Black Lives Matter get police float kicked out of Pride Parade

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Come on Cliff, everything from race riots to sit-ins were as key to the civil rights movement as Dr. King's speeches, and those were about as clear-cut examples of identity-based civil disobedience as there's ever been. Do you truly believe that Stonewall wasn't a monumental moment in the gay rights movement? You can't sit there and talk about anti-obscenity laws, but ignore anti-sodomy laws, which were 100% used to target gay people.

You need to go back and hit the history books.

* In 1957, the Little Rock Nine peacefully defied the segregated school district in Arkansas, and federal troops were brought in to protect them.

* In 1963 MLK marched on Washington and gave his I Have a Dream speech, In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

* The Civil Rights Act was passed into law 1964. Late that year Lyndon Johnson, who ushered the bill through congress, won the presidential election by one of the biggest landslides in American history.

* When southern states ignored it, MLK and his movement planned a peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery in the face of dogs, truncheons, and tear gas.

* In 1965-66, Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act, and the host of anti-poverty programs that made up the Great Society.

* 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panthers.

* In 1967, race riots erupted in 157 cities across the U.S.

* In 1968, Richard Nixon won a landslide election victory over long-time Civil Rights advocate Hubert Humphrey.

The genuine gains of the Civil Rights era came about because of the peaceful protests of MLK and others like him. The radical race-war politics of the Panthers, Angela Davis, and their fellow-travellers achieved nothing except a public backlash against their agenda.

Originally Posted by rubecube

You can't sit there and talk about anti-obscenity laws, but ignore anti-sodomy laws, which were 100% used to target gay people.

Of course they were. But they weren't struck down because most people were brought on-side about homosexuality. They were struck down because they impinged on the rights of individuals to do as they pleased, even if it's unpopular and other people don't like it. That's a cornerstone of liberalism. And it has nothing to do with group rights.

Originally Posted by rubecube

I think my main issue with Cliff's ideology here is that white liberalism has never been naturally inclusive to all. Maybe in theory it was (even that's debatable going back to Locke, etc.), but it never has been in practice. Marginalized groups have always had to force their way into the discussion, and civil disobedience has generally been the best avenue to do so. Telling marginalized groups how they should try to get involved in the conversation may not be explicitly racist, homophobic, etc., but it can often unintentionally have the elements of the dominant/privileged class attempting to dictate terms to the oppressed/underprivileged class.

The point isn't that Western liberalism is perfect. Our grandparents and their grandparents had their own ugly biases rooted in fear, ignorance, and tribalism. But it's no coincidence that the societies where we have made the most progress towards ideals of tolerance and inclusiveness have a Western cultural heritage. Marginalised groups and others with unpopular opinions have not had an easy road. But they've found a way in those societies that are children of the Enlightenment, because in that mix of Christian ethos, individual liberty, and scientific rationalism, there was a path to be found. In other, illiberal societies, protesters and reformers have no philosophical or moral protection, and have been relentlessly beaten into silence.

And that's what I find so woeful about the modern progressives - they seem incapable of acknowledging progress, and uninterested in the question of why progress towards liberality and tolerance happened here, in the West, and not in China, or Egypt, or Brazil. But that's what ideologues do - they're so intent on letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, that they cut off their noses to spite their faces.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

I would argue that Pride being "cool" with capitalists and politicians is a good thing. If associating yourself with the Pride brand is mainstream enough that you are better off supporting it than not, that means we've turned a huge corner.

Many politicians use Pride to self-promote and prove that they are supportive of the LGBTQ community. I'd argue that politicians shouldn't have to use Pride to show how supportive they are - they should be doing it every day in the Legislature and Parliament in terms of the bills that they are passing. Often, politicians who have a not so stellar track record on LGBTQ issues show up and think that, by marching in a parade, people will forget the terrible bills that they have voted for.

[ben voyonsdonc]

When it comes to corporate sponsorship, I'm ok with it as long as the need for corporate sponsorship doesn't impact the decisions of the organizers. I don't want organizers to make decisions based on the question "will this make the parade less appealing to our sponsors or future sponsors?"

[OffsideSpecialist]

The Pride parade would have been about an hour shorter if they didn't have the Police floats. Seems every town within an hour of the city sent their Police.

[iggy_oi]

Would it not be better to have a group called All Lives Matter? I hate to open up this can of worms because I hate to critique any social movement striving for equality, but I've always felt as though some groups lose support for their movement due to the fact that their name can be interpreted as divisive.

Maybe "Can't All Lives Matter?" would be an even better choice, the acronym CALM even has a nice ring to it

Just my 2 cents

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Are people not aware that Pride was basically sabotaged years ago by capitalism and opportunistic politicians? There's been a massive backlash going on in the gay community for quite a few years against the Pride movement.

Yes, the parade in Vancouver now has hydro and transit floats, it might as well be the PNE parade for all the relevance it has to gay Vancouver, mind you the gay scene in general here appears as dull as ditchwater compared to the eighties.

