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I guess I can see where you're coming from with the concern there, but I don't feel like the economic front to addressing systematic racism would fall into that category. When people talk about that (at least in the circles I frequent) they aren't talking about the weird and vacuous reparations form of it where you give every black person a check and somehow that helps them out of poverty. They're more talking about investing in communities than individuals. More equality of opportunity than equality of outcome. So like investing in education, more specifically funding grade schools, which tend to be underfunded in urban or inner city communities due to a lack of available funding from property taxes. And of course a lack of education tends to correlate with higher rates of criminality and poverty, so making sure every child is getting a proper education would go a long way to help lower these things. Of course this is just an example of one thing that needs to be done there's other aspects of society that need to be addressed as well and this won't by any means be a quick transition but I feel like investing in poor or otherwise struggling communities in this sort of way would be a worthwhile investment.

That's the right way to go in my opinion as well. Prevent the problems from happening in the first place. However, the biggest issue remains the same: the people in charge. You can come up with the most noble and common sense social programs, but if there are corrupt and greedy people in charge if them, they won't work as intended. This starts with the people in charge, and the process that puts them in charge, whether it be appointment by a mayor or whoever, or through an election. And I also believe people who are tasked with using policies to effect change in certain areas should have to come from those areas. (This is also 1 of the biggest flaws of our federal government, but that might be a different discussion.) Anyway, these things won't happen overnight regardless of who is in charge, but I hope they do happen. And I think this is something that can't start at the top, it has to start at the bottom, on the local levels. When people look to the president or Congress to make the changes for them, it won't work. The change for communities has to come from those communities. Otherwise it's just an overreaching of the federal government, and the problem with that is not all laws can be equally applied to everyone.

If the local DA and mayors would stop acting only for re-election and just act to HELP people as their priorities, there would be no civil unrest in America.

Their corruption fed the Beast. Now even truckers say "enough" and are refusing to enter the defunded zones. And what the city do?

Seattle police chief blames City Council as she steps down after vote to cut $4 million in budget, 100 officers

Bravo, Seattle. Bravo.






Oh, and still in Seattle:
Black Lives Matter crowd demands Seattle homeowners 'give up' property: 'We coming for it'

BLM was unchallenged for too long. This is the result.

This would generally be K-bats schtick, but it needs to be said and if they don't then I will.

When this thread was first made there was a fair amount of pushback on it. Most people didn't want Ryan or the site to be linked to or entangled with BLM. The people for it praised it as helping to shine a spotlight on the various injustices still present in our current society, those opposed said they didn't want politics in their hobby and that BLM was not the group to attach it to even if they did. We've gone back and forth and back and forth with some very good discussions that have been illuminating but haven't moved anyone from their positions, which is both good and bad. It's good that people are willing to stand up for what they believe in. However, at some point, something will happen that you have to answer for. I've stayed quiet, I've lurked and followed the conversation, but now something has happened that I need to speak up about. Ryan said that he believed in something and he used his platform to speak out. Now I'm going to do the same.

https://districtherald.com/portland-rioters-attempt-to-murder-man-who-intervened-in-their-robbery-and-assault-of-a-white-trans-person/

This just happened in Portland which has become the hotbed of everything both Black Lives Matter and Antifa, which I know many people in this thread openly support. This has gone on in various other places around the nation as well to lesser degrees; Portland remains the worst case of it. Over the last several months the riots following the death of George Floyd that kicked off this new wave of Black Lives Matter activism if it can still be called that, has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. To public property, to private businesses, to residential houses. Hundreds of police are now injured, some of them maimed for life, some of them dead. Common citizens either in the wrong place at the wrong time or simply caught home when the marches and riots reached them have been assaulted and their property damaged or destroyed. This is not up for debate. The evidence has been spread and circulated across the internet. We have video. We have photos. We have print and testimony. To deny what has happened is to deny reality and replace it with a vision of faith that is nothing short of fanaticism and I won't argue it. The damage is done. The people are beaten or dead. The cities are still smoldering.

