Is BLM a trojan horse?

black lives matter or Black Lives Matter?

Again the implication that not supporting a particular type of sloganeering, or identity politics, means bigotry.

That is not the implication. It is simply a statement: Black Lives Matter. Do your sloganeering. Do your identity politics. Do your bigotry.

Black Lives Matter. Unless you think they don't, or only matter if.

Great post, Goosefoot

I swear to God this was the weekend that I finally understood when people say 'intersectionality', they don't actually mean it.

And as for being anti-capitalist? Equally hollow.

Well, it's not really about "benefit", it's just about equality atm

What's equality called when it comes to dinner? 'Cause I am pretty sure it's not a bunch of people agreeing that lack lives matter.

Black people. BLM is the answer, whatever question you need to ask yourself to get this answer is up to you. Unless you think that Black Lives only matter if... Or you think that your thoughts are the only ones that make a difference.

Again the implication that not supporting a particular type of sloganeering, or identity politics, means bigotry.

Black people do not benefit from a movement that offers no program to benefit them, and can't even offer substantial thoughts about what their problems are.

People who go out on a BLM march, or share BLM memes, etc, already believe that the lives of black people matter.

The people that benefit from this are two groups: the first being the ones who are already benefiting from the structure of economic exploitation, because all of this individual figure out what it means to you business never touches their empire.

The second being the people who set themselves up as the voice of this movement, who make a career of it and write books and go on speaking tours, and often end up cheek to jowl with the first group who is very interested in keeping them close.

There is a reason beyond scoring marketing points that Amazon and Google love to blaze a BLM or a Rainbow symbol across their corporate branding, and The New York Times and The Guardian and the Democratic Party love it. They ask nothing that isn't easy for them to give.

The answer to the question "who should benefit" is obvious. Black people.
Glad that that is the consensus. Phew.

What is less obvious is how are they should benefit.
Well, it's not really about "benefit", it's just about equality atm. How we use that to benefit society will be up for debate once it is a reality.

As usual follow the money, who is funding BLM? Why the sudden focus globally over the last 10 days supported by the media, celebrities and major brands. Were we not all at risk from Covid.
I am Black and like many other black people do not support BLM mainly because it has been infiltrated by Antifa, who are deliberately exploiting the trauma caused by George Floyd's death to role play their Alinsky revolution fantasies, with no regard for the destruction or pain caused. Many black businesses have been destroyed, social housing burned to the ground. People traumatized, bricks left lying around or handed to black kids knowing that if they are caught the criminal justice system will not be fair to them. There are some powerful people who have a vested interest in keeping us divided and driving us toward the boogaloo by exploiting us emotionally.

I dont think Goosefoot was saying that at all.

IThe answer to the question "who should benefit" is obvious. Black people.

What is less obvious is how are they should benefit.

If practical changes and improvements are not proposed, Black Lives Matter is in danger of becoming an empty phrase. No one wants that.

It’s perfectly possible to believe that black lives matter very much indeed, whilst still looking critically at the loose groupings of activists who describe themselves as Black Lives Matter.

Y’know, like it’s perfectly possible to be on the left of British politics whilst looking critically at the U.K. Labour Party.

I did something this weekend. I donated half my pay check to an organisation relevant to the cause.

I did not post about BLM, even though black lives, clearly, matter.

Many friends posted endlessly; many friends marched. I wonder how many put their food budget where their mouth is?

Someone here - Beachcomber! - shared with me a piece by Catherine McKinnon which was transformative in how I want to continue from here on in.

And that is - I do not pledge myself to any male-centred movement. I will support just causes where I can, and in ways that make sense to me.

All the manifesto re trans lives means to me is that BLM, like most other social movements, chooses to priorotise men. So it's not a movement I will be pledged to.

I had this mad idea in my head that solidarity could be a one way street. I could find a way to offer it without having it reciprocated. Thankfully feminists here pointed out how much in error that is. Without reciprocation, there is no solidarity.

Anyhow. Aren't all male-centred movements trojan horses in a way, for misogyny? I doubt it's conscious, most of the time. The lovely thing for men about misogyny is that they don't have to think about it.

Not a single man I know wracked himself in guilt this weekend about BLM. It's a mind-fuck meant for women.

