Yeah, but a lot of dumb people who could have supported BLM were swayed by Blue Lives Matter or All Lives Matter bullshit, especially if they work in or around emergency. There's a lot of non-conservatives in emergency fields that are especially succeptable to that kind of bullshit despite being otherwise good human beings.

I've talked at least two away from the "Blue/All Lives Matter" ledge. You have to do it delicately, but the whole problem with all this shit is that there ARE people who are not really racist who can be convinced that "there's a lot of cops dying in BLM riots" because that's what they're being told. When you have black friends who says "I don't want to be anywhere near BLM because they just make us look bad", you know that people are spreading some real fake shit. But instead of hating on them, you can just show them that BLM is not riots and Blue Lives Matter is not about stopping cops from being killed.

And then, the ones who aren't racist... they do listen.

[–] InputZero@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am not an American, so I'm not means an expert on anything American. What I do think is that globally, us on the political left are shit at making slogans at least compared to the political right. While I can't deny that Defund the Police resonated with people who have been oppressed by them their whole lives, I also can't deny it doesn't actually do anything to inform bystanders of the solution being proposed. The 'gentry' who actually have the political power to effect change, and in fact had the opposite effect. Honestly I think actors on the political right just spend a lot more time and money on spinning a good message.

Tl;Dr; BLMs message was so confusing it made it so right wing actors could flip Defund the Police on its head and scare centralists from the idea.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I'll give a different angle, as I see it.

A problem is that reality is complicated and makes shit for soundbytes. That means your options are to lie to constituents, or to actually have policy ideals that are just harder to explain.

Defund the Police is a great example. We simply lean on the police too heavily. We DO need to defund them. They should not be the first line for mental health breaks, the first line for non-physical domestic disputes, etc. I know other countries do this, but in the US I would argue the current format of police shouldn't be used for situations where violence is unlikely... and yeah, I mean things like driving infractions. Not only are they not great at it, but they are also not TRUSTED. In a country where someone getting a ticket for pulling through a stop sign literally fears for their life because they're black, we should be offering a justice system that makes such a danger impossible because it won't be kill-trained people with guns giving them their ticket.

Similarly, our police are over-equipped. Too many SWAT teams, used too lightly in situations without elevated risk or without enough red tape to require better information-gathering. And not unlike a bad comic book, SWAT team members have to hide their identity because they know the masses hate and fear them. I've known spouses of SWAT team members, and the rule is that nobody but those closest to you can know that's what they do. Not unlike drug dealers.

So stepping back, all those things are a nice ball of "what I fucking want to vote for". If you had 5 seconds to explain it, what would you say? I would say "defund the police". Because it's strictly accurate in a dozen ways AND it isn't even pretending to say "abolish the police" because that would be "absolish the police".

So yeah. The Right looks at Defund the Police and says "see, they're trying to abolish the police. Let's back the blue" and it's all over.

I'm gonna say BLM was the same. BLM had clear numbers, clear figures, a clear message. Stop killing black people. They had people marching with (posters of) unarmed black people who were killed without any reasonable suspicion of a crime. They had everything you could need. But then you had an orange fascist prick saying "All lives matter". NO SHIT all lives matter. But how many white people do these idiots know who have been wrongfullly abused by police? Post-BLM, we are way down on black deaths by cop; it's only TWICE their representation.

You say you're not an American, so I get it. But the real problem with BLM is exactly what we have complained it is... full-on-racism. BLM became a riot in many areas because White Supremecists working with the police started the riots to give an excuse to end the protests. The message was trampled on, not because it was bad, but because we are a horrible country right now. And yes, innocent people only see the fallout and the sound bytes on TV. When the most powerful man in the country has this message that "all lives matter", anyone who is not politically savvy is going to just nod their head and agree.

[–] InputZero@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

You made some good points, I'll have to think on it. Have an up-boat.

[–] woobie@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You've made some good points. I hope that a fair number of people read through the whole post, but I fear that not enough will. Most seem to have about a three sentence threshold.

[–] abraxas@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Bingo! And it's kinda hard to make a soundbyte explanation for why something is too complicated for a soundbyte :)