That's not the point I wanted to make though. I wanted to get back to the very beginning of this whole thread when Ryan came out and made the statement, made the post, changed the banner which I've noticed is gone now. In fact there's no mention at all on the front page even. And that's probably a good thing. I understand what was intended, a statement of support, a showing of solidarity. What was intended however and what has happened are two different things. What was supposed to be a movement of support for police reform has degenerated into a mob of destruction. The showing of solidarity has devolved into an oppressive nationwide insurgency demanding to be heard and obeyed or else face violence. You don't need to take my word for it, just only need listen to the protests themselves. I could pull them here but Karanbat has done a good job of posting links to such videos that many here have simply ignored because they don't like the source, ignoring the fact that they could skip the color commentary and take the actual video, photoes, and articles sourced in them. The people that pushed back against this move did so in part because they didn't want the politics in their hobby but also because it only took one night of rioting in Minneapolis to see just where this was going to lead.

Now we have general lawlessness across the country in most of the major cities. What started as police reform became police abolishment. What started as a call for self governance in communities has turned into violent mobs in those communities, and every time someone has said it needs to be stopped or it will get worse it has not been stopped and it has gotten worse. Again, I'm not going to argue this point. More people with more time on their hands have already done so and it's not the point I wanted to make here. The point, long winded as this has been and I will get to it now, is that every person who has signed on to support BLM is now tied to this. It wasn't the intent, I'm positive, but as they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Ryan did as he thought he should and it is his platform to do with as he pleases as he made plainly apparent, but now the chickens have come home to roost. Ryan supports BLM. Seibertron supports BLM. The riots and destruction are being done in the name of BLM. Antifa is marching alongside BLM. And last night someone was nearly murdered by the people in BLM. This is the reason no one wanted Seibertron to get itself entangled with this.

Now, I know what the arguement against this is. It was a single person, an individual that did this. Or a handful of individuals. They're not the whole movement. That's not wrong, but unfortunately we live in the age of guilt by association. Most police are good people, but they are judged on the actions of the bad ones. So too is the entire BLM movement judged on the destruction and violence left in the wake of these riots. Don't blame me for saying it and don't take my word for it, look up the popular opinion of the BLM movement. It's dropping like a stone. The actions of these people ARE representative of the movement whether you like it or not. And by extension everyone who supports the movement. That's why they call it becoming entangled, because once you latch on to one part all the other parts of it wrap around you even if you didn't want them and all the attempts to divest yourself from it, your business, your party, your fansite, cannot undo what's been done.

Perhaps this is moot. As I said, it looks to me like Seibertron has already stripped all the BLM material off the more visible parts of the site. I suspect that was simply due to time but maybe not. Either way I haven't forgotten. And I'm not going to accuse Ryan of doing anything untoward, obviously. He threw in his lot with people he thought held the same beliefs and convictions as himself. He was wrong. He made a mistake. Being a mistake however doesn't mean it didn't happen. Seibertron.com is now an affiliate of all the damage done across the US and the world under the banner of Black Lives Matter, as are all the other businesses that did the same thing. THIS is why we pushed back. THIS is why we said not to get involved. And now it's too late.

I'm not going to do anything about it, there's nothing to fear from me. As I said, I don't have a lot of time as it is and I wouldn't want to hurt the site anyway. I spoke out because I care for this site and the future of it. But consider this: The Black Lives Matter movement is losing popularity the more damage is done, the more lives are maimed and destroyed. The more businesses are burned. The politicians that have supported the movements in their cities are losing popularity as well and people are fleeing the cities in droves and I would suspect that at some point in the future, someone who DOES have too much time on their hands is going to go tawling through the internet looking for all the businesses, websites, and people who threw their lot in here to make an example out of them. DDOS's, hacks, exposure, I don't know, but it's coming. The pendulum swings both ways. And all the people that tried to warn you not to get involved, that you called racist and bigotted, will have nothing to do but sit and watch.

Don't bother quoting this, I'm not answering any of it. I'm done. I said my peice before, I made my arguements, no one listened then and no one's changing now. As the saying goes, we've made our beds, and now we're going to have to sleep in them.

ShadowKatt wrote:Don't bother quoting this, I'm not answering any of it. I'm done. I said my peice before, I made my arguements, no one listened then and no one's changing now. As the saying goes, we've made our beds, and now we're going to have to sleep in them.

Why would you make a post on a discussion forum, then not bother to discuss things?

But I'm going to respond anyway. What I say is my own personal opinions, NOT the opinions of the Forum Admin (contrary to popular belief, I don't always tow the party line)

I was in two minds when this thread was created. I understood where Ryan was coming from, and at the time the intentions were good, and without having spoken to him, I would say those intentions are still there.

