Right now on CNN they are showing the white old man who was pushed to the ground and fell and banged his head and got unconscious.
Protests following the killing of George Floyd
- Thread starter Abizzz
- Start date
Stop resorting to gutter arguments. If anyone who isn't racially discriminated against is disqualified from having an opinion on racial discrimination, then racial discrimination will always be a thing.
I actually completely understand the protests in america even including the ones that have turned nasty to an extent. I don't think it's reasonable to expect any other reaction at this point. When it comes to the twitter warriors and people here though it is not the same. There is no reason not to focus on trying to help the cause rather than attacking people's emotions to incite anger and hatred.
I see this a little like the on paper this team is better than this team football argument. On paper it may state we all have the same rights in the UK but when you actually start looking at it 'off paper' you see the huge inequalities in how people are treated, their opportunities etc.
Something I don’t understand is what’s the end game here? How many consecutive days will we have thousands of people crowding the streets in the UK and Ireland? Obviously, the covid outbreak risk gets higher and higher with each day of protest. When will the organisers decide they’ve made their point? In the US they can focus on the specific court case but what’s the equivalent over here?
I'll be charitable and open minded in assuming you dont really understand what you are saying when you state 'White Lives Matter'. Im also willing to concede that you can be suspicious of left wing opinion because that doesn't suit your world view.Thanks for the sensible and calm post noodleI should know better than to engage on this site.. The bias here is sadly all too real and left leaning no matter what.
Take care all.
All lives matter.
Because of that open mindedness and sympathy, and because its most likely behind a paywall, Ive copy/pasted what The Telegraph has to say on the matter in the spoiler below. I really hope you can read this and honestly think about why you reach your conclusions, and why they may be morally completely wrong. Best wsihes
The do's and don'ts of posting about George Floyd and Black Lives Matter – according to celebrities
Since George Floyd's death, social media has caught fire with the missteps of careless celebrities. What can we learn from their mistakes?
By Eleanor Halls 4 June 2020 • 3:30pm
Since George Floyd died while being brutally restrained by a white Minnesota police officer on May 25, support for the Black Lives Matter movement has swept across social media. And absolutely everyone is expected to say something, or be damned. An empty Twitter feed is now a conspicuous badge of complicity with the racists – silence has become deafening.
Celebrities have therefore rushed into frenzied activism to varying levels of success and with intentions both pure and shallow. Some have misjudged their contributions so poorly that the backlash has chased them off social media altogether.
But there's a lot we can learn from how the rich, famous – and thoughtless – have responded to this watershed moment of social, cultural and political upheaval. Here are some particularly illustrative examples:
DO: listen first, speak second
It’s astonishing to see just how many people on social media are refusing to listen and learn before they join in a conversation that is delicate, complicated, and surrounds an issue of which they have no first-hand experience. And no one has had to bear the brunt of public ignorance quite like Star Wars actor John Boyega, whose Twitter and Instagram profiles have become a blazing hotbed of debate ever since he Tweeted, the day of the murder: ‘I really f---ing hate racists’.
The comments in response range from the idiotic to the irrelevant, with many insisting on misplaced, woolly aphorisms such as ‘You can’t fight hate with hate’, and needlessly attacking Boyega, who is black British, for focussing solely on white on black racism rather than racism against – for instance – Hispanic or Asian communities. ‘I am not talking about other perspectives given the current situation is that okay?’ politely responded Boyega, implying that this is not the moment to try and tackle all forms of oppression at once, nor for other races to co-opt this very specific injustice against the black community.
More sinister still, others took Boyega’s perfectly understandable statement as itself racist against white people. ‘Is it racist when a black person expresses hatred for all white people simply because they are white?’ one Tweeted back, willfully misunderstanding Boyega’s reference to racists as ‘all white people’ – itself ironically self-damning.
Boyega tweeted in response to the unfolding controversy on May 28: ‘Are you guys on twitter dedicated to seeing what’s in your head and not what I wrote?’
DON’T: virtue signal
Before posting about Black Lives Matter on your social media accounts, ask yourself: who is this really for? Is this adding to the conversation, or is it exploitative virtue signalling? Is your Blackout Instagram square matched by tangible action: a donation, a protest, support for black businesses and creatives, or implementing a structural change in your workplace?
