Is BLM a trojan horse?

[Thingybob]

Am I the only one feeling uneasy about the BLM movement?

We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise)

blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

I suppose also I'd say - and sorry to drop into the ongoing convo re poverty like I haven't read it - I am reading along! is that I don't support movements which require linguistic debasement of the person.

Because let's all be honest; it's not men who will be debasing themselves. They are not socialised to do so. And by debasement, I suppose I mean accepting that by virtue of race, one group of women falls into the category of repentant sinner, who must do penance. On your knees, ladies!

No, thank you, BLM. Black lives do matter, but I shall go about doing my best on that issue without conforming to current pressures to conform in text and spoken word to a female-directed debasement of the self.

I used to be a teacher, and my last school was a very high achieving grammar school ( The Liverpool Bluecoat One year it was the highest achieving state school in Britain)

I left teaching 10 years ago, but even then the school had a high proportion of Arabic, Asian & Chinese pupils - relative to the population, but not many black pupils at all. Cultural issues and expectations are certainly at play.

I've been working in a school in an impoverished area, with a lot of black families that have been in this area for about 300 years, and also now quite a lot of newcomers from Syria. They are all bright little kids, but we ran a big literacy event in April, and it was chock full of the new families. They interacted with their kids in an interesting way too, quite differently than I would expect from a western family generally. They were all two parent families too, which was often not the case with the Canadian families of any race.

I had a really strong feeling that those families would not be living in that community in a generation, even though they had significant struggles with language and therefore employment.

Media, a while back now but I was involved in setting up a scheme to provide literacy teaching to both children and parents. There were some major concerns, including newly arrived Romanians whose kids were struggling, and one or two other specific groups. It seemed to work better than working with the kids alone. The kids were motivated by their parents efforts, and the parents were more supportive once they better understood the school environment.

Yes, that's what happens in the school I volunteer in.

Actually, it's a mix of tuition for the kids, and then working with families. It's great! I love literacy; it's such a wonderful tool for opportunity.

Even if everyone in that family had kids at 16, the great grandparent turned 16 in 1965 for a 2015 school leaver.

A grandparent of 33 if both the grandparent and parent were pregnant at 16 has a grandchild of one year old.

One year olds do not attend school to underachieve and they are not unemployed. The sixteen year old mother should still be in education as they are still a child and so are also not unemployed.

This three generations of unemployment has been doing the rounds for twenty years and it has never been borne out by any research because such families haven’t been found.

People can dip in and out of employment during that time. It's probably more accurate to talk about three generations of insecure, low paid and inconsistent employment, which absolutely exists.

The sixteen year old mother should still be in education as they are still a child and so are also not unemployed

I'm not sure in which country you live, but in Britain 16 is the school leaving age, and some girls have children before even that..and their mother helps look after the child.

I live in the U.K. and all children must remain in some form of education until 18. The law changed quite recently.

Okay, so a grandmother of 33, a mother of 14 and a child of 5. And the issue with that is that the 5 year old and 14 year old are unemployed?

In my experience laws about school leaving ages don't necessarily reflect when teenagers feel they have finished their education. And they don't seem to affect fertility, either.

I'm not understanding what you are talking about Stripesgalore what is the date you are trying to fit these generations into?

In my bit of inner London unemployment is around the National average, but long term (ten years or more) is unusually high.

There are odd patterns. For example there is a community of West Africans with low literacy, and indeed with even lower female literacy and poor employment rates. At the same time middle class Nigerian kids do exceptionally well. Generally it is hard to inject aspiration into a community if it does not already exist. Or if the potential rewards, like good jobs, simply are not there.

Or if the school system doesn't support you, but instead punishes you for your life circumstances. But that's so far off topic that I won't follow that line of thought.

This three generations of unemployment has been doing the rounds for twenty years and it has never been borne out by any research because such families haven’t been found

What is it that you actually struggling with here? Poverty and the cultures of poverty are inter-generational.

Culture is the most important factor, I think. I had my first child at 19, and was a single parent from almost the start; but what I did benefit from was a good education and the expectation and aspiration that brings with it.

I was politically active from age 16.....and left home in order to pursue that ( at 16)...abandoning formal education in order to do so...I then became involved in various 'movements' and scenes.....I had to go back and complete my previously abandoned formal education when my daughter was very young.