BLM has obviously evolved, from what should have been a movement about change, it's clearly been taken over by people who want anarchy.

There are those out there though who still believe in the original purpose of BLM, and it's disappointing that those people are now being lumbered in with the anarchists.

But that's how the world works. Generalising is so much easier for people.

Burn wrote:BLM has obviously evolved, from what should have been a movement about change, it's clearly been taken over by people who want anarchy.

There are those out there though who still believe in the original purpose of BLM, and it's disappointing that those people are now being lumbered in with the anarchists.

"Taken over"? Did I miss an executive committee meeting where we voted for new leadership? Is "guy who kicked other guy in head" running the show now?

Black Lives Matter is a cause, not a group. There are various activist communities affiliated with that cause, and I don't want to use "no true Scotsman" here, but the property damage and violence associated with public demonstrations aren't inherent to or reflective of what Black Lives Matter stands for. And as I've said all along, reframing the protest movement away from its origins to specific isolated incidents is an intentional act of marginalization perpetrated by people acting in bad faith. You can say "I oppose these acts" without decrying the entire enterprise.

But they're not isolated incidents. They're happening everywhere there are protests going on. In every city. Some are mild and some are atrocious, but they're being done in the name of the 'cause.' That's not to say I think that's what every protester/supporter of the 'cause' wants, but as long as people like you choose to keep your heads in the sand and are willing to brush it aside in the name of focusing on the original intent, it will keep happening. As a supporter, the blm movement is a house that you built along with others who support it, and it falls on you to keep it in order the same way it's up to police departments to eradicate the type of officers who started this.

At first, the BLM protests were legit. It was impressive, almost nobel. Agree with the cause or not. I admit that.
BLM did start with good intentions. But we all know the saying.

The real problem is that BLM was given too much power right from the start. People even got FIRED over stating just mild critiscisms of the Cause. Add to that complacent Democrats who used them as politics leverage, corrupt DAs who refused to procecute criminal rioters and releasing them, and finally, council members that are completely clueless that actually bow to the demands and defund the police.

This result in BLM "protesters" that are emboldened into thinking they can get away with ANYTHING without being punished. Especially with a demoralised and overwhelmed police force. Remember the plot of Die Hard 3? That's what's happening. Many of those "BLM" rioters are just criminals who saw an opportunity to commit crimes and chaos. They don't care about any cause. Yet the actual BLM people know this and use them as "stormtroopers".

As the cities burn, Democrats like Deblasio, laugh, smoke their cigar, and go all "Robocop" as they see the value of entire city blocks plumets, ripe to be rebought for cheap. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I bet many of these Democrat mayors, council members, governors, and DA, just HOPE that things get so bad, Trump would have no choice but to declare nation wide martial law. Then the Dems could go all "SEE? ORANGE MAN BAD!" as an argument to win the elections.

Anyway, no matter what the true motives of these rioters and anarchists are, it's thanks to them that the popularity of the BLM cause is at an all time low. Now in the mind of the average Joe, BLM is not what it was 3 months ago. It's now synonym of terror, chaos, marxism, violence, and authoritarism.

Trump have high chances to landslide this November. For that, you can thanks BLM.

I'm sorry, you can go form All Buildings Matter but I quite frankly think Black Lives Matter more and is a bigger problem not being adequately served by the status quo. I absolutely reject your claim "it" is happening "everywhere." And ending racial injustice will do more to quit violence at protests than anything protestors could achieve independently.

AcademyofDrX wrote:

Burn wrote:BLM has obviously evolved, from what should have been a movement about change, it's clearly been taken over by people who want anarchy.

There are those out there though who still believe in the original purpose of BLM, and it's disappointing that those people are now being lumbered in with the anarchists.

"Taken over"? Did I miss an executive committee meeting where we voted for new leadership? Is "guy who kicked other guy in head" running the show now?

Black Lives Matter is a cause, not a group. There are various activist communities affiliated with that cause, and I don't want to use "no true Scotsman" here, but the property damage and violence associated with public demonstrations aren't inherent to or reflective of what Black Lives Matter stands for. And as I've said all along, reframing the protest movement away from its origins to specific isolated incidents is an intentional act of marginalization perpetrated by people acting in bad faith. You can say "I oppose these acts" without decrying the entire enterprise.

