I don’t know if this is the right place to have this conversation but I can’t help myself. Mods—feel free to kill this.
Disclaimer, I’m not American. I don’t have a dog in this fight one way or another, but I can pattern-match.
People object to “All Lives Matter” because it derails the discussion and implies that it’s somehow unfair to focus, as you said, on “Whichever Lives Are Most Affected By Police Brutality At The Moment”—which in America means black people specifically. It’s the same reason people object when a discussion of sexual violence is cluttered up with comments insisting that everyone recognize “women can commit rape too!” or when a discussion of social discrimination faced by disabled people meets a response like “able-bodied people can be bullied too! I was bullied for being ginger!”. I’ve seen that kind of “what about me” response in a dozen different forms and it’s almost never useful. It’s a cry of not fair along the same lines as “Why can’t we have a Straight Pride Parade?” “Why isn’t there a White History Month?” and so on and so on.
Nobody was tweeting “All Lives Matter” before “Black Lives Matter”. It’s not the slogan of any particular group or movement. It’s a response, and a clear implied criticism. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s inherently racist, I’m not surprised in the least to see that motive attributed to it. If I was American I’d certainly be objecting to it too.
Um, nope it doesn’t. For example, a black person who lives in an affluent, low-crime area and adopts high-status signifiers such as wearing a suit-and-tie is extremely unlikely to be affected by police brutality. This is not to say that being black isn’t highly correlated with being victimized in this way, but the whole point of the previous comment is that correlation is not certainty, and there’s nothing ‘specific’ about it.
This is also why your criticism of the “All Lives Matter!” meme is rather off track—the whole notion that such things can “derail the discussion” is unproven and quite possibly meaningless. In all probability, it’s little more than what we here at Less Wrong would call a cached thought, or even more pointedly a semantic stopsign, or thought-terminating cliché.
I think there’s some miscommunication here regarding the quoted sentence. You used the phrase “Whichever Lives Are Most Affected By Police Brutality At The Moment”. I stated that this group, right now at the moment, is “black Americans”. I wouldn’t have thought you would disagree with that statement given that you said it was acceptable for “Black Lives” to be used as a “convenient shorthand” for WLAMABPBATM, and you’ve just reiterated that being black is highly correlated with being unfairly victimized. Where’s the disagreement here?
As regards “ALM”, the only argument you’ve advanced is that the idea that it can derail discussions may not be meaningful. So say I ceded that, for the sake of argument—though I don’t think you’ve actually demonstrated that it’s a semantic stopsign, etc. What are your responses to my other points? I’ll restate them clearly in case my previous comment was not sufficiently well-structured.
“All lives matter” adds nothing to the discourse.
“All lives matter”, as a response or counter to “Black Lives Matter” (which as far as I’ve seen is all it is), is an implied rebuke carrying a tacit accusation of unfairness.
As “Black Lives Matter” exists as a slogan specifically referring to the higher probability of unfair victimization at the hands of police faced by black people, “All Lives Matter” carries with it an implication that this higher probability is minimal, non-existant or unimportant.
If you can present an alternate explanation of why people say “All Lives Matter” as a response to “Black Lives Matter”, I’m perfectly willing to hear it.
I don’t know if this is the right place to have this conversation but I can’t help myself. Mods—feel free to kill this.
Disclaimer, I’m not American. I don’t have a dog in this fight one way or another, but I can pattern-match.
People object to “All Lives Matter” because it derails the discussion and implies that it’s somehow unfair to focus, as you said, on “Whichever Lives Are Most Affected By Police Brutality At The Moment”—which in America means black people specifically. It’s the same reason people object when a discussion of sexual violence is cluttered up with comments insisting that everyone recognize “women can commit rape too!” or when a discussion of social discrimination faced by disabled people meets a response like “able-bodied people can be bullied too! I was bullied for being ginger!”. I’ve seen that kind of “what about me” response in a dozen different forms and it’s almost never useful. It’s a cry of not fair along the same lines as “Why can’t we have a Straight Pride Parade?” “Why isn’t there a White History Month?” and so on and so on.
Nobody was tweeting “All Lives Matter” before “Black Lives Matter”. It’s not the slogan of any particular group or movement. It’s a response, and a clear implied criticism. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s inherently racist, I’m not surprised in the least to see that motive attributed to it. If I was American I’d certainly be objecting to it too.
Um, nope it doesn’t. For example, a black person who lives in an affluent, low-crime area and adopts high-status signifiers such as wearing a suit-and-tie is extremely unlikely to be affected by police brutality. This is not to say that being black isn’t highly correlated with being victimized in this way, but the whole point of the previous comment is that correlation is not certainty, and there’s nothing ‘specific’ about it.
This is also why your criticism of the “All Lives Matter!” meme is rather off track—the whole notion that such things can “derail the discussion” is unproven and quite possibly meaningless. In all probability, it’s little more than what we here at Less Wrong would call a cached thought, or even more pointedly a semantic stopsign, or thought-terminating cliché.
I think there’s some miscommunication here regarding the quoted sentence. You used the phrase “Whichever Lives Are Most Affected By Police Brutality At The Moment”. I stated that this group, right now at the moment, is “black Americans”. I wouldn’t have thought you would disagree with that statement given that you said it was acceptable for “Black Lives” to be used as a “convenient shorthand” for WLAMABPBATM, and you’ve just reiterated that being black is highly correlated with being unfairly victimized. Where’s the disagreement here?
As regards “ALM”, the only argument you’ve advanced is that the idea that it can derail discussions may not be meaningful. So say I ceded that, for the sake of argument—though I don’t think you’ve actually demonstrated that it’s a semantic stopsign, etc. What are your responses to my other points? I’ll restate them clearly in case my previous comment was not sufficiently well-structured.
“All lives matter” adds nothing to the discourse.
“All lives matter”, as a response or counter to “Black Lives Matter” (which as far as I’ve seen is all it is), is an implied rebuke carrying a tacit accusation of unfairness.
As “Black Lives Matter” exists as a slogan specifically referring to the higher probability of unfair victimization at the hands of police faced by black people, “All Lives Matter” carries with it an implication that this higher probability is minimal, non-existant or unimportant.
If you can present an alternate explanation of why people say “All Lives Matter” as a response to “Black Lives Matter”, I’m perfectly willing to hear it.