This like totally correlates! So say there was a movement called "Gay Lives Matter" because LGBT people were being killed for being who they were And some straight people came along and said "wait, but straight lives matter too!" Yes, we do know that blacks kill whites, but are they mainly done because of racism and hatred? No. I'm sure an LGBT person has killed a straight person, but has it been done because they were straight? I'm guessing no. See how it sounds? It's NOT saying other lives don't matter. It's not about making other people feel bad. This isn't about killing. It's about WHY the killing is being done. It's about ending oppression within a group of people
On a side note, she needs to get rid of that abomination of a haircut. It looks like the Aflac duck did it... [youtube]bV6a3EamHlM[/youtube]
Speaking of Raven Symone I saw this one thing on Facebook: Ever since Raven Symone came out of the closet instead of saying that's so gay I can now say That's so Raven!
Plenty take notice. Authorities. Lawyers. Judges. People don't have to protest and fight to get murders and corrupt officers of white American victims to be charged. None of this would be happening if these cases even receives trails at minimum. Please attempt to find statistics in which white Americans face police brutality that goes untried by the American justice system to an even marginally frequent degree before making false equivalences such as that. Which still does not answer my question on how calling out the ignorance in adamantly pushing for "All Lives Matter" is pitting the races together, but I suppose there was no connection to begin with. Insisting on "All Lives Matter" is the equivalent in shouting "All Diseases Matter" to breast cancer advocates. It deliberately derails the conversation from addressing a specific and extremely prevalent issue. All people do not face the same issues in society. Acknowledging the fact that one group is facing an abnormal amount of aggression is not excluding anyone. We don't need to remind people that the lives of white Americans matter in the United States. The purpose of "Black Lives Matter" is to draw attention to the fact that we should believe all lives matter; however, the lives of specific racial groups are statistically not being included in that sentiment. Except that the media is not the entity creating racial tensions. Racial tensions exist between authorities and civilians; and civilians and civilians. The conspiracy that the media is attempting to pit races against one another is beyond illogical. Historically, the media does not act in that fashion. Widespread media bias exists to serve donors, corporations, and government agencies. The media is not making claims of racial bias, violence, and discrimination. It is fine time that we banish the "media is corrupting the people" ideal whenever social justice issues are brought up. The American people are tense and displeased. They are making these arguments and presented them to the general public; which they have ever right to be.
Sigh. I have nothing to add to the comments about Raven Symone, as everything that needs to be said has been said. This just gives me yet another reason to dislike her. Instead, I want to focus on a few comments made in the thread, and explain why All Lives Matter is offensive and bad. When people are talking about Black Lives Matter they are not just talking about police brutality and abuse. It's a discussion about racism. It is certainly true that white people can be abused and brutalized by the police and even face prejudice. However, white people cannot experience racism. Racism is not mean words or even horrible actions. If the police are killing an unarmed African American while shouting the N-word, that is not what racism looks like, it is just a symptom of racism. Think of racism like brain cancer. The cancer may spread and you may start having trouble with your memory as a result. Your memory loss is just a symptom of the true problem. It would be madness to focus on the memory loss, but ignore the cancer, which is the root of the problem. Racism is like a cultural cancer. Anyone who is touched by our culture is effected and shaped by it in both large and subtle ways. As a result racism has spread throughout our entire culture, and influences, twists, and corrupts every institution. This means that even good, well intentioned people, individuals with no malice in their hearts at all, even people who actively fight against racism are co-opted into it often in subtle and small ways. For an institution like law enforcement, the situation is complicated, deeply entrenched at all levels, and wide spread. A simplistic understanding of the problem looks something like this: in large urban cities housing policies trap African Americans into ghettos. The people in the ghettos are poor, and because school funding is often funded by property taxes they go to worse schools than children from wealthy neighborhoods. This in turn undermines their future economic opportunities, which ushers some into the life of petty crime (usually drugs). The police arrest them. They get out. It gets harder for them to find a job, which pushes them back into the life of petty crime, which leads to them being arrested again. They are thus trapped in that cycle. This puts a heavy strain on an already strained community, which forces more people into petty crime, which are then dealt with by the police, trapping them all in the cycle. Because the police have so many negative interactions with the community by this point, the community and its people start to be perceived as "the enemy." This dehumanizes them and creates a divide between the people living in the community and those who police them. This further creates friction and hostility. This ultimately leads to police abuse of people in the community. This creates more friction and hostility between the community and the police. Then, over top of all of this, is the deeply ingrained cultural assumption that African American men are somehow more dangerous, more likely to commit crime... and on and on it goes. This is a system and everyone gets trapped in it, and it is a system that starts with a housing problem at its core. It is then followed by an unequally enforced drug policy. After all, white Americans and African Americans use drugs at a nearly identical rate (White Americans use slightly more, but only because they tend to be more wealthy). However, white communities are not policed the same, because they are not generally poor and disadvantaged. Even when whites are arrested for similar crimes, they are more likely to get away with a slap on the wrist, because they are perceived to be "good kids" while African Americans are more likely to be perceived as "bad kids." Every single institution in our society is structured in similar ways. As a result, if we are not talking about black lives, and what it means to be black in America, we are not talking about racism. If we are not talking about racism, we are not talking about the problems at hand. When someone says, "All Lives Matter" it literally white-washes the problem. It's an attempt to be race neutral, but we cannot be race neutral. If you "don't see race" then you end up blind to the problems. If you can't see the problems, then you can't advocate for solutions to fix them.
Of course a typical Uncle Tom. ---------- Post added 23rd Jul 2015 at 10:47 AM ---------- And it's sad because the first person who gave up was actually Claudette Covin and only 15 at that time but instead it recognised Rosa Parks because the black community felt more "fit" to be her is more associated to the middle white class. ---------- Post added 23rd Jul 2015 at 10:51 AM ---------- this
Is there a problem with the statement "all lives matter" because I honestly don't see it. Do you guys just look for stuff to complain about like this all day or are you honestly offended at the fact that Raven Symone values human life?
