It does always feel to me that we are dodging around the issue of class consciousness by pointing out the racism and sexism and so on that is embedded in capitalism. It relies on this assumption that capitalism can be fixed and we will all benefit once it's extended to the people who are not rich, but we have known that this is not true for such a long time.
Dance troupe Diversity's Black Lives Matter performance receives 24,000 complaints
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It does always feel to me that we are dodging around the issue of class consciousness by pointing out the racism and sexism and so on that is embedded in capitalism. It relies on this assumption that capitalism can be fixed and we will all benefit once it's extended to the people who are not rich, but we have known that this is not true for such a long time.
Athos
Well-Known Member
In fairness to BLM it is explicitly anti-capitalist.
Well the idea of race is bullshit though. BLM is multi racial. For Americans, what about the Hispanics and the Chinese and the Indians and the Arabs and the Hillbillies and so on. It's not the right slogan
Athos
Well-Known Member
Yes, but that doesn't make racism any less real.
ska invita
back on the other side
Come on Athos, theres millions of people support BLM around the world - many of them have Twitter accounts. One awkward tweet jumped on by cunts does not a substantial criticism of the principles of BLM make. Ridiculous we are even talking about this.
It’s terrible because it has no meaning beyond being a vague, aspirational idea. “Racism” is defined differently by every person you meet, and its definition is almost always such that it excludes the definer (except in cases where they want to self-identify as racist). So people can shout it and all mean something different by it and nobody needs to change anything.
By contrast, “Black Lives Matter” is a highly specific, meaningful slogan. It doesn’t ask for aspirational ideals. It just states a quantifiable fact. You either agree with the statement, in which it is a rallying cry, or you don’t. And if you don’t, it asks uncomfortable questions as to why.
It is true that people are self-obsessed and solipsistic, which makes a lot of them whine “but what about meeeeeeee? What about if myyyyyy life matters?” And that in itself has been a fantastic way to illustrate just how atomised and selfish this society actually is. I’m fine with that.
Athos
Well-Known Member
I'm not arguing it does. You didn't understand the reference in another poster's comment, so I explained it to you.
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But we are talking about something to build around. Let them have racism, it is their game, we won't ever win
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Athos
Well-Known Member
Slogans don't tend to capture nuance. It'd need building on with a detailed platform (as BLM has).
That's also a strength, insofar as everyone can get behind it.
Obviously, the movement would be much more than a slogan (as BLM does).
That ought to be true. But we see people who agree with the literal statement, but who are put off by what they interpret it to mean (or are told it means).
There's certainly some value in that. But it does have the downsides I've mentioned.
I'm not saying what I came up with of the top of my head is perfect, but this whole thing came up in response to a the claim that the name 'Black Lives Matters' isn't divisive; it clearly is, notwithstanding nobody here thinks it should be.
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Athos
Well-Known Member
I think anti-racism needs to be an explicit strand of what we build.
maomao
普費斯
Millions of working class people on the steets in the largest protest movement of my lifetime, the US on the brink of civil war and we're moaning about the name. Like it or not it's the most succesful name of a protest movement ever. And anyone who can't handle the idea that white lives already matter is probably on the wrong side anyway.
the same is true for QAnon though.
Athos
Well-Known Member
I'm not insisting I would do better; I only posited an alternative because I was asked to. I agree that the movement has mobilised many, but the name has offered the opportunity for others to polarise the issue - becoming a fault line in the culture war. Only time will tell whether it has worked (needless to say, I hope it does).
Make America Fabulous Again
The slogan has already worked. It has captured the imagination of hundreds of millions of people. What those people do next — well, a slogan can’t achieve everything. What happens next is up to those who are involved within the movement. But that in no way detracts from the success of the slogan.
It’s a punchy, unambiguous and yet confrontational statement of fact. I don’t think it is any surprise that it would have been the winner in the Darwinian battle of hashtags.
maomao
普費斯
I always understood it as intentionally confrontational. It starts a conversation/argument in a way that a name like Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament can't.
Right. If it isn’t clear, that’s the point I was also trying to make
Athos
Well-Known Member
I think we'll have to agree to disagree about what success looks like. The Stop The War Coalition mobilised millions to march, but it wasn't a success insofar as it didn't stop the war.
What is the purpose of a slogan if not to gather millions to its cause? The slogan is not the manifesto, nor is it the action. It’s just a rallying cry.
“Stop The War” was another successful slogan, for similar reasons of being specific and confrontational. It successfully caused millions to march. The march was not successful but the slogan was.
maomao
普費斯
That's a great name for what it is.
Athos
Well-Known Member
Then we do have a different idea of success; I won't consider BLM (as a movement) a success if millions protest but nothing changes (notwithstanding the mass appeal of 'black lives matter' as a slogan).
It’s not the movement you were raising issue with though, when I responded. It was the slogan itself.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
How much change would you consider a success?
Athos
Well-Known Member
The point is that, for me, the slogan has no value independent of the movement. Absent and way of measuring the extent to which the slogan helps or hinders the movement in achieving its aims (and I'm sure it does both), we can only use the success of the movement to measure the success of the slogan. And only time will tell.
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Athos
Well-Known Member
84.6%
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I'll take that as a no then
maomao
普費斯
Ah, but if they'd called themselves Together Opposing Racism they would have ended racism by now.
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