On the night of George Floyd’s death, Madonna, who has been in constant hot water over her provocative comments on the coronavirus crisis (calling, from a bathtub full of rose petals, the pandemic a “great equaliser”), posted a video on Instagram of her son David, who is black, dancing to Michael Jackson. The caption read: “my son David Dances to honor and pay tribute to George and His Family and all Acts of Racism and Discrimination that happen on a daily basis in America.”
Commenters were quick to point out how ineffectual dancing would be to combat racism: “Omfg you have just ended racism just by dancing!” Others took the opportunity to highlight Madonna’s problematic history of cultural appropriation (such as with the heavily Latin influence of her latest album Madame X). “This is so silly Madonna. You see black people as entertainment. You do not understand blackness! Stop the nonsense,” wrote one.
Model Heidi Klum was also shamed into deleting a particularly insipid post which showed her and her four children (whom she shares with her ex-husband Seal) interlinking hands, with the caption, “Unity in Diversity, LOVE” and the hashtag #AllLivesMatter, which is a slogan that has come to define racists and the alt right. Klum deleted the Twitter post and edited out the hashtag on Instagram, all the while defending it by commenting: “My son wanted AllLives.” Many followers found it an exploitative use of her children’s blackness as a way to ingratiate and insert herself within the conversation.
DO: inspire your audience
If you sit on a following that can be educated and influenced positively, use it. Eighteen-year-old Billie Eilish earned praise for her impassioned Instagram post that, in a furious tirade of capital letters, lambasted any followers who refused to stop bleating AllLivesMatter. “IF I HEAR ONE MORE WHITE PERSON SAY aLL liVes maTter ONE MORE F---ING TIME IM GONNA LOSE MY F---ING MIND. WILL YOU SHUT THE F--- UUUUUUUUUUUUUUP??? NO ONE IS SAYING YOUR LIFE DOESNT MATTER. NO ONE IS SAYING YOUR LIFE IS NOT HARD. NO ONE IS SAYING LITERALLY ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT YOU’, she wrote, before linking to all the ways in which her followers could donate to those affected by systemic racism and those arrested during the protests.
Meanwhile, Ariana Grande used her huge platform to promote a different kind of story: the one of many peaceful protests going on in Los Angeles that is being selectively omitted from much of the media coverage across the world. Posting a video of a peaceful march, she wrote: “hours and miles of peaceful protesting yesterday that got little to no coverage. all throughout beverly hills and west hollywood we chanted, people beeped and cheered along. we were passionate, we were loud, we were loving.cover this too please.”
Hangover star Seth Rogan has also done the right thing by telling those who believe his Black Lives Matter statement is controversial to unfollow him. For almost every comment disputing this, Rogan has alternated between telling the person to, “F--- off’, or to ‘stop watching my movies.”
DON’T: post before you think
Billie Eilish’s sincerity stood stark against the actions of Lana del Rey, who faced a fierce backlash on Sunday night after sharing an uncaptioned video of black, female protesters looting during the protests in America. Was she shaming them? Was she unaware that most people on Instagram also have direct access to the news? Did she have no concern for these women’s safety? The lack of caption was not only careless (none of the protestors had their faces blurred out, and the video zoomed in on their features) but grossly insensitive, as if the singer simply couldn’t be bothered to add any context, thought or incentive for her followers to learn or at the very least donate to appropriate charities.
Her comments were also turned off, forcing musicians Tinashe and Kehlani to tag the star on Twitter, asking her to remove the video immediately. “.@LanaDelRey please remove your instagram post it’s dangerous as f–k and a very poor choice of moments to post,” Kehlani wrote in a since-deleted tweet. She continued: “by all means protest, but DO NOT endanger people with your very massive platform. oh and turn your f–kin comments on man.”
DO: share your platform
Lizzo took to Twitter to call on more celebrities to offer up their platforms, saying, “I wonder what would happen if all the big companies and celebrities who have showed support on social media came out and used their platform to let activists and protesters speak and be seen?”
Australian actor Cody Fern has been one of the first celebrities to take note, and is today hosting an Instagram live with transgender, black activist Angelica Ross, so that she could discuss the injustices in her community in front of his 700,000 followers.