[taco.vidal]

All people arent getting killed by the police.

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Would it not be better to have a group called All Lives Matter? I hate to open up this can of worms because I hate to critique any social movement striving for equality, but I've always felt as though some groups lose support for their movement due to the fact that their name can be interpreted as divisive.

Maybe "Can't All Lives Matter?" would be an even better choice, the acronym CALM even has a nice ring to it

Just my 2 cents

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Would it not be better to have a group called All Lives Matter? I hate to open up this can of worms because I hate to critique any social movement striving for equality, but I've always felt as though some groups lose support for their movement due to the fact that their name can be interpreted as divisive.

Maybe "Can't All Lives Matter?" would be an even better choice, the acronym CALM even has a nice ring to it

Just my 2 cents

I think the biggest problem for this is that such a group would have much less focus and therefore be less effective in reducing the particular form of police violence BLM was created to protest. Black Lives Matter focuses on police violence done to black people due to racism and classism which in the United States is something that specifically needed more attention.

I can't say I'm convinced the group of people that go by BLM are being very productive in their aims,but I think that BLM is in principle a useful name for a group that focuses on this particularly egregious form of police violence in the United States while still leaving room for a group that that focuses on police brutality more broadly.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by taco.vidal

All people arent getting killed by the police at the same rate in the USA.

fixed your false statement

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by taco.vidal

All people arent getting killed by the police.

Obviously the solution is not to have an equal amount of people of other races killed as well as a means of creating equality so maybe if we all focus on making sure nobody is treated below an acceptable standard this problem goes away. People of many races get killed by cops/military/government all over the world, focusing on a symptom of the problem(people being discriminated against) doesn't fix the problem, hate.

Say we go ten years without a cop killing a black person(it would be fantastic if no one ever got killed by a cop) does that mean we've eliminated the real problem? No, the hatred will be redirected in other ways, this problem is systemic and the solution involves every human essentially evolving from what has been passed on all these generations. Otherwise the cycle just continues in different forms.

[Leeman4Gilmour]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

fixed your false statement

It's just disproportionate to population (not sure if the data has changed much in the last 4 years one way or the other).

Anyway, I won't be as eloquent as most of the conversation within this thread but BLM accepted an invitation, then took advantage of the media coverage which comes with a Pride Parade and distracted from the intent and good will of this event. Regardless of their good cause, it came across as rather tasteless.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Leeman4Gilmour

It's just disproportionate to population (not sure if the data has changed much in the last 4 years one way or the other).

Anyway, I won't be as eloquent as most of the conversation within this thread but BLM accepted an invitation, then took advantage of the media coverage which comes with a Pride Parade and distracted from the intent and good will of this event. Regardless of their good cause, it came across as rather tasteless.

The key part was "in the States".

Canada does not have a problem with black people.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Leeman4Gilmour

It's just disproportionate to population (not sure if the data has changed much in the last 4 years one way or the other).

Anyway, I won't be as eloquent as most of the conversation within this thread but BLM accepted an invitation, then took advantage of the media coverage which comes with a Pride Parade and distracted from the intent and good will of this event. Regardless of their good cause, it came across as rather tasteless.

Very interesting to see that hispanics are less likely to be killled than white people as function of population. From the data, I've seen hispanics are more likely to commit crimes, but a large proportion of those crimes involve immigration or smuggling offences.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

You need to go back and hit the history books.

* In 1957, the Little Rock Nine peacefully defied the segregated school district in Arkansas, and federal troops were brought in to protect them.

* In 1963 MLK marched on Washington and gave his I Have a Dream speech, In 1964, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

* The Civil Rights Act was passed into law 1964. Late that year Lyndon Johnson, who ushered the bill through congress, won the presidential election by one of the biggest landslides in American history.

* When southern states ignored it, MLK and his movement planned a peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery in the face of dogs, truncheons, and tear gas.

* In 1965-66, Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act, and the host of anti-poverty programs that made up the Great Society.

* 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panthers.

* In 1967, race riots erupted in 157 cities across the U.S.

* In 1968, Richard Nixon won a landslide election victory over long-time Civil Rights advocate Hubert Humphrey.

The genuine gains of the Civil Rights era came about because of the peaceful protests of MLK and others like him. The radical race-war politics of the Panthers, Angela Davis, and their fellow-travellers achieved nothing except a public backlash against their agenda.

Okay but you've completely ignored my examples of non-violent forms of civil disobedience, which have much more in common with the tactics of BLM than the Black Panthers do.

Of course they were. But they weren't struck down because most people were brought on-side about homosexuality. They were struck down because they impinged on the rights of individuals to do as they pleased, even if it's unpopular and other people don't like it. That's a cornerstone of liberalism. And it has nothing to do with group rights.

