Talk:Black Lives Matter
FYI: As a liberal, I want to give some input into "Defunding the Police". It does not mean what it sounds like it means. It means freeing up the police to focus on violent crimes, breaking up bar fights or riots involving property damage and/or injuries, making arrests, and issuing traffic tickets, and move SOME of the funding into social services, who would handle things like that homeless guy loitering on the corner, the crazy guy wandering down the street in his birthday suit while painted blue (who needs to be admitted to psych facility ASAP), and maybe stage interventions for sex workers, who may be underage or the victims of sex trafficking. Maybe also take the drug users to court and ORDER them to go to rehab. Also, things like drunk/stoned holding isolation rooms probably should be at rehab facilities rather than jails, especially as needed to monitor medical conditions. Also, for some instances, such as handling sex workers and domestic disputes, or enforcing rental evictions, a police officer should likely be accompanied by a social worker unless working undercover. A police officer also generally should not double as a security guard.
Alternately, the funds should be mandated to go into mandatory police cadet training, and never allowed to be used for any other purpose. Too many current officers out there have not been properly trained and have not taken any diversity training, negotiation skills training, nor de-escalation training. They should also regularly undergo ethics testing. If police are used as glorified security guards, they MUST be trained on these things, particularly because they carry firearms.
In my opinion, this article promotes the conservative opinion over the liberal opinion. As a result, this article seems too serious to me. Besides, according to Poe's Law, parodying an extremist generally tends to fall flat since you end up sounding like just another extremist. I have actually seen some extreme right-wing conservatives actually pushing the exact same POV that the article uses. -- Simsilikesims(♀UN) Talk here. 19:26, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
- I think the point is that it's parodying the most extreme issue in the world, the Floyd murder, by being so un-extreme. Leverage did the same thing when he wrote about ISIS which was genius. Maybe the defunding section is a bit too dry, I'm not sure. ~ Kakun · talk 06:13, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
- I think a defunding could be a good addition if it's funny and not pushing an agenda. If this article appears to promote a conservative opinion, well, the subject is a liberal movement (and yes, a very important one). By definition, a liberal article here will most likely slant conservative and vice versa. But in my opinion, this article takes the conservative side with an almost Colbert-like spin. I think this article does a great job mocking both sides of the issue. So again, adding a defunding the police section is probably a good idea. MrX blow me
19:44, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
- I think a defunding could be a good addition if it's funny and not pushing an agenda. If this article appears to promote a conservative opinion, well, the subject is a liberal movement (and yes, a very important one). By definition, a liberal article here will most likely slant conservative and vice versa. But in my opinion, this article takes the conservative side with an almost Colbert-like spin. I think this article does a great job mocking both sides of the issue. So again, adding a defunding the police section is probably a good idea. MrX blow me
Hi Sims, My intention here was not to reinforce the Conservative distortion over the term at all. Here's the para:
One major BLM proposal was to reallocate funds from policing to often-neglected areas such as education, public health, housing, and youth services. It was dubbed "defunding the police". This term, which suggested the police budget would be reduced to roughly $0, was readily seized upon by Fox News and other conservative news sources, who wilfully extended this misconception of "defunding" for the purpose of getting their viewers all riled up. Which is how they like it.
The first sentence explains what BLM actually propose, and almost mirrors exactly what you say. The third sentence deals with the misleading nature of the name, and how Fox News turned that to its advantage. I am not taking Fox's side at all, but the name obviously gave them that chance where "Reallocating police funds" would not.
For the record, I would not describe myself as a conservative at all, but I have realized I am more a socialist than a liberal. I think the changes that are needed are systemic and long-term and therefore quite complex and unsexy. I am not really for or against BLM. I think I read on the Guardian that criitcising the movement was senseless because it is decentralized and has no clear leadership or agenda. I therefore think supporting it must be equally meaningless. I think the corporate response that I mention at the end of the article is just lame and self-serving: money men worried about losing money. I do believe, however, that smashing things up sometimes gets things done, especially for the disenfranchised.
Elsewhere, I really don't like how modern liberals, especially online, seem to want to shut down debate, and I wanted to address that. I see how it pushes people around me to the alternative. I am a big fan of attacking the center and nudging people towards change, not telling them they are stupid or wrong. I saw a meme the other day which said "Metoo is not anti men, blm is not anti black and pride is not anti straight - it's not about you!" but I think the first two are, and should be, about everyone. If we want systemic change we need as much of society to come with us as possible.
I really enjoyed Bret Weinstein's black intellectual roundtable which I stumbled upon, because it allows for a bunch of opinions to be expressed. I am to the left of some and the right of others. Weinstein's intro, and much of his opinions at the end, are worth skipping.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHGt733yw3g
Leverage (talk) 11:22, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Kakun, it was really nice to read your nice words about ISIS. I was trying to explain this article to my brother, and compared it to Benito Mussolini, I'd forgotten about ISIS, although it's probably more randomballz. One thing I like about Uncyclopedia, the Onion, the Daily Mash, etc, is when you learn something real from an ostensibly stupid source. That's what I tried to do here, a kind of potted history with a bit of commentary, and attempts to take potshots at both sides of the argument. Leverage (talk) 13:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
George Floyd died of a drug overdose[edit source]
Fentanyl is a hell of a drug. --120.158.135.5 (talk) 02:28, 2 April 2021 (UTC)