DON’T: be stingy
As a public figure of significant wealth, making a great show and dance of personal donations so measly a child’s piggy bank would be of greater use, is a sure way to get our eyes rolling. Either contribute the big bucks, as Chrissy Teigen did with her $100k or Star Wars director JJ Abrams with his whopping $10m, or donate privately and quietly, as have celebrities including Harry Styles, Michael Jordan, and Lorde. Floyd Mayweather has even picked up the cost of Floyd's funeral.
Yet Virgil Abloh, the artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton and CEO of his streetwear label Off-White, has been mocked across social media for posting a screenshot of his $50 donation to bail out protestors. As one of the most respected and sought after creatives in global fashion, Abloh is thought to be worth millions. To be clear, a pair of his Off-White socks, the cheapest item from his brand, retail at $115.
Despite resonating with an earlier post about the trauma associated with being a black man in America (“on an average trip to the grocery store in Chicago I fear I will die”), Abloh’s screenshot left his followers irked, with thousands of comments criticizing his stinginess as an insult to the Black Lives Matter movement, and questioning his brand’s ethics. Wrote one: “Let’s remember that VIRGIL’s Offwhite employees are all white so he never cared for black people anyways”, referring to last May when Abloh’s Instagram stories portrayed a seemingly all-white design team for Off-White. Another: “Virgil a whole coon for this petty amount of money. N**** sells $600 hoodies but has only $50 to give a bail fund. Virgil doesn't care about the culture, he just exploits it.”
DO: call out commercial hypocrisy
Brands that trade in black culture and frequently use black influencers to front their campaigns, such as Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing, initially remained conspicuously silent following Floyd’s death, and have been called out accordingly.
Brands who have found themselves on the wrong side of history in the past have fared no better. Model and activist Munroe Bergdorf took a stand against her former employer L’Oreal after the cosmetics company posted on social media in support of Black Lives Matter and the caption: “Speaking out is worth it.”
Bergdorf, who was controversially dropped from L’Oreal after speaking out against structural racism following the Charlottesville massacre, retweeted the post with the comment: “Excuse my language but I am SO angry. F*** YOU @lorealparis. You dropped me from a campaign in 2017 and threw me to the wolves for speaking out about racism and white supremacy. With no duty of care, without a second thought.”
Nike and Adidas, however, who have worked with black stars including Stormzy, Anthony Joshua and LeBron James, were two of the first brands to offer their solidarity, with the rival sportswear giants even posting support on each other’s posts after Nike shared a video riffing on their Just Do It tagline, this time reading: 'Don't Do It. Don't pretend there's not a race problem in America.”
DON'T: forget to be kind
Predictably, some on social media have turned the Black Lives Matter movement into a woke contest, naming and shaming those who have been slower than them to react or donate, even within the black community itself.
Top Boy star Ashley Walters, for instance, was forced to explain his “silence” via a video yesterday that showed him break down in tears.
He said: “My point of coming on here today is no one can tell me I am complicit because I haven’t posted anything about the scenario for several reasons, but for the main one, I’ve been posting this thing all of my f---ing career. ‘I’ve seen black people and big corporations posting about your silence is a betrayal. Don’t ever f---ing tell me that my silence is a f---ing betrayal when I’ve been left for dead on the street by white men. ‘Stabbed and left for dead and these people have never been brought to justice. I f---ing worked hard, put my life on the line for all these f---ing men out here while this s*** has been going on.”
Ashley Walters and Kane Robinson starred in brilliant drama Top Boy
DO: educate yourself
It’s not the responsibility of people of colour to teach you about racism – it’s yours. There are already thousands of existing reading lists, articles, essays, podcasts, books and guides available to consume, from notable writers including Roxane Gay and Reni Eddo-Lodge to broadcasters Tina Daheley and activist Akala.
Many trending Twitter hashtags are bursting with thoroughly researched threads to get stuck into, while you can barely scroll down an inch on Instagram before finding a photographed stack of books to take note of or a well-annotated graphic of how white privilege and systemic racism is structured.
Do the work, share your resources when appropriate, and don’t pontificate on your shiny new wokeness – you’re late to the party anyway.
To support the Black Lives Matter movement, you can donate to bail funds throughout America, or to grassroots organisations to help bail reform.