I guess I dont subscribe to the viewpoint that Racism is an inescapable all consuming aspect of our daily lives we have to be constantly depressed about and reminded of in everything we see all of the time. So your post, while detailed and well written didn't do much for me, but to each their own. There's one race I'm concerned with and it's the human race. I'll spare you a boring and time wasting explanation as to exactly why that is, since you'll understand just fine, when the aliens get here.
Your youthful innocence is so cute. You seem to think racism is like Tinker Bell from Peter Pan, and that if you don't believe in it then it dies and goes away. After all, if you pretend it doesn't exist, then maybe it really doesn't, right? Of course, I can't figure out if that youthful innocence arises from ignorance or stupidity. Nonetheless, it's cute in an uneducated sort of way. ---------- Post added 23rd Jul 2015 at 01:45 AM ---------- For those who are actually interested here are some interesting things that might be worth viewing. [YOUTUBE]u5nPyf-0UMc[/YOUTUBE] The above is an interview from a former Baltimore Cop. Many of the things I wrote about regarding policing are discussed in this interview. [YOUTUBE]tkpUyB2xgTM[/YOUTUBE] The above video shows how racism begins to influence children's perception at a very young age. The tests have been repeated again and again independently.
What the fudge is going on here, it's 2015 and racism is still all over the place at least that fool Dylann Roof actually got charged with hate crime. sometimes, the courts won't even do that..
Frankly after spending some time on this forum, I find all #X group'slivesmatter (only the term itself, I know racism exist, yada yada) stupid now. I'm gonna be a special snowflake and take the "My life matters" movement. Everyone wants the same thing, but people are too busy arguing which words are appropriate. No wonder nothing's get done.
Words are like symbols. Similar to the confederate flag and the american flag, it means something. Just like calling someone gay in a pejorative manner, it means something. They shouldn't be taken lightly, all else anyone should be able to call anyone anything. Solidarity is the only thing an ally can do really to show their support and stop white supremacy, but people are too busy saying that the oppressed are getting out of hand... I feel like it is so strange when oppressors tell the oppressed that they are being too sensitive or making a big deal out of words, especially from the gay community. Do you not know how it feels to be called the f word? Or called gay because your too masculine or feminine? When people say you are wrong about words hurting, remember what we had to go through to get our rights. People saying we should be happy with how we're treated now, and that if gay people are making a big fuss out of nothing, like words like the f word and gay and to a certain extent, queer. Anyone that refuses to believe that some people have it worse on these forums, please remember that straight people are treated better than gay people and remember that that applies to you. That is how it feels to be black in modern and past America. You are treated worse than anyone else by the law.
As much as I could say about this philosophy, I will bypass all of that and jump to straight to the point of what does this have to do with the subject of this thread? This is not a philosophical debate. "Black Lives Matter" and "All Lives Matter" are not complex ideologies. It is not this complicated. "Black Lives Matter" was a phrase that was created to draw attention to the fact that African American are ridiculously more likely to be victims of police brutality or hate crimes that receive no action from the justice system than all other ethnic groups combined. That is what it represents. That is what all of the protests and rhetoric represent. Nothing more. Therefore, why are we turning this into a argument about how we personally see race? Why are some of us convinced that our opinion on how prevalent racism happens to be is relevant to this conversation? Why do some people feel that they have to remind everyone else not to forget that we're all human and how we should just sit around together and sing campfire songs? I would venture to guess it is either because several posters have left their glasses at home or some of us are physically unable to pay attention and observe what a discussion is truly about before opening our mouths. To insinuate that posters such as Aldrick and I are searching for things to be upset about when we are some of the few posters within this thread who have actually addressed the topic of discussion rather than going on and on about why aren't we recognizing that apricot lives matter? If we could all be so progressive as to take our own initiative in educating ourselves on contemporary social issues, or at least have the humility to listen to those who have when we ask questions, then we wouldn't be having this much difficultly understanding the meaning and value behind a three word phrase.
The original post in this thread is so ridiculous and so bad that I'm not even bothering to read the rest of the thread. Grow up and maybe you'll be able to have normal conversations about race and other subjects like this.
Because telling people that their views are ridiculous and "to grow up" is a sign of intelligence and maturity rather than outlining the reasons why you find their statements to be invalid and, therefore, fostering a discussion that results in understanding and enlightenment for all parties present? This is exactly why I have grown so unbelievably tired of these pseudo-intellectual discussions on this site. All to frequently people don't actually want to address any of the issues or thoughts that have been shared. They simply want to complain. Complain about how they don't want to talk about racism, sexism, transphobia, islamophobia, etc. Complain about how they think that everything is stupid and ridiculous. Their sole desire is to be the skeptic. Not the skeptic that challenges and elaborates upon what they claim to be inaccurate. Not the skeptic that has support or evidence to justify their skepticism. They simply wish to be the skeptic for the sake of skepticism. The skeptic when skepticism allows them to deny something that they fundamentally wish to deny regardless of support. The ability to articulate the faults that you find in the views of others and address the criticisms directed at your own is a necessary feature of an intelligent argument. Making meaningless posts about how you feel the thoughts others have shared are foolish, inaccurate, or problematic without being able to articulate even a single reason why is a clear sign of undeserved pretension and ignorance.
Everyone has struggles. Everyone has hopes and dreams. Everyone is affected in society in some way. All lives matter. I however don't think "Black lives matter" or all lives matter" are either offensive. I respect them both and think they mean well. All iives matter and yes I do understand the realities we face as a society but just saying all lives do matter .