Congratulations on taking what I said completely out of context. Go back and re-read what I posted, then come back with a more level head and less drama llamaing.

I also recommend reading SK's post, to whom I was replying to, maybe then you'll see the context and not be so quick to tear my comments apart.

AcademyofDrX wrote:I'm sorry, you can go form All Buildings Matter but I quite frankly think Black Lives Matter more and is a bigger problem not being adequately served by the status quo. I absolutely reject your claim "it" is happening "everywhere." And ending racial injustice will do more to quit violence at protests than anything protestors could achieve independently.

You're one of those "but it's just buildings, but it's just material! kind of people? UH?
I have absolutely zero respect for that.

First, LIVES are linked to these buldings. People have struggled to build things all theis lives, only to see some asshsat burn it all down. "BUT THEY HAVE INSURRANCE!" No they don't, Insurrance companies mostly don't cover riots. Furthermore, JOBS ARE LOST as a consequence. and most affected are minorities. Oh the irony.

There's also the fact that in those fires, people have actually died. Some weeks ago, they found a burned body inside the rubble of a pawn shop that was burned to the ground at the start of the revolt. Guess that life don't matter.

Now, how about a mob going to YOUR house, or your mom's? They make demands, take YOU from inside YOUR home, throw you down on the street, BEAT YOU UP, then SET FIRE TO YOUR HOUSE.

How would you like that?
"But but but it's not the saaaaaaaame!"

Yeah. Your kind don't care when "just buildings and just materials" get destroyed. As long that YOU are safe and don't get YOUR things destroyed.

What would it take for you to have just a little empathy for those who lost everything?
And no, "but the police victims" is NOT an argument.

Rodimus Prime wrote:But they're not isolated incidents. They're happening everywhere there are protests going on. In every city. Some are mild and some are atrocious, but they're being done in the name of the 'cause.'

First, I'd like to point out that no matter how much peaceful protest happens, riots and violent protest are the ones that are going to be disproportionately reported on. Nobody really cares if a peaceful assembly of people march and congregate outside some place and chant some things. Maybe if an official releases a statement about it or if police officers push down a 70 year old man who is then ignored when he starts bleeding out of his ear on the concrete (not making that up, 57 officers resigned in solidarity with the two officers who got suspended because they were caught on on camera doing that) you'll hear about it. But a riot where people burn, loot, and get in altercations with police? Now there's something to report on. It's hard to accurately gauge how much of either is happening based on how many violent incidents you hear about. By that I mean you can obviously know there's more violent happening if you hear about more violent, but there isn't a reliable way to gauge how often it's happening in relation to peaceful protests when peaceful protests are reported on far less.

That's not to say I think that's what every protester/supporter of the 'cause' wants, but as long as people like you are willing to brush it aside in the name of focusing on the original intent, it will keep happening. As a supporter, the blm movement is a house that you built along with others who support it, and it falls on you to keep it in order the same way it's up to police departments to eradicate the type of officers who started this.

I don't think the two are necessarily the same. In the case of the police departments, they're an institution. They can create and enforce new rules among their current officers, change the way officers are trained to discourage more brutal and violent tactics/teach the value of de-escalation, and fire any officers who refuse to change and continue to abuse their power. With BLM, it's a largely decentralized political movement. They could be doing more, but that isn't saying much. Almost anyone can walk into a protest regardless of their intent. I'm not saying we shouldn't be pushing to encourage less violent tactics to be more commonplace or that it's impossible to do so, just that it's much more hard to ensure every person in every protest in a worldwide movement are using nonviolent means of protest than it is for police departments to ensure the specific officers within their department are doing so.

-Kanrabat- wrote:Trump have high chances to landslide this November. For that, you can thanks BLM.

No, the vast majority of polls place Biden at a pretty comfortable lead nationally. But I'm sure those are all fake news and the REAL polls are the ones that show Trump CRUSHING Biden.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/
The gap has gotten a bit smaller recently but it by no means indicates a landslide is likely.

Notimus Crime wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:Trump have high chances to landslide this November. For that, you can thanks BLM.

No, the vast majority of polls place Biden at a pretty comfortable lead nationally. But I'm sure those are all fake news and the REAL polls are the ones that show Trump CRUSHING Biden.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/
The gap has gotten a bit smaller recently but it by no means indicates a landslide is likely.