Since George Floyd's death, social media has caught fire with the missteps of careless celebrities. What can we learn from their mistakes?
By Eleanor Halls 4 June 2020 • 3:30pm
Since George Floyd died while being brutally restrained by a white Minnesota police officer on May 25, support for the Black Lives Matter movement has swept across social media. And absolutely everyone is expected to say something, or be damned. An empty Twitter feed is now a conspicuous badge of complicity with the racists – silence has become deafening.
Celebrities have therefore rushed into frenzied activism to varying levels of success and with intentions both pure and shallow. Some have misjudged their contributions so poorly that the backlash has chased them off social media altogether.
But there's a lot we can learn from how the rich, famous – and thoughtless – have responded to this watershed moment of social, cultural and political upheaval. Here are some particularly illustrative examples:
DO: listen first, speak second
It’s astonishing to see just how many people on social media are refusing to listen and learn before they join in a conversation that is delicate, complicated, and surrounds an issue of which they have no first-hand experience. And no one has had to bear the brunt of public ignorance quite like Star Wars actor John Boyega, whose Twitter and Instagram profiles have become a blazing hotbed of debate ever since he Tweeted, the day of the murder: ‘I really f---ing hate racists’.
The comments in response range from the idiotic to the irrelevant, with many insisting on misplaced, woolly aphorisms such as ‘You can’t fight hate with hate’, and needlessly attacking Boyega, who is black British, for focussing solely on white on black racism rather than racism against – for instance – Hispanic or Asian communities. ‘I am not talking about other perspectives given the current situation is that okay?’ politely responded Boyega, implying that this is not the moment to try and tackle all forms of oppression at once, nor for other races to co-opt this very specific injustice against the black community.
More sinister still, others took Boyega’s perfectly understandable statement as itself racist against white people. ‘Is it racist when a black person expresses hatred for all white people simply because they are white?’ one Tweeted back, willfully misunderstanding Boyega’s reference to racists as ‘all white people’ – itself ironically self-damning.
Boyega tweeted in response to the unfolding controversy on May 28: ‘Are you guys on twitter dedicated to seeing what’s in your head and not what I wrote?’
DON’T: virtue signal
Before posting about Black Lives Matter on your social media accounts, ask yourself: who is this really for? Is this adding to the conversation, or is it exploitative virtue signalling? Is your Blackout Instagram square matched by tangible action: a donation, a protest, support for black businesses and creatives, or implementing a structural change in your workplace?
On the night of George Floyd’s death, Madonna, who has been in constant hot water over her provocative comments on the coronavirus crisis (calling, from a bathtub full of rose petals, the pandemic a “great equaliser”), posted a video on Instagram of her son David, who is black, dancing to Michael Jackson. The caption read: “my son David Dances to honor and pay tribute to George and His Family and all Acts of Racism and Discrimination that happen on a daily basis in America.”
Commenters were quick to point out how ineffectual dancing would be to combat racism: “Omfg you have just ended racism just by dancing!” Others took the opportunity to highlight Madonna’s problematic history of cultural appropriation (such as with the heavily Latin influence of her latest album Madame X). “This is so silly Madonna. You see black people as entertainment. You do not understand blackness! Stop the nonsense,” wrote one.
Model Heidi Klum was also shamed into deleting a particularly insipid post which showed her and her four children (whom she shares with her ex-husband Seal) interlinking hands, with the caption, “Unity in Diversity, LOVE” and the hashtag #AllLivesMatter, which is a slogan that has come to define racists and the alt right. Klum deleted the Twitter post and edited out the hashtag on Instagram, all the while defending it by commenting: “My son wanted AllLives.” Many followers found it an exploitative use of her children’s blackness as a way to ingratiate and insert herself within the conversation.
DO: inspire your audience
If you sit on a following that can be educated and influenced positively, use it. Eighteen-year-old Billie Eilish earned praise for her impassioned Instagram post that, in a furious tirade of capital letters, lambasted any followers who refused to stop bleating AllLivesMatter. “IF I HEAR ONE MORE WHITE PERSON SAY aLL liVes maTter ONE MORE F---ING TIME IM GONNA LOSE MY F---ING MIND. WILL YOU SHUT THE F--- UUUUUUUUUUUUUUP??? NO ONE IS SAYING YOUR LIFE DOESNT MATTER. NO ONE IS SAYING YOUR LIFE IS NOT HARD. NO ONE IS SAYING LITERALLY ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT YOU’, she wrote, before linking to all the ways in which her followers could donate to those affected by systemic racism and those arrested during the protests.
