Why are black people protesting?

I keep reading in the news that black college kids are protesting all over the country but I can't for the life of me find out why. I've read something about a shit swastika and a football team, but not an actual reason for the mass protests. News stories always just say it's about racism or something vague like that, but not what set all the whole thing off.

What the fuck is going on? Someone mind shedding some light on the whole situation?

 

[AnOminous]

Look at #GamerGate for instance. Ask someone if he would like to have ethics in game journalism, the answer will be 'Yes'.
Ask that person if he is Pro-GG and the answer will be 'Uhm... well... aw... no.'

The last time it came up irl I just pretended I had no idea what it was so I wouldn't have to talk about it.

 

[Wallace]

Every new movement attracts nut-jobs, this is pretty much a law. People with extreme ideologies flock to every new popular movement, that they can abuse as a mouthpiece for their ideas. Start you own club that wants to make your neighborhood prettier and you get at least one of those "Greater Good" guys from Hot Fuzz. Take social media into the mix and this gets one hundred times worse, because now you got the power to instantly reach every antisocial idiot with a smartphone. (And these days you can't go without social media.)

And of course those extremists are the people who 'shout' the loudest. For every ten people tweeting or posting something you would expect from the 'normal range' of the mental and political spectrum, you got at least one idiot demanding to #KillAllX - tweeting it ten times a day. Also, these are the messages people tend to notice.

You also need some ability to reign in or excommunicate the worst people in the group, otherwise you give the public impression that they speak for you, and that you tacitly agree with their bullshit. This happens both on and offline, and I don't think it's possible to publicly kick out someone from a hashtag movement where there is no single leader.

 

[QI 541]

I don't think the idea's been corrupted. It's not like police brutality is just going to go away just because dumbasses co-opted the issue.

Experience has taught me that even if you agree with an idea, you shouldn't recklessly support any dumbass who happens to be on your side.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

Depends. How confident are you that the people chanting "black lives matter" care about all lives?

Are we really worried that these people are going to somehow impose some kind of afrocentric system? Or are we just nitpicking?

You use an assymetrical tool to fix an assymetrical problem. Black people are away more likely to be shot by cops than white people. I don't see anything wrong with acknowledging that in the activism.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

Spoiler: my favourite manifestation of #black lives matter

 

[Wallace]

So, this is becoming quite the thing across many college campuses. More and more SJW style protests are occurring in more colleges.

Purdue releases a list of demands, including revising free speech to not include hate speech, a motion that has been defeated in court years ago.

Skidmore's president is pre-emptively surrendering.

Vanderbilt's demands include eliminating the policy that prohibits them from obstructing or disrupting classes.

USC is demanding a minor in social justice.

A mob invades Dartmouth's library and harasses students.

Yale turns on it's black dean for not doing enough to end racism.

And Mizzou is telling students to report hurtful speech to the police.

And this was just too good to pass up:

 

[Yellow Yam Scam]

Most people don't treat it that way. A black person getting killed is not given the same attention as a white person getting killed. A black person getting killed is considered "normal". It's a real issue.

It is a real issue, and things generally shake out so that the black deaths are ignored, but it isn't so cut and dry. There was recently a killing a of a young child by two black police and there has basically been a media black out on the issue.

 

[Von Clausewitz]

Spoiler: my favourite manifestation of #black lives matter

OT: ...I was looking into the number of abortions in the US out of curiosity. Compared to Germany the rate of abortions in the US more than twice as high.

Spoiler

"In 2011, 730,322 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas. The abortion rate was 13.9 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years and the abortion ratio was 219 abortions per 1,000 live births." (1)

Germany (2011, legal abortions only - but I'm pretty sure the number of illegal ones is negligible)
"Quote je 10 000 Frauen in 2011 war 59" (2)
Rate per 10,000 women was 59 -> so 5.9 per 1000 women.

You guys know how to use condoms, right?

 

[AnOminous]

You use an assymetrical tool to fix an assymetrical problem. Black people are away more likely to be shot by cops than white people. I don't see anything wrong with acknowledging that in the activism.

I could imagine a better strategy than mindless reactivity, though, which results in elevating a series of figureheads like Michael Brown and, more recently, this Lamar Clark, who many people will feel, even after looking at the facts, that they probably deserved to be shot.

It's not like black activists, as opposed to anyone else, are incapable of choosing a proper case that will actually get sympathy instead of derision. For example, Rosa Parks was specifically chosen as a test case over a number of other candidates because it was felt that her case would play better with the general public, which it did.

Picking a series of scumbags who really had it coming as examples of the awfulness of police behavior isn't convincing anyone, even people who already agree with the general principle that police are excessively violent these days.

 

[TiredConlanger]

As I said in the Paris thread, the proper way to handle a shit swastika drawn on a bathroom wall is to call the janitor so they can bring some proper clean supplies and take care of it.

What's a protest gonna do? Is it to shame and humiliate the person responsible? Moherfucker drew a swastika with their own feces, they have no shame and humiliated themselves about about as much as possible already.

Pretty much. You'd think they'd do something bigger and more permanent, if they could be shamed, like spray paint or something. But shit on the wall? That person doesn't even give a shit.

And, regardless of who it is, be it an actual white supremacist or some dickwad trying to stir the pot for SJWs to get people outraged or a random troll who thought this would be funny, they're probably pretty damn happy that this blew up so much. It blew up into the dean getting bullied into resigning and causing all sorts of protests by insane numbnuts who attack the very concept of freedom of expression. Because how dare someone possibly hurt their feelings and how dare anyone not jump 100% on board the outrage train.

