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Dance troupe Diversity's Black Lives Matter performance receives 24,000 complaints

In terms of asking, “how can somebody hate this thing I love?”, it’s always worth reflecting that the features which inspired you to love it might be the very same ones that inspire somebody else to hate it. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy. If something provokes a reaction, there’s no reason to expect it to be the same reaction in everybody.
 
That is the first time I have seen the whole performance, and I think it is glorious. It has brought a tear to my eye (admittedly, lots of things do that these days, but still... )

I would be interested to see the reason for the complaints. I don't see how they can be legitimate. How can anyone be offended by it?
The reason is that this country has an awful lot of people that are thick as shit racists.
 
All lives matter?


I expect that’s someone will tell me I need to be sent to the re-education camp for this, but I agree with you.

Magnus McGinty ’s posts on this read to me like “not all white people” and whatabouttery . And presented in such a righteous manner that it just turns me off trying harder to understand his POV.

Reno’s posts make more sense and made me think more.
 
I expect that’s someone will tell me I need to be sent to the re-education camp for this, but I agree with you.

Magnus McGinty ’s posts on this read to me like “not all white people” and whatabouttery . And presented in such a righteous manner that it just turns me off trying harder to understand his POV.

Reno’s posts make more sense and made me think more.

Not all white people are ‘privileged’ and not all black people are victims. Why liberals push these sorts of racist ideas themselves is down to them I suppose. I made my point and I’m leaving it at that. It isn’t my responsibility as to whether you understand it or not.
 
I expect that’s someone will tell me I need to be sent to the re-education camp for this, but I agree with you.

Magnus McGinty ’s posts on this read to me like “not all white people” and whatabouttery.

I don't agree with everything he says on this issue (or how he does so), but I think (at least part of) his point IS 'not all white people', insofar as lumping white people in one group and black people in another (with some tension between the groups' interests) can obscure the real causes of the problems, and can be a bar to the class solidarity necessary to improve the lives of the vast majority of working class people (regardless of race). For instance, that by suggesting that the overrepresentation of black people amongst the victims of police brutality is primarily a product of racism fails to address the role of police in protecting the interests of the owners of capital and the overrepresentation of black people in the working class. And that at the same time liberal middle-class people of colour seek to dominate the movement - to succeed at which they need to make it black v white - which prevents solidarity accross the class whose interests the police threaten.

Eta: posted this before I saw his, above.
 
I dare not mention class for fear of being called a robot.

interestingly, a point I read elsewhere is that the basis of the attacks on Jews as a group in the Holocaust was because of their supposed privilege as a group. It’s a terrible avenue to take whilst presenting it as somehow progressive.
 
I dare not mention class for fear of being called a robot.

interestingly, a point I read elsewhere is that the basis of the attacks on Jews as a group in the Holocaust was because of their supposed privilege as a group. It’s a terrible avenue to take whilst presenting it as somehow progressive.

I think some people find your class analysis reductive and crude. And that, sometimes the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of good e.g. when BLM is under attack from racists, that might not be the best time to criticise it without considerable nuance.
 
I think some people find your class analysis reductive and crude. And that, sometimes the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of good e.g. when BLM is under attack from racists, that might not be the best time to criticise it without considerable nuance.

Irony intended, I hope. :D
 
I think some people find your class analysis reductive and crude. And that, sometimes the pursuit of perfection is the enemy of good e.g. when BLM is under attack from racists, that might not be the best time to criticise it without considerable nuance.

Fair enough. The thinking behind it is that I see left liberals as another hurdle (rather than an ally) towards a working class counter power. It’s their ideas that I rail against; BLM itself isn’t really the focus other than that this dominant narrative will more likely lend towards a nationalist outcome than a socialist one.
 
That the left wing culture warriors that have got McGinty's back up are no strangers to purity politics themselves.

Ah, I see. And agree completely.

Eta: actually, not 'completely'; often their shtick is devoid of politics - its just performative culture.
 
It's not painting white people as inherently doing wrong, it's asking them to consider why they're not the ones being shot by the police.

The thing is if we're talking about America, white people are being shot, and killed, and in large numbers. The full number isn't collected properly so no one knows exactly but reasonably credible commentators (including eg Gary Younge, the Guardian journo) reckon that twice as many white people as black people are killed by the police each year in the US. Of course that means that you are proportionately more likely to be killed if you're black because there are nearly four times more white people, but whaddyaknow, once you control for class it looks a lot like the distinction almost disappears.