Meanwhile, Ariana Grande used her huge platform to promote a different kind of story: the one of many peaceful protests going on in Los Angeles that is being selectively omitted from much of the media coverage across the world. Posting a video of a peaceful march, she wrote: “hours and miles of peaceful protesting yesterday that got little to no coverage. all throughout beverly hills and west hollywood we chanted, people beeped and cheered along. we were passionate, we were loud, we were loving.cover this too please.”
Hangover star Seth Rogan has also done the right thing by telling those who believe his Black Lives Matter statement is controversial to unfollow him. For almost every comment disputing this, Rogan has alternated between telling the person to, “F--- off’, or to ‘stop watching my movies.”
DON’T: post before you think
Billie Eilish’s sincerity stood stark against the actions of Lana del Rey, who faced a fierce backlash on Sunday night after sharing an uncaptioned video of black, female protesters looting during the protests in America. Was she shaming them? Was she unaware that most people on Instagram also have direct access to the news? Did she have no concern for these women’s safety? The lack of caption was not only careless (none of the protestors had their faces blurred out, and the video zoomed in on their features) but grossly insensitive, as if the singer simply couldn’t be bothered to add any context, thought or incentive for her followers to learn or at the very least donate to appropriate charities.
Her comments were also turned off, forcing musicians Tinashe and Kehlani to tag the star on Twitter, asking her to remove the video immediately. “.@LanaDelRey please remove your instagram post it’s dangerous as f–k and a very poor choice of moments to post,” Kehlani wrote in a since-deleted tweet. She continued: “by all means protest, but DO NOT endanger people with your very massive platform. oh and turn your f–kin comments on man.”
DO: share your platform
Lizzo took to Twitter to call on more celebrities to offer up their platforms, saying, “I wonder what would happen if all the big companies and celebrities who have showed support on social media came out and used their platform to let activists and protesters speak and be seen?”
Australian actor Cody Fern has been one of the first celebrities to take note, and is today hosting an Instagram live with transgender, black activist Angelica Ross, so that she could discuss the injustices in her community in front of his 700,000 followers.
DON’T: be stingy
As a public figure of significant wealth, making a great show and dance of personal donations so measly a child’s piggy bank would be of greater use, is a sure way to get our eyes rolling. Either contribute the big bucks, as Chrissy Teigen did with her $100k or Star Wars director JJ Abrams with his whopping $10m, or donate privately and quietly, as have celebrities including Harry Styles, Michael Jordan, and Lorde. Floyd Mayweather has even picked up the cost of Floyd's funeral.
Yet Virgil Abloh, the artistic director of menswear at Louis Vuitton and CEO of his streetwear label Off-White, has been mocked across social media for posting a screenshot of his $50 donation to bail out protestors. As one of the most respected and sought after creatives in global fashion, Abloh is thought to be worth millions. To be clear, a pair of his Off-White socks, the cheapest item from his brand, retail at $115.
Despite resonating with an earlier post about the trauma associated with being a black man in America (“on an average trip to the grocery store in Chicago I fear I will die”), Abloh’s screenshot left his followers irked, with thousands of comments criticizing his stinginess as an insult to the Black Lives Matter movement, and questioning his brand’s ethics. Wrote one: “Let’s remember that VIRGIL’s Offwhite employees are all white so he never cared for black people anyways”, referring to last May when Abloh’s Instagram stories portrayed a seemingly all-white design team for Off-White. Another: “Virgil a whole coon for this petty amount of money. N**** sells $600 hoodies but has only $50 to give a bail fund. Virgil doesn't care about the culture, he just exploits it.”
DO: call out commercial hypocrisy
Brands that trade in black culture and frequently use black influencers to front their campaigns, such as Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing, initially remained conspicuously silent following Floyd’s death, and have been called out accordingly.
Brands who have found themselves on the wrong side of history in the past have fared no better. Model and activist Munroe Bergdorf took a stand against her former employer L’Oreal after the cosmetics company posted on social media in support of Black Lives Matter and the caption: “Speaking out is worth it.”
