#BlackOutTuesday Slacktivism

morkrock (70)in #opinion • 4 years ago

Please Stop Virtue Signalling

I would like to start with a warning, these are my opinions on the current social issues that are happening across the world, and I form those opinions based on rational as well as logical thinking, based on facts and data. If you feel this to be a overtly sensitive topic and you have firming made up your mind as to what you believe, then rather not waste your time in reading my opinion. I always welcome any civil discourse, especially if you have a differing opinion, only through rational discussion can we achieve a better understanding.

Let me begin with Black Lives Matter, I get the meaning behind it, black folks feel like there is a racial inequality, be it economic, historical, but mostly when it comes to violence and violence from the police towards black people. The slogan is a protest message, speaking out against police killings of black people, and issues like racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the criminal justice system.

The first issue that this brings about is with the slogan, the reason is because it's very much paradoxical, especially when the goal of the movement is equality. Which is why you've most likely have seen slogans like All Lives Matter in response, because it's the most basic of logical reasoning, blacklivesmatter default excludes every other race. And that's not equality, even though that is not the intention, but rather to highlight black lives. A far better slogan would probably have been BlackLivesMatterToo. So when the name of the movement and the slogan is illogical, and you need to explain the basics of it, that's a problem.

"If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today." - Thomas Sowell

The other more serious issue with the BLM, is the fundamentals which the movement was built on, the unequal treatment of black people and killing at the hands of American police. The problem is that the data and statistics, across the board does not in any way support this assertion, that black people are killed more by police or experience more police brutality because of their race. Another piece of data that is also important, especially when it comes to incarceration and why there seems to be a racial disparity, is unfortunately due to the fact 13% black population is responsible for 53% of homicide in the US. This then begs the question, where is the actual racism this movement is protesting against? Also another question to consider is, how is there systemic racism today, when these cities, police departments and states are majority black run? Another question to ask is, why are there never Black Lives Matter protests when gang shootings happen and 12 people die or when a black cop shoots someone? BLM protests only happen when there is a white police copr who shoot a black person? These facts illustrate that BLM are mostly focused on a superficial racial inequality, and don't actually seem to be concerned with the overarching black on black violence. At the same time I unequivocal believe America has a serious problem with police and violence, rather than racism.

Which brings me to BlackOutTuesday, the idea was to fill Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with black squares, freeing up the time usually dedicated to social media for people to educate themselves on the Black Lives Matter movement. This after the brutal murder of George Floyd by a white police officer, which then immediately prompted mass protests by BLM calling the police racist, which then turn into riots and looting in Minneapolis. Again, the fact that the white police officer was assisted by a Black and Hispanic officers in holding him down Floyd, while another Asian police office looked on, somehow had no bearing. That's because it moves the narrative away from the incident being an overtly racist one. Ironically, the leaders of BLM came out against the BlackOutTuesday saying it was essentially drowning out the voices of BLM. While everyone jumped onto the slacktivist bandwagon in showing solidarity for the death of Floyd, protests were happening in every city, with most ending up turning into riots and looting. Again not every protester was looting and burning everything down, but what hardly anyone did was call for further violence to stop. I haven't seen any of the black square posting folks speak out against those rioting and damaging the property of their fellow citizens in their own communities.

None of them said anything while the riots continued, businesses vandalized, looted and burnt, and they didn't speak out when the innocent people started dying due to the ongoing violence. Why, because they are too afraid to say anything that might upset someone somewhere or of a different race. If you participant in or justify the looting and violence against the innocent, you are the enemy of liberty.

The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing

"Those who cry out that the government should 'do something' never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing." - Thomas Sowell