People need to ask themselves, who is benefitting from a "movement" like this which has no political program, which doesn't encourage or nurture a collective response.

Black people. BLM is the answer, whatever question you need to ask yourself to get this answer is up to you. Unless you think that Black Lives only matter if... Or you think that your thoughts are the only ones that make a difference.

Yes, that's the level it's at, really. What are you going to do to make change. A little navel gazing.

What's the problem I am supposed to be working on solving? What's the end I'm supposed to be working to achive? racism? That's a result, not a cause. What could I, or any other individual, do to change something that is systemic that is just part of how white people are? What could I possibly do differently in my personal life, share more memes on FB, go out to a protest, "educate" myself?

It's very individualistic. People need to ask themselves, who is benefitting from a "movement" like this which has no political program, which doesn't encourage or nurture a collective response.

It isn't just about politics. It is about you and me. What are you going to do to make change?

It's not about having to conform to something. It's about doing something. If some new, effective form comes out of grass roots engagement that's exactly what is wanted, but that is not what is happening, quite the opposite.

What is the point of a bunch of angry people coming out on the street and raging around if that is all there is to it? What is the point of asking for things that are impossible, or won't help anyone, or can't achieve enough political consensus to become reality? What is it going to do?

Politics is about doing. This is just stuff that makes people feel like they are being political.

Who said that because of lot of people feel angry enough to go out onto the street it is or has to be some sort of political structure - with "leaders".

Isn't demanding they conform to some sort of accepted way of working just a means of displacement? Why not start talking about how white people and the institutions they dominate can change.

Or are you saying white people cant or shouldn't have to do anything because appropriately appointed "leaders" have not created a list of demands which you then might agree to negotiate.

These demos are about rage.

Who and what is it that is making them angry? And are the cause of the anger going to recognise that they are the cause and start talking about how / they we can change.

That's why a I suggested a better thread would be about what change we (those of us who are white) can make?

@Goosefoot I wish there was a like button for your posts. They are eye-opening.

I would agree that a lot of people that go along to a protest have a fairly general desire o be a part of the larger cause, without really getting into the nitty gritty of the political cause or what the leadership is saying.

But the leadership on these things is important, because that is where the form of political change comes from, and it's the leadership that will make the difference between protests like this being a bunch of wind, or fomenting public division, or actually creating concrete change.

The gains of the civil rights movement happened around real conceptualisation of concrete and achievable political goals, based on theory rooted in real causes and problems, and a heck of a lot of building bridges across many different groups of people to find common values and causes.

I don't see that happening here, in really any of the current populist political movements - where it's happening it's the exception rather than the rule. Rather than solidarity they are creating a lot of people sniping at each other, purity politics and call out culture.

When saying the right words seems more important than doing the right things, I think there is a problem.

Dont want to repeat myself but there is no one group that you can say is THE BLM whether US or UK. The two groups quoted are of the same generation of politics and so come up with the same type of analysis.

Having an arguement about them is as pointless as spending hours arguing about the feminism that the Guardian or whoever foists on them.

Most of the protests are spontaneous and quite likely organised with no idea or reference to either of these tow groups claiming they are the owners of BLM's politics.

Many of them are young. They may be expressing themselves in a way they have seen through tv and social media. ie you get on the street and voice your anger. At this stage that is their focus. To demand they come up with some sort of manifesto is just totally missing the point.

And by the way even though some parts of the media and some mainstream media talk what to make it look like they dont care about coronavirus just isn't true. This is selective. Many have said they are making a conscious choice. And some are also saying (they have held signs saying this) please self isolate after demonstrating for 14 days. And I assume those who have thought and said this are also not going to go home to family where someone is shielding.

It reminds me far more of 60s politics. There were no "leaders". There were no manifestos. There were demonstrations (or hippy dippy happenings) they had a common feeling of anger against an unjust system. This or these are demonstrations against the unending reality of racism in the US and the UK, not just the police but in institutions.

And again as spontaneous gatherings it is hardly surprising they didn't liaise with the police. How many people outside of a small minority who are into political organising think this is what you have to do.

So look at the hand made signs (before the SWP or whoever move in and try and take it over) and think about the area where you live.

Politics is never going to change if we demand that it is done in the way we think it should be happening.