Bergdorf, who was controversially dropped from L’Oreal after speaking out against structural racism following the Charlottesville massacre, retweeted the post with the comment: “Excuse my language but I am SO angry. F*** YOU @lorealparis. You dropped me from a campaign in 2017 and threw me to the wolves for speaking out about racism and white supremacy. With no duty of care, without a second thought.”
Nike and Adidas, however, who have worked with black stars including Stormzy, Anthony Joshua and LeBron James, were two of the first brands to offer their solidarity, with the rival sportswear giants even posting support on each other’s posts after Nike shared a video riffing on their Just Do It tagline, this time reading: 'Don't Do It. Don't pretend there's not a race problem in America.”
DON'T: forget to be kind
Predictably, some on social media have turned the Black Lives Matter movement into a woke contest, naming and shaming those who have been slower than them to react or donate, even within the black community itself.
Top Boy star Ashley Walters, for instance, was forced to explain his “silence” via a video yesterday that showed him break down in tears.
He said: “My point of coming on here today is no one can tell me I am complicit because I haven’t posted anything about the scenario for several reasons, but for the main one, I’ve been posting this thing all of my f---ing career. ‘I’ve seen black people and big corporations posting about your silence is a betrayal. Don’t ever f---ing tell me that my silence is a f---ing betrayal when I’ve been left for dead on the street by white men. ‘Stabbed and left for dead and these people have never been brought to justice. I f---ing worked hard, put my life on the line for all these f---ing men out here while this s*** has been going on.”
Ashley Walters and Kane Robinson starred in brilliant drama Top Boy
DO: educate yourself
It’s not the responsibility of people of colour to teach you about racism – it’s yours. There are already thousands of existing reading lists, articles, essays, podcasts, books and guides available to consume, from notable writers including Roxane Gay and Reni Eddo-Lodge to broadcasters Tina Daheley and activist Akala.
Many trending Twitter hashtags are bursting with thoroughly researched threads to get stuck into, while you can barely scroll down an inch on Instagram before finding a photographed stack of books to take note of or a well-annotated graphic of how white privilege and systemic racism is structured.
Do the work, share your resources when appropriate, and don’t pontificate on your shiny new wokeness – you’re late to the party anyway.
To support the Black Lives Matter movement, you can donate to bail funds throughout America, or to grassroots organisations to help bail reform.
To be fair noodle, there's also no reason to belittle the reasons of marchers in London to the extent that you have. I see plenty of minority faces in that crowd. You claiming they're only there to demonstrate their right to wave a bit of cardboard is transparently disingenuous and just the kind of bellendery you're accusing others of.
You're inciting incendiary replies with your own invective.
Until all racial discrimination is eliminated from the world, or something.
From personal experience, Coeur d’Alene is a shithole of far-right wingers and racists. The irony is they love to load up their pick-ups, roll into Spokane, get drunk and make racist comments and cause trouble with the college students around the several universities. People from Coeur d’Alene tend to be the worst scum of the earth, from my experience.Rightwing vigilantes on armed patrol after fake rumours of antifa threat
'In the Idaho city of Coeur d’Alene groups of 30-50 men armed with semi-automatic weapons have occupied downtown streets on successive evenings this week, guarding against supposed busloads of radical leftists rumored to traveling from cities such as Spokane or Seattle, according to local residents and social media materials obtained by the Guardian.
Videos posted to social media by supporters of the vigilante groups showed dozens of people walking up and down a downtown shopping strip, with many open-carrying AR-15s and other semi-automatic long guns, and sporting tactical apparel.
In a cellphone video, as a videographer pans over the scene, he is heard to say: “If you guys are thinking of coming to Coeur D’Alene, to riot or loot, you’d better think again. Because we ain’t having it in our town.”
He adds: “I guess there’s a big rumor that people from Spokane are gonna come out here and act up. But that shit ain’t gonna happen.”'
(Guardian)
I don't think ignorance is really an excuse considering we've been in a lockdown and unable to even meet people for fecking months. I also think it will make a difference. The anger it will cause in people who are still scared by covid 19 and in everyone else when the protests inevitably get linked to a rise in cases and deaths, will make quite a big negative difference to the cause.