Checking calendar.
Hmmmm. Look like 2016 all over again!

-Kanrabat- wrote:Checking calendar.
Hmmmm. Look like 2016 all over again!

The difference in 2016 was a lot smaller (like 3 or 4 points if I remember correctly), whearas now it's a much more comfortable lead to where it's pretty safe to say Biden has a high chance of winning in November. I'm not saying there's no chance of Trump winning, but it's really quite irrational to insist Trump has a high chance of not only winning but landsliding when almost every poll places him at least seven points behind Biden.

Notimus Crime wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:Checking calendar.
Hmmmm. Look like 2016 all over again!

The difference in 2016 was a lot smaller (like 3 or 4 points if I remember correctly), whearas now it's a much more comfortable lead to where it's pretty safe to say Biden has a high chance of winning in November. I'm not saying there's no chance of Trump winning, but it's really quite irrational to insist Trump has a high chance of not only winning but landsliding when almost every poll places him at least seven points behind Biden.

You don't get it at all.
The polls in 2016 were saying Clinton all the way, Trump have NO chances to win!
History is not only repeating itself, but now his opponent is half senile Biden with Harris, who is hated by both the Left AND the Right.

Anyway, I think we are getting woefully off topic here.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

Notimus Crime wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:Checking calendar.
Hmmmm. Look like 2016 all over again!

The difference in 2016 was a lot smaller (like 3 or 4 points if I remember correctly), whearas now it's a much more comfortable lead to where it's pretty safe to say Biden has a high chance of winning in November. I'm not saying there's no chance of Trump winning, but it's really quite irrational to insist Trump has a high chance of not only winning but landsliding when almost every poll places him at least seven points behind Biden.

You don't get it at all.
The polls in 2016 were saying Clinton all the way, Trump have NO chances to win!
History is not only repeating itself, but now his opponent is half senile Biden with Harris, who is hated by both the Left AND the Right.

Anyway, I think we are getting woefully off topic here.

No, the polls consistently depicted an incredibly close race. Hillary was only up 3 or 4 points in most polls, and some even placed Trump as having the same lead. Hillary was a bit more likely to win than Trump, but the media ran off with the narrative that you described. The difference is that the polls actually place Biden at a comfortable lead that make him winning far more likely. You are right that this is off topic and I'm willing to drop this, but I'm going to say it one more time. No. It is not reasonable to assume Trump is going to win, much less landslide. I'm not saying Trump has NO chance of winning, but that the data consistently points to Biden having the lead (and a far more comfortable one than Hillary did at that).

History has shown many times that polls are not entirely accurate.

Even if it looks like a landslide, there's been many elections over the years where the result has gone the opposite of the predicted landslide.

Burn wrote:History has shown many times that polls are not entirely accurate.

Even if it looks like a landslide, there's been many elections over the years where the result has gone the opposite of the predicted landslide.

That's true. But at the same time they're one of the most accurate tools we have of predicting an election. I'm not saying that the polls are 100% infallible and that there's no way reality will turn out differently, just that asserting one candidate is likely to landslide in spite of the available evidence pointing to the other having a fairly comfortable lead isn't very rational.

No matter what, we will see the results this November.

This will be quite the party. And no matter who win, it will be very interesting.

Burn wrote:I also recommend reading SK's post, to whom I was replying to, maybe then you'll see the context and not be so quick to tear my comments apart.

SK's post was trash. The context was a prepackaged narrative from an openly far right website about a single assault that gets folded into a perception of "general lawlessness." I would prefer if violence didn't happen at any protests, but it's not a necessary consequence of violence that movements are invalidated--that's a result of choices that people make to value some lives over others. I implore you not to fall into that trap. Meanwhile, the idea that those who support Black Lives Matter are somehow responsible for the violence while we are not collectively responsible for rectifying centuries of oppression is offensive.

I apologize that I was so confrontational. When there is empathy and common purpose, disagreement and conflict can lead to understanding. I muted others in this thread because they have shown they're not interested in those things, but now they've appealed to you better than I have, and I regret that.

Notimus Crime wrote:

Rodimus Prime wrote:But they're not isolated incidents. They're happening everywhere there are protests going on. In every city. Some are mild and some are atrocious, but they're being done in the name of the 'cause.'