Seriously, they wouldn't have even survived in the recent past, if they're this thin-skinned.

If the person who did the shit swastika wanted attention and to cause a scene, it fucking worked. If they wanted racial tensions inflamed, it also worked. And part of it is how over the top the reaction was to it. I don't like anyone who judges based on inborn traits like race and sex and the like, but people who believe that someone's inborn traits affect their character still have the right to express it and to be debated and disproven. If you try to stifle speech you don't like, people start thinking that you have no leg to stand on in a debate. And, often, the ones who stifle debate couldn't argue their way out of a brown paper bag.

But the shit smearing dickhead would have certainly had less of an impact if people just cleaned it up. Instead, they made it into a national incident with giant protests where photographers are threatened for trying to document things as a neutral party and treated as aggressors for being impartial instead of joining the protests outright.

 

[Mrs Paul]

Have they found the guy who did it? Because I do think the idiot should be expelled.

 

[TheProdigalStunna]

Just one Star of David and /pol/'s revision is already set.

 

[TiredConlanger]

Have they found the guy who did it? Because I do think the idiot should be expelled.

I disagree. They're a shithead, pun entirely intended, but that's exceedingly excessive for what they did. They are not responsible for the reactions of the student protesters, even if they did the thing that incited their ire.

 

[AnOminous]

Have they found the guy who did it? Because I do think the idiot should be expelled.

It wouldn't shock me if it turns out to have been done by one of the very idiots who started the furor over it.

 

[QI 541]

Are we really worried that these people are going to somehow impose some kind of afrocentric system? Or are we just nitpicking?

You use an assymetrical tool to fix an assymetrical problem. Black people are away more likely to be shot by cops than white people. I don't see anything wrong with acknowledging that in the activism

I don't need to be worried about country-wide consequences before I decide supporting someone is a terrible idea.

You don't get to fuck up your own cause and then claim you "started the conversation" and expect approval.

 

[Too Many Crooks]

Perhaps it should've been, #BlacksLivesMatterToo? Would that work better?

Yes, that's what I discerned from the BLM name.

Advocating to protect the rainforests doesn't mean screw the other types of forests, you see?

 

[Marvin]

I don't need to be worried about country-wide consequences before I decide supporting someone is a terrible idea.

You don't get to fuck up your own cause and then claim you "started the conversation" and expect approval.

BlackLivesMatter isn't a person. As a cause, it's not really feasible to fuck up. It's much too broad and self-apparent.

What would it mean to "fuck up" BLM as a cause? Do you really think that bad publicity could possibly convince people that, nope, police brutality isn't a thing?

Like yeah, sure, much more specific causes can easily get derailed because of bad publicity. Things like #FreeSomeRandomPerson. That's possible because individual people, or very small groups of people, fall by the wayside all the time.

 

[TiredConlanger]

Thing is, BlackLivesMatter is a specific sub-group related to that cause, Marvin. It's more that the people associated specifically with that group/hashtag are being fucking morons, not that everyone who deals with police brutality as a discussion topic is part of BLM. It's a subset that has managed to attract a lot of dicks who want revenge and attention instead of justice. Yeah, shit's really fucked up in the US with regard to the legal system, but being against BLM is not the same as thinking that police brutality isn't an issue or that there isn't more police brutality against certain minorities.

It'd be like a disingenuous dickwad saying that supporting gay marriage makes you an SJW or that thinking SJWs are insane makes you a crazed Neo-Nazi. Just because you deal with the same issue as an extremist and may have a nominally similar stance does not mean you are part of their crazy subgroup.

 

[QI 541]

BlackLivesMatter isn't a person. As a cause, it's not really feasible to fuck up. It's much too broad and self-apparent.

What would it mean to "fuck up" BLM as a cause? Do you really think that bad publicity could possibly convince people that, nope, police brutality isn't a thing?

Like yeah, sure, much more specific causes can easily get derailed because of bad publicity. Things like #FreeSomeRandomPerson. That's possible because individual people, or very small groups of people, fall by the wayside all the time.

Stopping police injustice is a cause. BLM is a group. If that group becomes the face of the cause and has a habit of using cases like Michael Brown as examples of police brutality, they really could convince people that police brutality isn't as bad as they say.

 

[AnOminous]

BlackLivesMatter isn't a person. As a cause, it's not really feasible to fuck up. It's much too broad and self-apparent.

What would it mean to "fuck up" BLM as a cause? Do you really think that bad publicity could possibly convince people that, nope, police brutality isn't a thing?

Repeatedly choosing as figureheads people who really had it coming and aren't examples, or are bad examples, of police brutality is certainly not helping the cause.

The cause, taken at its flat value, is that police disproportionately use violent responses to black people and this results in an unforgivable number of wrongful deaths. I doubt many people would disagree with the general idea that police should not kill people unless it is necessary, or at least unless using deadly force is the best of bad alternatives.

Knee-jerk canonization of every evil son of a bitch who gets shot because he was committing crimes and then got violent with cops or emergency responders doesn't exactly help that. It associates the BLM phrase with idiocy.

(GamerGate is pretty much like this. So much dumb shit has been done in the name of that that anyone who actually wants to do anything useful without the ballast of that dumb shit will just do it without using that name.)