Instead of being seen as people fighting racial injustice it will just be seen as selfish people who got some other people killed, and every protest here on will be linked back to the same group of idiots who cared more about protesting than other people's lives.
Telegraph said:
How can anyone say I know what pain is if that person has never experienced pain? Yes they may see another person in pain but in reality would not know what pain is.
Many white people are not protesting because they personally have experienced discrimination but because they have a conscience just like a lot of white people did against the apartheid regime in South Africa.
A United movement is going to succeed and these protests are the only way to do it now. Talking has failed as it has been all talking for all these years.
Many white people are not protesting because they personally have experienced discrimination but because they have a conscience just like a lot of white people did against the apartheid regime in South Africa.
A United movement is going to succeed and these protests are the only way to do it now. Talking has failed as it has been all talking for all these years.
Spokane is a place I would be completely unaware of if it wasn’t for a Ray La Montagne lyric.
This reminds me of the joke at the end of the Rick James sketch by Dave Chapelle
"You know you can get another couch. What am I gonna do about my legs Eddie Murphy?"
"When America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold".
The UK protests will end as soon as the US ones begin to die down. I don't mean this in a critical way, but the protests here are mostly an opportunist reflection of bigger issues across the pond. The grievances definitely do deserve to be aired, but the current spate of protests is an example of globalist bandwagon jumping.
The USA cultural hegemony is genuinely worrying
Protests save lives. Don’t let some of the old farts here let you think otherwise.
There's a host of things that people can do to show their solidarity and support for the cause without going out and spreading the virus around. Anyone with a double digit IQ should be able to understand this. The people organising these protests have a lot to answer for, not just for the deaths they will be responsible for but what they've done to alienate their cause.
I don't disagree but how do you combat that other than by trying to educate people and eradicate natural prejudice?
There's no law or restriction you can protest for change against because they all already say what you want them to. If a person is publicly racist they are already shamed, etc. There's no solution where you magically click your fingers and suddenly every black person has an equal footing in life compared to white people. It's a long game of convincing people to naturally view a black and white person as the same.
It’s just an insanely stupid phrase. At best, it’s stating the bleeding obvious. At worst, it’s deliberately belittling the legitimate grievances of black people. Either way, it reflects badly on anyone who uses it.
Once some tangible change is delivered?
You are right, BLM needs a single voice to articulate what their end game is with a specific set of outcomes to negotiate with.
I wrote before that I hoped Obama could somehow take on that role, but that wont happen.
The politics of this suggest that BLM will play the long game, and ensure this becomes an election issue with Trump and Biden forced into making manifest pledges. Ditto, that will trickle into UK and other nations.
Classic.
How his social commentary would be invaluable at the moment - not Rick, Dave's!
Not during a pandemic. In fact, they’re likely to have the exact opposite effect. Amazing this needs to be pointed out.
I'd be intrigued to see the crossover of those who thought lockdown shaming was hysterical to those now accusing these protesters of contributing towards murder.
If people can go to work under conditions of no social distancing then perhaps protest against racial discrimination might be as worthy of a cause than profit?
If people can go to work under conditions of no social distancing then perhaps protest against racial discrimination might be as worthy of a cause than profit?
The objections in the CE board boil down to:
*'I don't like Twitter.'
*'I don't understand Twitter.'
*'Most protesters are insincere because the billions of selfie-takers annoy me.'
*'The anti-racism protesters are insincere because they battled teargas and helicopters with Perrier water bottles.'
*'The anti-sexism protesters are insincere because some of them are attracted to men.'
*'The anti-capitalism protesters are insincere because they bought McDonalds.'
*'The authorities are killing us in several ways but go away and wait until the headlines fade before you protest.'
*'Today's music is just a load of noise.'
*'I don't like or understand Facebook or Instagram either.'
*'I don't like Twitter.'
*'I don't understand Twitter.'
*'Most protesters are insincere because the billions of selfie-takers annoy me.'
*'The anti-racism protesters are insincere because they battled teargas and helicopters with Perrier water bottles.'
*'The anti-sexism protesters are insincere because some of them are attracted to men.'
*'The anti-capitalism protesters are insincere because they bought McDonalds.'
*'The authorities are killing us in several ways but go away and wait until the headlines fade before you protest.'
