the extremes get publicized ad nauseum by the media, 99% (give or take) of all interactions with police go smoothly and without violence regardless of race. That doesn't mean we don't need to address the other 1% but it does mean perspective is needed.
As for defunding the Police? I'm a Voluntaryist. Need I say more?
Regardless, I cannot nor will support such a group...
I had to look that up, but sounds good. I can resonate with that.
I have added this to the Black Lives Matter community: https://peakd.com/c/hive-186309/created
Awesome. Thanks!
although I agree that the police should be defunded, I do not support the fakery that is black lives matter. OMFG! Black lives matter is simply another front for the incoming new world order - based on fraudulant psy-op false flag operations. I have done my research. Look at the timing of everything - we get maybe one day of breathing room out of the total SKAMDEMIC and next there is a supposed murder of a black man by a white cop - both of whom who have been seen in other psy-op false flags - friends in Minneapolis tell me that "looters" were from out of state - it's all the crisis-actor bullshit again and the country buys into the WHOLE THING - NO! You have to look at history to see what is being done here - and now BLM-influence is calling for destruction of our cultural heritage??? That is so that future generations do not know where we came from - WAKE UP!!!!
Agree 100% with this
the documentary, 13th cleared up a ton of questions, and highlighted the fact that slavery didn't end, our prisons are privatized and are being economically incentivized by keeping the prison population full. Also, lots of corporations use prison labor to save tons of money, and the prisons also profit from this as well. That documentary, everyone should see.
May we learn to come together. The current situation isn't unity. It wasn't meant to be. Praying for big changes going forward!!!