General News Black Lives Matter is hurting their cause

Here is the thing:

Civilian organized movements are not headed by politicians and public figures. They are carried out by civilians. Respectability politics is always brought up on the subject of civil unrest on social issues.

"Martin Luther King put on a suit and sat down with the president to aid the Civil Rights Movement."

When King was in fact a public figure and had the influence to pressure politicians into sitting down with him, which still did not stop him from being arrested on multiple occasions and being silenced during said sit downs. Figures such as King preferred diplomacy, but was equally pro-civil disobedience as shown in a notable quote that few people like to acknowledge. “I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard."

This mindset of viewing situations such as this and focusing our attention on the ways that marginalized groups are reacting to their marginalization is the epitome of backwards thinking. The populous is upset. People are emotional. That is what happen when you have civil unrest. The average civilian does not have the means to react to injustice by putting own their good suits, lowering their voices, and patiently waiting for the members of their government to decided that they are worthy of listening to.

This does not mean that all is acceptable in social activism. Naturally, there will be instances when certain individuals or groups overstep the line. This means that rather than spending our time offering our opinion on how members of marginalized groups could better live up to our individual ideals of what is respectable when spend our time speaking on how individuals in power could solve the issues that ultimately served as the catalyst behind all of this. Because there has never been a social movement in history in which all members of the minority group reacted to injustice in ways that the present majority approved of. Not a single one.

 

Two false/lazy/misguided/extreme activists do not represent an entire movement. Why don't we focus on the actions of PEOPLE instead of painting an entire organization with the same brush? Fake activists are the problem, not #BlackLivesMatter.

 

Honestly, I've been observing the fallout from this event, and I've bitten my tongue. However, to me the response to the disruption reveals more than the disruption itself. It reveals what has always been true: Liberals are happy to mouth platitudes to minorities while making promises, but when minorities show up to cash in on those promises they are denounced.

I've watched as scores of liberals denounce BlackLivesMatter, simply because they've targeted their candidate. "Wait! You can't do that! Bernie is a liberal! He's the most sympathetic candidate to BLM in the race! He loves Black People and Civil Rights because he is a liberal! He marched with Dr. King and attended the March on Washington! Did I mention that he attended the March on Washington!?"

As if any of that does not make Bernie fair game. Here are the facts. Bernie represents the state of Vermont. This is a state that is overwhelmingly white. Bernie is not interested in civil rights issues, what motivates him, and the reason he is running is all about economic issues. However, the economic issues that motivates him are primarily issues that face white middle and lower class Americans. Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't overlap and it doesn't benefit African Americans as well. It does. However, it is not addressing the issues directly.

You can discuss poverty all you want, but unless you're willing to talk about race specifically, you'll never solve the problem of black poverty. You can talk about unfair distributions of wealth and workers rights until you're blue in the face, but that isn't going to solve the fact that a town or a school district is segregated. It isn't going to solve all of the specific poverty issues that surround African American families, because to address those issues you have to talk about race specifically.

It's like saying you want to address homeless youth, but refusing to mention that Queer youth make up roughly half or more of all homeless youth. There are specific reasons that they become homeless, and there are specific problems that they face when homeless. If you don't address those issues, and you do something stupid like give funds to religious charities that help the homeless you are setting up a situation where Queer homeless youth are going to be denied access to services. Queer homeless youth--particularly homeless trans* youth--face a lot of harassment from religious charities who have an agenda, assuming they aren't denied support outright.

Bernie has repeatedly, again and again, avoided talking about race in specific and direct ways. Liberals believe that because they are liberal that somehow it means they should be beyond reproach, or shouldn't be held accountable. They are wrong. This whole incident has revealed just how tepid the support for BlackLivesMatters is among many liberals.

This is why I have long ago labeled such individuals Bourgeoisie Liberals. These individuals are frequently middle and upper class, and are insulated to varying degrees from the injustices that they are opposed to. While they are morally opposed to varying injustices, they are also committed to maintaining the status quo through their love of social stability. They abhor radical change, and are more comfortable with gradual shifts over time--provided they are not disruptive to their comfort. If they or their position in society feels threatened in anyway by the changes they seek, they will oppose them. For them, being a liberal is about a feeling of moral superiority and righteousness. They would rather lose and allow the status quo be maintained than risk losing their ethical hymen to do the things necessary to achieve victory.

Unfortunately, we have a lot of bourgeoisie liberals out there.

Are there reasons to criticize BLM? Yes. They are too loosely organized, and do not have clear goals. They capitalize on rage, anger, and frustration, but fail to direct it toward specific ends therefore they miss lots of opportunities. Because they are loosely organized, there is no clear direction, plan, or leadership. All of this ultimately means that once the media gets tired of covering police abuse of African Americans, that BLM will lose momentum and die off just like the Occupy movement. The black relaxers like Al Sharpton will regain some semblance of control over the movement, and African Americans will return to the status quo pre-BLM. A few die hard activists will remain, but the movement as a whole will fizzle out.

That is my unfortunate prediction. It is not the activists that are driving the movement, it is the media coverage. Once the media coverage stops, the momentum dies. Without clear organizational control and leadership, the momentum becomes difficult to regain. However, as long as they continue the campaign of disruption, they will at least remain in the news because it is interesting to the media.

However, a successful movement should be measured not in any of these things, but in what it can actually accomplish. Without a very clear agenda it is difficult to measure the "success" of a movement. For example, we can measure the success of the marriage equality movement, because it was about one thing: marriage equality. It was successful in achieving it's goal. It was primarily organized by Freedom to Marry, which was led by Evan Wolfson. Evan formed the secret Marriage Research Consortium, which linked together multiple marriage advocacy groups (at least eight), pooled resources (rather than competing against one another for them), and held monthly teleconference meetings to share polling data, insights, and ideas in real time. They coordinated their strategies and tactics. They were united by the shared agenda: get marriage equality in the United States. They even secretly helped with the campaign for marriage equality in Ireland.

I am a major supporter of disruption. I love it as a tactic. However, it is a tactic, not a strategy. Unless you know exactly what you want and have a specific goal in mind, you cannot create a strategy. To have this, you must have leadership.

Of course, there has been virtually no legitimate criticism from the bourgeoisie liberals. There has only been nonsense like this garbage from the Ring of Fire:

Of course, they have removed this hysterical piece of trash from their website. However, this was more-or-less the feeling and response from the bourgeoisie liberals. I believe it has less to do with the fact they disrupted Bernie Sanders, than the fact that they are outraged that their commitment to racial equality has been questioned. After all, one of the primary traits of a bourgeoisie liberal is the enjoyment of feeling morally superior. If you're a minority group and you're questioning their commitment to the cause, then it sort of knocks them off their imaginary white horse.