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ALL LIVES MATTER
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Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
There is a thread. This thread. It's about ALL LIVES MATTER and whether it's a legitimate thing...if so, how have they been productive toward their goal.
The meme/organization/subculture of conservatives is a counter to BLM using a specific, narrow argument.
"But, but, but BLM is evil" isn't relevant to the question of ALM.
"Riots!" -also not relevant. I agree with the principle that riots ought not be a thing. I also think it's not relevant and there have been other threads on that.
"But Cancel Culture!" - also, not relevant. Frankly, conservatives invented cancel culture by stoning people and continued cancel culture up through Salem and then moms against video games, porn, and rock and roll...right up to the Cancel Culture Warrior in Chief Donald Trump and wingers who cancel people, countries, races, corporations left and right. Think: Bill Clinton, Haiti, Mexicans, Goodyear. The latest cancel culture complaint by the Reich wing is merely just the Reich trying to cancel the Left. Some of the cancellations by the left are wrong, sure....but this is what people do, especially conservatives. Moreover, it's not relevant.
I know it's difficult to stay on topic, but in politics, conservatives also always go on the offense. So, they naturally use this thread as an opportunity to attack BLM rather than answer a rational, revealing question about ALM.
We have to stop falling for these games.
The meme/organization/subculture of conservatives is a counter to BLM using a specific, narrow argument.
"But, but, but BLM is evil" isn't relevant to the question of ALM.
"Riots!" -also not relevant. I agree with the principle that riots ought not be a thing. I also think it's not relevant and there have been other threads on that.
"But Cancel Culture!" - also, not relevant. Frankly, conservatives invented cancel culture by stoning people and continued cancel culture up through Salem and then moms against video games, porn, and rock and roll...right up to the Cancel Culture Warrior in Chief Donald Trump and wingers who cancel people, countries, races, corporations left and right. Think: Bill Clinton, Haiti, Mexicans, Goodyear. The latest cancel culture complaint by the Reich wing is merely just the Reich trying to cancel the Left. Some of the cancellations by the left are wrong, sure....but this is what people do, especially conservatives. Moreover, it's not relevant.
I know it's difficult to stay on topic, but in politics, conservatives also always go on the offense. So, they naturally use this thread as an opportunity to attack BLM rather than answer a rational, revealing question about ALM.
We have to stop falling for these games.
Swammerdami
Squadron Leader
Timothy McVeigh killed hundreds. We don't write "White Americans hurt themselves by blowing up the Federal building." McVeigh did that. We don't write "Americans with German ancestry are destroying the U.S.A." We write that Donald J. Trump is doing that.
It wasn't "Republicans" who killed 9 people in a South Carolina church; it was Dylann Roof. A tiny percentage of Republicans are criminals. A tiny percentage of BLM protestors are criminals. Which tiny percentage is slightly larger? Does it matter?
To blame "BLM", or Blacks more generally, for the actions of a small minority is --C--T.
Harry Bosch
Contributor
Well, I can tell you that our family is no longer going to the protests (the air quality in Oregon is at crisis level anyway). And I know several other families believing the same. The protests are also really hurting local businesses. It's sad, Portland is one of the great liberal cities in the country. Trump has a point that BLM tends to be strongest in the liberal cities (Portland, Seattle, San Francisco), ignoring the right wing cities in the south. But I agree that it's only a tiny percentage of BLM protestors are criminals or bullies.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Have you heard the reports about the professor at the University of Southern California who was apparently suspended for accurately and in context (an online lecture on doing international business, I believe) referring to a commonly-used word in Chinese that merely sounds a bit like a racial slur in English?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news...ended-saying-chinese-word-sounds-english-slur
It does appear that this 'too woke' stuff is actually happening at times, and whether or not it was in the case of the Nursing Dean above, I don't think there's any good reason to automatically think it's implausible.
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That objection doesn't make any sense--you can't simply use other words when the specific topic is filler words!
zorq
Veteran Member
The lesson seems to have been about the usefulness of filler words… not an exhaustive list of filler words to memorize. There are hundreds of languages and dialects in the world. This professor chose to use one of the most common Chinese filler words as an example instead of a different word in Chinese or one of the hundreds of other languages.
That said, I think this is likely a good candidate for "too woke. " I don't want my professors censoring themselves from expressing objective facts.
Do you know what isn't "too woke?" Asking police officers not to murder people in custody. Asking police officers to treat civilians (even suspects) with compassion and respect regardless of their skin color.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Of course, yes.
ruby sparks
Contributor
I think the objections originally came from some black students. I also read that some Chinese students (or some members of the Chinese community at least) are objecting to the objecting, on the basis that it's disrespectful to their language if it can't be used.
This is why, at least to some extent, I agree with you and others who say that there is a divisive aspect to this sort of identity politics. Unfortunately I think some overstate and simplify a bit too much, and also tend not to take all relevant factors and causes into account. But to me it's clear there's a divisive aspect.