Again controlling for class is very hard for a whole range of reasons but basically nearly all police killings, black, white, latino, take place in low income neighbourhoods. The racism is that black people are more likely to be living in those neighbourhoods, the policing is actually a red herring in terms of racism, it's just fucking violent across the racial board. But of course liberals don't really want to look down this alley because then they have to consider genuine re-distributive ideas rather than just condemn RACISM in Officer X or Y or whoever, aprocess that also positions themselves as innocent.
 
...but of course liberals don't really want to look down this alley because then they have to consider genuine re-distributive ideas rather than just condemn RACISM in Officer X or Y or whoever, aprocess that also positions themselves as innocent.

Just to address this little bit (because there's a lot to unpack here), whether liberal or further left, there is an emphasis on institutional and systemic racism, not just the racist attitude of occasional "bad apple" individuals (which is one of the more conservative explanations that comes up).
 
Just to address this little bit (because there's a lot to unpack here), whether liberal or further left, there is an emphasis on institutional and systemic racism, not just the racist attitude of occasional "bad apple" individuals.

Well I don't follow MSM or social media much these days but just about everything I've seen has been about individual killings by individual police officers and the 'deeper' level seems to be just breastbeating about how terribly racist America is-and-always-has-been, but with no attempt to analyse that except lots of stuff about 'white privilege' which doesn't seem to add up to much except that white people need to be nicer, which would probably be a good thing but won't get black people out of the ghettos where police kill people.
 
Well I don't follow MSM or social media much these days but just about everything I've seen has been about individual killings by individual police officers and the 'deeper' level seems to be just breastbeating about how terribly racist America is-and-always-has-been, but with no attempt to analyse that except lots of stuff about 'white privilege' which doesn't seem to add up to much except that white people need to be nicer, which would probably be a good thing but won't get black people out of the ghettos where police kill people.

"White privilege" always struck me as a shit concept, since it is easy to read it as implying that anti-racists are arguing for the expanding of privilege (as opposed to fighting for justice).

But regardless of that, a lot of debate I've seen (quite a lot of it linked to on urban threads) has been of a higher quality than what you describe.
 
"White privilege" always struck me as a shit concept, since it is easy to read it as implying that anti-racists are arguing for the expanding of privilege (as opposed to fighting for justice).

As Kenan Malik has pointed out if (as is often claimed) 'white privilege' is the ability to forget about racism and ignore it, then that should not be a 'privilege', it should be a basic human right and should not be framed as a special privilege granted to special people.

But regardless of that, a lot of debate I've seen (quite a lot of it linked to on urban threads) has been of a higher quality than what you describe.

I daresay, but what most people are hearing are the slogans, which is why they matter and most BLM ones (including "BLM") have been pretty awful imo.
 
The thing is if we're talking about America, white people are being shot, and killed, and in large numbers.

The difference being that the white people who are being killed are often waving guns about and being dicks whereas your George Floyds and Breanna Taylors are innocently getting on with their lives or committing petty unarmed crimes. You rarely hear of a white guy getting nicked for shoplifting and then getting killed whilst not resisting. (Not saying it doesn't happen mind).
 
As Kenan Malik has pointed out if (as is often claimed) 'white privilege' is the ability to forget about racism and ignore it, then that should not be a 'privilege', it should be a basic human right and should not be framed as a special privilege granted to special people.

Well, not "ignoring it", that shouldn't be a right. But not having to encounter it, yes.

The "check your privilege" maxim can be handy as something to keep in the back of your mind, though.
For instance, I've been trying to mindful of not indulging my habit of whining about my time at work when there are so many people around me who have lost their jobs or are in generally precarious positions right now.

I daresay, but what most people are hearing are the slogans, which is why they matter and most BLM ones (including "BLM") have been pretty awful imo.

Well, the main "Black Lives Matter" slogan has certainly been a powerful one, especially due to being one that you have to be really far along the scumbag scale to disagree with it.
 
The difference being that the white people who are being killed are often waving guns about and being dicks whereas your George Floyds and Breanna Taylors are innocently getting on with their lives or committing petty unarmed crimes. You rarely hear of a white guy getting nicked for shoplifting and then getting killed whilst not resisting. (Not saying it doesn't happen mind).

Honestly there are so many police killings in the US that I couldn't generalise from the few I've seen - and one of the things that depresses me about making this a black-white issue is that the vids of white men being killed by police are passed around on far-right networks, the ones I've stumbled on online are every bit as sickening and nasty as those of black men and certainly didn't involve blokes waving guns around, but maybe these are the exceptions.
 
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