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Notes -
Epistemic status: cherry-picked predictions for ego stroking.
We are now nearly four years past the beginning of the George Floyd era of BLM activism, so I wanted to check my initial impressions and positions, to see how I'd done in retrospect. This is from the old site, in the immediate aftermath of the Minneapolis riots, and it was interesting to see how people's concerns and predictions played out. Must have been in a cautious mood that day.....
https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/gq50mo/comment/fsbmtje/?context=3
Core here:
On the other hand, some people Bought Large Mansions, and I imagine otherwise benefitted from millions poured into the myriad of BLM-affiliated NGOs. So it's not a total waste, a lot of people got worse off, but a small number of people got much better. That's called "politics". Or "community organizing"? Not sure about the proper terminology here.
I've spent a lot of time bashing BLM over the years. I think it's because it was such a waste. A great moment for change and reform was wasted, turned racial and political, for division instead of unity. All that energy was spun by the political, corporate and media machines into bizarre ideological idiocy. rather than sober analysis and practical reform efforts. "Defund the police" my ass. Just like Trumpism, just like Occupy, just like Code Pink. By signal boosting the crazies and granting them legitimacy, any chance for reform was pissed away in a fury of "Black Trans Lives Matter" and "Showing up to work on time is white supremacy".
A little prodding and they all promptly delegitimize themselves (at least in the media/popular imagination).
But was it though? I mean, which exactly change and reform we needed that BLM was supposed to usher? If we had the (--true socialism--) Saintly BLM, untainted by all the grift and hate and politicking, what would it do? Until the wokes and DIE grift complex came in, the racism in the US was on its last legs. I mean sure, there are some Nazis hiding around in the forests and mountains, steeping in their hate. BLM wouldn't fix that. All the rest have pretty much moved beyond that in the 2000s. The whole "systemic racism" is an obvious grift and bullshit, there's nothing to fix there - neither can it be fixed, the "systemic" definition prevents any attempt at rational consideration of it. The squalid conditions of some black communities are real, but BLM never tried, or intended, or had any plan, or idea how to fix it (I don't count "defund the police" as a plan because really...).
You say this energy was "wasted". I say that's the whole point of the whole charade - to "waste" this energy, which otherwise could be directed - maybe, don't hold me back here, I'm dreaming - towards figuring out how comes the squalid conditions are there, who is responsible for them continuing for decades and maybe even - that's the most ridiculous part of all - it is time for some accountability for people that held the power there for these decades and presided over it. There was absolutely no indication of any sliver of such ideas anywhere in BLM. It's all "white supremacy that" and "systemic racism this" and the rest is just open grift. The whole thing was created for directing the frustrations of people into a convenient outlet, and harvest them. It's not "waste" - it's how it was supposed to work, and it worked just as it was supposed to. There was no "reform efforts" because the whole thing was meant to prevent any reform (really needed for the police, for example, but impossible in current environment). It's not some "idiocy", it's a clever and careful and effective and very evil design. Of course, not by thugs mostly peacefully setting fire to the businesses of the very people they're supposed to be "supporting", but by those who enable and support and organize all that.
Maybe a general movement against police brutality or the Drug War?
Formulating a movement about police brutality in strictly racially antagonistic terms (remember, "white lives matter" is a Nazi slogan) is about the worst way to approach it one could think of. It automatically loses half of the political spectrum, confuses the message (should we be against brutal cops who are black? What if they are brutal against whites?) and assigns the blame to people which have no control over the problem. The execution of course was way worse - "let's convince people to fight police brutality by setting their city on fire and robbing Amazon trucks, so they'd run screaming to the police and beg them to please save them from this savagery".
As for the Drug War, I don't remember any BLMers ever asking for any legalize or other anti-DW measures. Not even medical marijuana (which is the basic of basics). They pushed for shorter sentences and such, but again strictly on racial grounds - if you are of a correct race, no matter if you are murderer, rapist or just smoked a joint in a wrong company, you need to be released.
Yes, fighting both causes would be a good thing. Unfortunately, BLM by its inception, design and ideology is completely incapable of doing either - not because they were stupid, or lazy, or dishonest, but because it is impossible to do it in a setup like that, like it's impossible to walk to the Moon.
Well, yes. I assume that's why OP said it "was wasted, turned racial and political, for division instead of unity."
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