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Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
No. But they can all take a page from the gay rights movement. That is the template for how equality is achieved today. In that instance, smart people targeted certain states, got laws passed, anticipated a SCOTUS challenge and framed the issue as one of basic human dignity. There was a tight, coherent argument: Gay people stand in an identical position to straight people, and deserve all the same rights in terms of ability to have a state sanctioned marriage. They had the science and law on their side, their advocacy was simple and compelling, and their strategy was shrewd.
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Actually, this is not how it happened. One of the organizations I was involved in brought in Marc Solomon to talk about the Freedom to Marry Campaign. His speech was specifically about how one could apply the lessons they learned to other movements (including BLM).
What he said was the tight, coherent, logical, rights-based argument was a complete loser. They tried it again and again and lost for years and couldn't understand why. What they had to do was send people out to talk to people and what they found was the arguments that worked were the amorphous ones that had more to do with pointing out that gay people actually love each other and want the ability to make that love official. The next step was to engage people who are actually gay to actually visit the local politicians to talk to them about why they deserve the same rights. It is much harder to vote against the people you see every day (and who you may not have known were gay). He gave very specific examples, one of which was of how they researched a key politician and found out that one of his teachers who influenced him most was retired and lived closed by. She is gay and they had her pay him a visit to talk about her relationships. She almost managed to change his mind. The next step was explaining to him that they had the means to fund his next primary opponent who would vote the way they wanted.
In short, a logical approach with a clear, airtight argument didn't mean as much on the march to marriage equality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
All of those same strategies and arguments can be applied to BLM. In fact, it might even be easier to effect criminal justice reform.
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What?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
A huge change in sentiment, and elected officials making policy, could be reached by simply giving felons the right to vote. Six million felons do not have that right today. A targeted effort to give them back the vote (which, by the way, Rand Paul and Rick Santorum and other principled Rs support) could provide the difference in a Presidential election, and numerous state elections that have a direct impact on policing and justice administration.
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You realize, of course, that the
reason why they don't have the vote is so that they can't affect elections, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Bundling all these causes together and protesting, or being drug into street skirmishes with Nazi morons, is not effective. Calling every slight racism is not effective.
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You've said three different things. You are lumping a bunch of different things into your argument because then you can dismiss it all. When Adder says you're taking a Fox pundit approach to this stuff, this is what he means.
People protest unfair treatment. The fact that many people gather and have many complaints may not effect immediate change on every issue, but these expressions of anger have surely been heard. It's partly cathartic and it also demonstrates to the victims of injustice that they are supported. Just because
you don't care about this shit doesn't mean it has no value. I really wonder what you'd be saying about the Civil Rights Movement in the Sixties if you had been alive then.
Opposing Nazis on the streets isn't effective? You are joking, correct? You don't think what happened this past week has had an effect on this country? You think it would have been better to have them march unopposed? Municipalities all over the country have taken down monuments celebrating the Confederacy as a direct result. Racists have been exposed to white people who thought it wasn't a big problem, including the ones in The White House. Take a look at the photo of the Boston protests. The right wing assholes fit in that structure. The anti-fascist protestors dwarf them. In
Boston.
Finally, stop pitching this "calling every slight racism" bullshit. No one is doing that. You are being dismissive because you purposefully do not want to discuss the effects of racism on any level besides that which costs people their lives. I'm sick of that shit. And as the co-chair of my firm's diversity committee, which addresses these types of issues regularly, we see partners like you all the time. Thank god they are a dying breed and that so many are starting to be open to gaining an understanding of how they can improve and how certain things they do are based on
racial bias (which is not the same as being a racist). Just being able to have a discussion like that without assholes completely focused on not being called, "racist," is progress.*
Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You don't frame it as fighting "inequality." That's the language that lumps you in with the Occupy Sorts and grievance fetishists. You frame the argument as "Justice Reform," and you describe the problem accurately: "We are jailing and killing black people in what is clearly a racist justice system. We jail more people per capita than China. This is a grotesque failing on par with those addressed during the Civil Rights Movement. In fact, it is part of the Civil Rights Movement. For some reason, we failed to adequately address it then. We need to do so now." Those are facts. People cannot argue with facts. And the Right wingers who'll try will fail as badly as the dimwits who argued against gay marriage on the basis it violated their "religious liberty."
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Maybe you're not paying attention, but just because you see people fighting general injustice and inequality at a rally does not mean that there aren't movements that focus specifically on the justice system attacking the problems in just the manner you describe. If your argument is that white people who have to experience a general complaint about inequality when they drive past a rally or flip past one on television no longer have the capacity to think about specific issues in a thoughtful way, then we're all fucked more than I thought.
TM
*Jesus, what a fucking fight this has been, by the way. White people close their ears completely when you talk about racial bias, which almost
everyone has because they think you're accusing them of being racist.