*'Today's music is just a load of noise.'
*'I don't like or understand Facebook or Instagram either.'
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So your lived experience and empathy on racism, white privilege and police brutality against black people, (even sole in UK) is 100% on point, despite all all those with a different life experience and who have actually suffered from the grievances being protested against, are all wrong? That's what you're saying?
You might want to examine this dogmatic belief in your own views.
My dad got upset about this one on the phone with me this morning. That all lives should matter is precisely the point. The claim is that some lives don't appear to matter as much. The slogan "Black Lives Matter" is highlighting a discrepancy between the ideal (that all lives matter) and the reality (that black lives appear to matter less).
When you respond to someone saying "black lives matter" by saying "all lives matter" you appear to be deaf to the actual point. It's the "all animals are equal" analogy from Animal Farm.
I can see your point but as far as reasons go, I think the fact they are certainly going to cost innocent people their lives is a pretty big one.
If I told you that you can go to a Black Lives Matter protest, as long as some black people die of a virus as a result of you going, then unless you actually had no regard for black lives, I'd say it's fair to assume you wouldn't go. If you do go then the best excuse available is that you're really stupid.
If you can give me a convincing argument to the contrary then fair enough, but I can't think what it would be.
What a fecking dumb thing to say in the context of the London protests.
Or taking it out of context you can look at the state of Syria and tell me that protests save lives with a straight face.
Have not seen even one poster bullying you. Perhaps you should inform a mod with specifics so they can be warned.
No that isn't what I said is it. What kind of argument is this?
By your logic if a black man murdered a policeman and it turned out to be because in the past a different policeman racially assaulted him, I wouldn't be allowed to say he was wrong to commit murder unless I had also been racially assaulted by a policeman.
You're either an idiot or deliberately pretending to be one.
They can’t though. They certainly shouldn’t. With the only exceptions being where social distancing isn’t possible (e.g. doctors, nurses) so they have to wear loads of PPE.
Basically, that’s a pretty poor analogy.
Yeah the protests had to be done in America and do need to continue till justice is served but in the U.K. we need to start moving away from them and start doing other things to bring change. America had the Ahmaud Arbery shooting, the Amy Cooper incident in the park and then the George Floyd killing. All in the space of a few weeks, people just had enough and rightly so.
Ultimately though as much as people on Twitter (and some in here) are falling over themselves to draw comparisons between the U.K. and US, it really isn’t on the same level and at the moment long term mass protesting is not appropriate with the corona virus situation here. For the U.K. it’s a long game. The US are dealing with active cases that need immediate addressing, nothing we do here in the next week is going to effect what happens over there.
Ultimately though as much as people on Twitter (and some in here) are falling over themselves to draw comparisons between the U.K. and US, it really isn’t on the same level and at the moment long term mass protesting is not appropriate with the corona virus situation here. For the U.K. it’s a long game. The US are dealing with active cases that need immediate addressing, nothing we do here in the next week is going to effect what happens over there.
On the contrary though, nothing you did on picadily square or trafalgar would matter, but collectively between you, canada, german, etc it could really make a difference.
It's one thing having american on nation wide protest, the whole western civilization joining in is the game changer
The pandemic will be finished in the near future and the world will still turn; the overwhelming majority of the world’s population unaffected. When this happens, institutional racism will remain alive and kicking, and black people will still suffer at the inequality of the system. Real change in relation to this movement would blow the negative effects of the virus out of the water. One protest doesn’t change systems, and therefore lives, immeasurably, but over time one can only hope.
If BJ was my PM id be grateful people are protesting. Irrespective of whether or not there is a pandemic. As for the part about Syria, I don’t know what that even means.
Apologies, I meant 'All Lives Matter' which is what you wrote, and not 'White Lives Matter' which is what I claimed you wrote in my post.
It was a freudian slip, but actually makes my point even more strongly: In this current political climate, many feel that when people claim "All Lives Matter", what they are actually saying is "White Lives Matter too", which is a crude attempt to dilute the BLM movement.
I have no idea what this whataboutism means, Really I dont. I also stand by my post, which you haven answered.
I can't imagine there would be many of those as that is textbook hypocrisy. There's no real wriggle room from having those 2 diametrically opposed stances.
You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.