First, I'd like to point out that no matter how much peaceful protest happens, riots and violent protest are the ones that are going to be disproportionately reported on. Nobody really cares if a peaceful assembly of people march and congregate outside some place and chant some things. Maybe if an official releases a statement about it or if police officers push down a 70 year old man who is then ignored when he starts bleeding out of his ear on the concrete (not making that up, 57 officers resigned in solidarity with the two officers who got suspended because they were caught on on camera doing that) you'll hear about it. But a riot where people burn, loot, and get in altercations with police? Now there's something to report on. It's hard to accurately gauge how much of either is happening based on how many violent incidents you hear about. By that I mean you can obviously know there's more violent happening if you hear about more violent, but there isn't a reliable way to gauge how often it's happening in relation to peaceful protests when peaceful protests are reported on far less.

I'm with you on that. As I said in a previous post, actions will always speak louder than words. The sad reality is that the general public's appetite for sensationalism is fed by the main stream media's greed for attention. It's a twisted, disgusting parasitic relationship where both parts are the parasite. This results in more shocking sounds and images on TV, phone and computer screens, regardless of the messages being transmitted. This is why I don't take most news seriously unless I've actually located a few eliable sources for it, no matter what it's about. I wish there was no violence with these protests, because it distracts people from the main issue at hand. Unfortunately there are some who still choose to reject that reality, keeping their heads in the sand, and thus aren't helping their own 'cause' to achieve results. Is it pride? Is it ignorance? Who knows. You're right about not knowing the accuracy of peaceful protests versus violent mobs. But the fact that there are violent mobs acting in the name of the 'cause' and those who reject this and excuse it is the biggest detriment to the 'cause' itself.

That's not to say I think that's what every protester/supporter of the 'cause' wants, but as long as people like you are willing to brush it aside in the name of focusing on the original intent, it will keep happening. As a supporter, the blm movement is a house that you built along with others who support it, and it falls on you to keep it in order the same way it's up to police departments to eradicate the type of officers who started this.

I don't think the two are necessarily the same. In the case of the police departments, they're an institution. They can create and enforce new rules among their current officers, change the way officers are trained to discourage more brutal and violent tactics/teach the value of de-escalation, and fire any officers who refuse to change and continue to abuse their power. With BLM, it's a largely decentralized political movement. They could be doing more, but that isn't saying much. Almost anyone can walk into a protest regardless of their intent. I'm not saying we shouldn't be pushing to encourage less violent tactics to be more commonplace or that it's impossible to do so, just that it's much more hard to ensure every person in every protest in a worldwide movement are using nonviolent means of protest than it is for police departments to ensure the specific officers within their department are doing so.

I agree with this for the most part, but the concept is still the same. They're both organized and include elements that are a detriment to the entire group's mission. Only the methods of correcting or removing these elements is different. The removal still has to occur for the group to achieve its goals. For the 'cause,' it's the eradication of racial injustice. For the police it's containing criminals and crime in general.

Rodimus Prime wrote: You're right about not knowing the accuracy of peaceful protests versus violent mobs. But the fact that there are violent mobs acting in the name of the 'cause' and those who reject this and excuse it is the biggest detriment to the 'cause' itself.

Yeah, that's true. As I've said before, my view on the violence is that it is an unfortunately inevitable product of civil unrest. However, that doesn't mean that it doesn't matter when it happens. The part I'm struggling with is what could be done here, since BLM is a largely decentralized movement. By that I mean yes there is an organization here that attempts to coordinate when protests happen, but you can't control what people join that protest and what those people are going to do. Maybe they should encourage nonviolent protest more and not make as bold of statements in solidarity with people who riot and loot because they're fed up with the system or feel like they're not being heard when they protest nonviolently (not helped by the fact that violent protest gets all of the media coverage). I don't think you necessarily have to condemn those people because I can understand where they're coming from and could conceive of cases that doing so may seem like you're trying to de-legitimize the injustices that have been committed against them, but it doesn't send the best message for how people should conduct themselves in a protest. You could say "oh well they should still condemn those who do it for no good reason or because they're monsters etc etc" but my thinking on that is it can be very hard to draw the distinction of who's doing what for what reason and it can still look bad to your opponents (makes it look like you're trying to draw distinctions when they aren't very clear or giving certain people a pass for illegitimate reasons).