Anyhows, I only wanted to briefly mention the Chinese word controversy to make a general point that is related to the Nursing Dean controversy in rely to Arctish's post. I think sometimes, people are being censored unreasonably, and sometimes, that is the actual, controversial story.
prideandfall
Veteran Member
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2014.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/blogger-fired-homophones_n_5637873
here's a good reason to think it's implausible:
this shit has been going on since literally 1620, the entirety of the time since a bunch of uptight white assholes who were too prudish for fucking 1600s Britain showed up here and started a pearl clutching circle jerk that continued unabated for the last 400 years.
hell from the mid 80s until at least 1995 they regularly had fucking senate hearings about whether or not rock music was hypnotizing children into worshipping satan, white people lost their god damn minds when rap started becoming popular.
to be entirely honest, just crying about it online and the odd person here and there being fired over saying something is kind of a step up from that.
Harry Bosch
Contributor
Just like there is only a small minority of bad BLM protestors causing problems, there is only a small percentage of bad police officers causing problems.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
I think it's a little different.
- There are a small percent of police officers murdering people unnecessarily.
- There is cover from some slightly larger percent of police officers.
- ...and judges.
- ...and prosecutors.
- ...and citizens.
- ...and there are systemic issues minorities and poor people face in the country, including in the criminal justice system.
Harry Bosch
Contributor
Yea, I don't need to be lectured on this. I'm a minority. I grew up on a reservation that had 85% unemployment. I know all about the issues that poor people face in this country. Want to make it worse? Defund the police.
Regardless. The vast majority of police are good and are trying hard to do the right thing. To say ask police officers "not to murder people in custody" is to insinuate that all police officers are murders. This puts good officers at risk from crazies.
Elixir
Made in America
You know what else does that? Of course you do - Crazy racist cops.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
Contributor
I am not lecturing you. I am stating a rational position, a caveat really, to what you posted. The caveat is that these things are kind of apples and oranges. Yeah, it's a point that humans are imperfect and you can find bad apples everywhere, but that isn't the point of activism...it's about the systemic problems and how to fix them.
I know.
I was not aware of this specific fact.
I think it depends on what defund the police means. If it means to remove some of the things they do to some other entity and move the corresponding funding that goes along with those responsibilities, then it makes sense some of the time to defund the police coffers. I don't expect these words to be popular...and also not a good slogan for an election year. I wonder if somehow the Russians triggered the slogan. BUT I will say again, removing certain tasks and certain funding from police so in order to reduce unnecessary deaths makes sense in instances where the police do not have specialty and showing up with a gun is an unnecessary risk.
Since we're on the topic, I will add some things here. In most towns, there is a preference to hire ex-military personnel in the police force and the police are quite right-wing and simply not willing to change or be told they are wrong. Saying that there needs to be a cultural shift and scaring them about funding into changing would be a rational thing if we didn't have to worry about getting Trump reelected.
I think this is too much of a vague statement. Even a police officer who frequently lies and provides cover to his fellow police officers might be considered "good" and "trying hard to do the right thing." I mean, you could even say the same thing about the soldiers at Abu Ghraib who tortured Iraqis, at least some of them.
I don't think there is a logical implication. I think the inference would be that some of them do so and some of them cover for those who do. If police are not willing to change their procedures, change what they do, who they hire, and their culture, then should be scared into it.
To be completely open, it's how many right-wingers think. They often are not willing to listen to reason or to the law. It sometimes comes to showing you are the alpha. In this case, police report to the public. The public is the alpha.
Jason Harvestdancer
Contributor
Never been a fan of cops, but that's pretty low. Chanting that they hope for death, blocking the emergency entrance of the hospital. Low.
Harry Bosch
Contributor
Don: I do listen to reason. I have provided many concrete reasons why I think that the defunding the police won't work. Number one, as you noted above, defunding the police has not been well defined. The best that I can tell is that some wish to cut police in areas that they aren't needed. For example: responding to domestic threats. And then the plan is to replace this with psychologists trained to calm down situations. If I'm straw manning, please let me know. I do not think that this approach will work. For one: psychologists are far more expensive than police. Their salary would need to be double than the average officer. There is a great shortage of psychologists now. Thirdly, what happens when a situation can't be diffused? What happens if a bad guy needs to be taken down? Finally, let's be honest here, if you are a psychologist: would you rather treat patients in your comfy office at $100 an hour guarantied, or go out on potentially dangerous calls?
I do have very serious ideas of how to increase officer accountability: far far better training, far better recruiting, increase their pay, hire more, better identification of threat levels, body cams, more civilian oversight, more cooperation, better non-lethal take down technology, and etc. I can be very specific on ideas of how to lower incidents.
Regarding your point above about the hiring of ex-military: I agree that we need a long term culture change in most departments. But let's face the facts, ex-military people come cheap. They are abundant.
Harry Bosch
Contributor
Yea, that was bad. But just like not all police are bad; not all BLM protestors are bad.
And he knows the filler words of a whole bunch of languages??
Besides, I think there's some actual merit to using this example--it provides a good illustration of the fact that just because you hear something in another language that sounds offensive doesn't mean it is.