In my poor neighbourhood I would see women of my own age in a similar economic/practical situation, but they would make very different choices - which were cultural - and thus embedded, and largely unquestioned.

It isn’t about teenagers think though, is it?

It is about the original statement that three generational employment is the cause of underachievement in school.

Any reasonable person must be talking about the unemployment of adults in that situation.

Nobody with a one year old or an eight year old says, oh we live in a one generational unemployment family because little Josh and Jane have never worked a day in their life.

A three generational unemployed family must refer to adult parents, grandparents and great grandparents, not children themselves.

Yeah, let's go round and round on this one tiny point.

Multi-generational poverty exists, within that group exist families of colour and white families, what does this have to do with BLM? and whether or not the movement is inadvertently (or deliberately?) anti-woman?

It is about the original statement that three generational employment is the cause of underachievement in school

it is about culture and practice.....and the lifestyle this leads to. Whether or not you have a P/T low paid job as a cleaner or selling stuff at your local street market, interspersed with periods of total unemployment and complete dependence on benefits is neither here nor there. Young single parenthood is also a big factor.

Probably more accurate to say three generations dependent on benefits eg. Grandparent in 50s on invalidity benefit, parent on jobseekers or lone parent working under 16 hours on working tax credits, school leaver NEET signing on. Wouldnt be unusual in the nearest town to me, the grandparents would be about my age and I left school in '86.
@NonnyMouse1337's video covers addresses socio economic factors, i enjoyed it, the participants were so relaxed and articulate, no telling anyone to shut up!

Will clarify Goosefoot.

Let’s say the research was published on three generational unemployment, and this teacher read it, and then told the poster about it.

It is realistic to say the research was conducted in 2015.

So that is school results of a cohort of 16 year olds in 2015.

If we are then saying this child’s parents has them at 16, the parents were born in 1983.

If the grandparents had the parents at 16, the grandparents were born in 1967.

If the great grandparents had the grandparents at 16, the great grandparents were born in 1951.

And that is the latest possible date if everyone in these three generations is an adult. Otherwise we are discussing school age children as the unemployed.

Counting a 33 year old, a teenager and a baby as three unemployed generations is just silly.

If you say so. But are you talking semantics or culture. There are certainly kids born into families with no culture of regular employment. And teachers know from experience to look out for them. And yes mums in their teens are not uncommon. And very hard for them to then to catch up on education and find regular employment.

‘Multi-generational poverty exists, within that group exist families of colour and white families, what does this have to do with BLM? and whether or not the movement is inadvertently (or deliberately?) anti-woman?’

Because multi generational poverty is a really serious issue about working conditions and employment law and the horrendous health, housing and life outcomes it creates for working class people, whereas three generational unemployment is a complete fabrication designed to spread myths of a feral and feckless underclass.

‘If you say so.’

I do. There is something seriously wrong with referring to a baby from a poor family as unemployed.

‘But are you talking semantics or culture.’

Neither. It is basic addition.

‘ There are certainly kids born into families with no culture of regular employment. And teachers know from experience to look out for them. And yes mums in their teens are not uncommon. And very hard for them to then to catch up on education and find regular employment.’

None of which anybody has disputed and isn’t the point you made.

If the great grandparents had the grandparents at 16, the great grandparents were born in 1951

That means grandparents were starting their working life as we entered the 1970s - hardly a period of prosperity.

In my poor neighbourhood I would see women of my own age in a similar economic/practical situation, but they would make very different choices - which were cultural - and thus embedded, and largely unquestioned.

Another aspect is how small, geographically, many people’s worlds are. It is not uncommon for people to simply not travel any distance - and by that I mean a couple of miles. A friend lived in a very deprived neighbourhood and took a bus half and hour into the city for work; an act most of those living in her neighbourhood simply wouldn’t consider. I have heard similar stories from teachers working in deprived communities in different parts of the country.

Myth goes back to at least 2012:

‘ The Joseph Rowntree Foundation set out to identify and investigate 20 such "never-worked" families in deprived Glasgow and Teesside, but it found not a single one.‘

Link here:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/02/workless-families-convenient-truth-editorial