While I'm here, I wanted to draw attention to something I found that I think is really pertinent. If you couldn't tell by my first post where I get into how MLK was demonized for inciting violence when virtually all he preached and did was non-violent protest, I've sort of been on a history-learning spree as of late, particularly dealing with the civil rights movement where I have found boundless parallels between then and today. Tonight I found a speech MLK gave that honestly kind of exemplifies just how similar the unrest of today is to the unrest of yesterday. Now obviously certain material conditions are different and not nearly every aspect of how things have gone down or what needs to be done is the same, but there are still times where I was kind of shocked it was a speech from 1967 and not a speech from last month. It's titled "The Other America", I highly encourage people to listen to the whole speech if you have the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOWDtDUKz-U

The HUGE difference with MLK and too many BLM "leaders" is that MLK never, ever endorsed violence. Also, the police at the time did their job and were not impeded by corrupt polititians, meaning the riots of the time never had the chance to go as bad as they are today.

The current BLM "leaders" publicly endorse the riots and violence with no shame, and loudly. "Looting is our right! Looting is reparation!" Plus, police now cant do anything when the DA refuse to prosecute and keep releasing the most violent criminals.

This sure is not helping.

-Kanrabat- wrote:The HUGE difference with MLK and too many BLM "leaders" is that MLK never, ever endorsed violence. Also, the police at the time did their job and were not impeded by corrupt polititians, meaning the riots of the time never had the chance to go as bad as they are today.

The current BLM "leaders" publicly endorse the riots and violence with no shame, and loudly. "Looting is our right! Looting is reparation!" Plus, police now cant do anything when the DA refuse to prosecute and keep releasing the most violent criminals.

This sure is not helping.

I mean, yeah. I understand that distinction. And that's not what I'm saying. MLK did not advocate for violence but he did lay out the distinction between denying the efficacy and morality of riots and denying that the root cause of them is not the people who commit them, but the conditions that elicit people to do so. Let me quote the speech I linked (I bolded the quote because I'm conscious of the fact that it's long and I felt it helps break up this post a bit better);

"So these conditions, existence of widespread poverty, slums, and of tragic conniptions in schools and other areas of life, all of these things have brought about a great deal of despair, and a great deal of desperation. A great deal of disappointment and even bitterness in the Negro communities. And today all of our cities confront huge problems. All of our cities are potentially powder kegs as a result of the continued existence of these conditions. Many in moments of anger, many in moments of deep bitterness engage in riots.

Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impracticable for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.

But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation's summers of riots are caused by our nation's winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention."

MLK knew that as long as the conditions in society that led to civil unrest not only continued to exist but had nothing done about them, that people would inevitably get frustrated with both the society that allows it to happen and the lack of progress and lash out. The solution to rioting and looting is not to just continue to point it out and say that it's bad, but to work to fix the aspects of society that led to that rioting and looting just as vigorously. You could say that where BLM fails on this is that they don't do that first part an I do agree that too many advocates for it fail to do so. In the case of BLM Chicago and their statement, they really don't do what you say they do. Re-reading it, what they're mostly saying is that the mayor spends all their time and energy condemning looting when the place the looting comes from is frustration with the system that is broken and that they refuse to take steps to fix. I do acknowledge that the wording of the statement could have been better and can give the impression that they're saying "loot all you want" or something like that, but in reality (if you actually read the entirety of the statement) what they're saying is that it's a natural consequence of the system and that they're going to continue being on the street protesting to fix that system, and the mayor isn't doing anything by just endlessly condemning the violence that will naturally occur until then.
As for the matter of police. I assume you aren't saying police should be allowed to release dogs into crowds of protesters and use fire hoses against protesters, as they were and commonly did during protests back then. What's more, riots did get that bad back then. How about we look at the summer of 1967 (Which MLK alludes to in his speech), which has been referred to as the long, hot summer of 1967. In frustration with the lack of action concerning the housing crisis and continued inequality in spite of huge strides like the civil rights act, 159 riots broke out across America during that summer, with estimates of the damage done come September coming in around at least 83 dead, thousands injured, and tens of millions of dollars in property damage, with entire neighborhoods burned to the ground. So yes. The riots absolutely got that bad.

I'm not arguing if violence is "justified" or not. My point is, it doesn't make it right.

Because if violence and unrest is right to ensure change, then ISIS, HAMAS, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and so on, did nothing wrong.