Also worth pointing out that the violence and confrontation with the police (in London) is just the same group who always tags along to any demo. Always stays behind long after the time everyone has dispersed so they can go through the ritual or challenging the police. These are the political parisites who want to make some point about the police but aren't honest or committed enough to organise their own demo about the police. Or worse still would organise an event and find out if they worked with the police they could have a demo and not have any aggro. But that isn't what they want. They want the spectacle of confronting the police, and then write long dramatic posts about being kettled. And yes the other key object is to scrawl graffitti.

And the problem is the media loves it. They can get dramatic pictures. Even though they know that these male adolescent antics are just opportunist "politics".

And unfortunately these silly naughtinesses are then used by those who actually oppose the object of the actually protest, to smear the protest. Hard not to think sometimes that these liberation fighters aren't in fact plants from the far right.

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It isn't a Trojan horse, black people are generally fed up of being treated as 2nd class citizens, and so are just happy to include/welcome anyone who will support them

I want so much for this to be true but there are threads running right now on MN that show it just isn't.

but what practical solutions have been proposed? How can we help and how can we as a country change things so they are fairer to all?

There really isn't one. That's what makes it so worth talking about IMO, because it's not just that I don't think CRT is wrong, I think it, and all these protests and analysis and FB memes that are predicated on it, will have no effect. Other than possibly to create more political polarisation.

But there is no real agenda, nothing concrete, even things that look like real suggestions, when you look at them, are not politically possible. Sure, let's defund the police and pay reparations to black decedents of slaves.

I find this quuote from Reed enlightening:

"Clint Smith’s romantic assessment of Take ‘Em Down NOLA’s contribution indicates as much and makes clear, as does everything that Ta-Nehisi Coates has ever written (e.g., Coates 2014, 2016a, b, 2017), that winning anything concrete is not the point. The “politics” that follows from this view centers on pursuit of recognition and representation on groupist terms—both as symbolic depiction in the public realm and as claims to articulate the interests, perspectives, or “voices” of a generic black constituency or some subset thereof, e.g., “youth” or “grassroots.” It is not interested in broadly egalitarian redistribution.

Notwithstanding its performative evocations of the 1960s Black Power populist “militancy,” this antiracist politics is neither leftist in itself nor particularly compatible with a left politics as conventionally understood. At this political juncture, it is, like bourgeois feminism and other groupist tendencies, an oppositional epicycle within hegemonic neoliberalism, one might say a component of neoliberalism’s critical self-consciousness; it is thus in fact fundamentally anti-leftist."

It's not about egalitarianism nor is it about really creating more social justice across the board - it's about (some) being able to claim to represent a group that has some kind of political currency.

I don't feel that way. I start to feel defiant and uncaring of the matter at hand and don't want to engage with it because the moment I get it "wrong" I will slammed and shamed. So I withdraw and observe but do nothing more as it feels pointless. No one learns through being hammered and humiliated do they? Isn't that the first rule of effective education?

I'm a massive people pleaser at first instinct, so maybe that's why we take different paths. But yes indeed, I could see when new people joined those discussions how ineffective the "teaching" method was, and got frustrated that if this was so important, why was no one willing to be gentle with the newbies and explain stuff to them!

I don't feel that way. I start to feel defiant and uncaring of the matter at hand and don't want to engage with it because the moment I get it "wrong" I will slammed and shamed

Dare I say, 'Me Too'

I've become so defiant in recent times, and very rebellious. I hate being told what to think, believe, or see; and so much of what I see in identity politics, and that includes certain strands of feminism begs opposition.And as a result of that oppositional type politics, I'm starting to withdraw more and more. It is so tiring and unhealthy.

There are rules of engagement. The oppressed class has the right to say whatever they want on the matter of their oppression, and is always right over the oppressor, because they have lived experience. The oppression is system-wide not a contained, discrete set of problems in a specific place. The oppressor class feel guilty or defensive. However, they are told not to discuss their feelings: "it's not about you". They are told that silence in an oppressive system is complicity, so they must take action. They must step into the fight, rather than observing and reflecting. Often if they disagree with a point they are impatiently told to "educate themselves", rather than it leading to debate and discussion. This vague instruction may be accompanied by a reading list. Anyone who rejects the rules of engagement is told to educate themselves, or is defined as a racist/ misogynist/ homophobe/ transphobe and rejected from the discussion

Good post!