But the issue primarily affected gays and gays as a group brought the issue to the forefront of political discourse, and part of that process was events such as Stonewall. The issue affected gays as a group. They were being discriminated against based on their sexual identity. That is the point of identity politics, to note the discrimination against groups of people based on their racial, sexual, gender, identities. I don't get you find it problematic to identify issues that affect one group of people substantially more than others. Is that not the intellectually honest approach?

The point isn't that Western liberalism is perfect. Our grandparents and their grandparents had their own ugly biases rooted in fear, ignorance, and tribalism. But it's no coincidence that the societies where we have made the most progress towards ideals of tolerance and inclusiveness have a Western cultural heritage. Marginalised groups and others with unpopular opinions have not had an easy road. But they've found a way in those societies that are children of the Enlightenment, because in that mix of Christian ethos, individual liberty, and scientific rationalism, there was a path to be found. In other, illiberal societies, protesters and reformers have no philosophical or moral protection, and have been relentlessly beaten into silence.

And they had to force their way through means that may or may not fit-in with the liberal tradition, including forms of civil disobedience. I would maybe conceded that liberalism perhaps fostered an environment where these tactics could be successful, but the movements would not have had the success they did if they had strictly adhered to liberal principles.

And that's what I find so woeful about the modern progressives - they seem incapable of acknowledging progress, and uninterested in the question of why progress towards liberality and tolerance happened here, in the West, and not in China, or Egypt, or Brazil. But that's what ideologues do - they're so intent on letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, that they cut off their noses to spite their faces.

Actually it's more about not resting on your laurels and I think that's what moderates like yourself are failing to understand. There are still issues that primarily affect certain groups more than others and we're not going to solve them by simply giving ourselves a pat on the back for the progress that's been made so far.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

I would argue that Pride being "cool" with capitalists and politicians is a good thing. If associating yourself with the Pride brand is mainstream enough that you are better off supporting it than not, that means we've turned a huge corner.

How can that be a bad thing? I mean, isn't that the ultimate goal? To be exploited as consumers like the rest of the us?

Not for those wanting to maintain a unique identity that doesn't situate queerness in heteronormativity and capitalism. I think there's also a concern with sincerity when a lot of the companies who show up at Pride don't bother marketing towards the community for the other 364 days of the year, but that one is just a hunch on my part.

[sworkhard]

Originally Posted by rubecube

But the issue primarily affected gays and gays as a group brought the issue to the forefront of political discourse, and part of that process was events such as Stonewall. The issue affected gays as a group. They were being discriminated against based on their sexual identity. That is the point of identity politics, to note the discrimination against groups of people based on their racial, sexual, gender, identities. I don't get you find it problematic to identify issues that affect one group of people substantially more than others. Is that not the intellectually honest approach?

The identity politics of the right is no better than identity politics by the left. That one uses identity to discriminate in a harmful way and the other uses it in to discriminate in a way that's benevolent to a particular group is not a useful defense of identity politics.

Identifying a group that's marginalized and trying to reduce barriers that may disproportionately affect this group is not identity politics.

Identity politics comes in when you demand that a group of people be treated differently (for better or worse) based purely on their descriptive membership of a particular group

And they had to force their way through means that may or may not fit-in with the liberal tradition, including forms of civil disobedience. I would maybe conceded that liberalism perhaps fostered an environment where these tactics could be successful, but the movements would not have had the success they did if they had strictly adhered to liberal principles.

The only reason the could "force' their way through is because of liberal principles and traditions that were widely held. These movements had to take advantage of liberal principles and without them would have been snuffed out ruthlessly before they made any progress.

Actually it's more about not resting on your laurels and I think that's what moderates like yourself are failing to understand. There are still issues that primarily affect certain groups more than others and we're not going to solve them by simply giving ourselves a pat on the back for the progress that's been made so far.

So then why is so much of progressive discourse dominated by some of the most dogmatic, vicious, and unproductive people around. As much as progressives tell themselves it's about not resting on your laurels, the vast majority of the time it's just empty rhetoric and a way of letting people feel good about "helping" a group without actually having to do anything. It seems to me that Progressivism has very much become just what you wish it wasn't.

Just because some issues affect some groups more than others doesn't mean that you have to treat the disadvantaged groups like they are toddlers incapable of helping themselves. Too many progressives think equality is good in and of itself. It's not. Fairness may indicate that equality is in fact good in a particular situation, but determining what's fair is much more difficult that determining what's equal.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by sworkhard

The identity politics of the right is no better than identity politics by the left. That one uses identity to discriminate in a harmful way and the other uses it in to discriminate in a way that's benevolent to a particular group is not a useful defense of identity politics.

Identifying a group that's marginalized and trying to reduce barriers that may disproportionately affect this group is not identity politics.

Identity politics comes in when you demand that a group of people be treated differently (for better or worse) based purely on their descriptive membership of a particular group

Well technically the latter is prescribed as a solution to the former. Affirmative action was designed to counteract the centuries of ingrained systemic racism that have pretty clearly disadvantaged African-Americans in the job market, which then has a trickle-down effect on communities, health, etc., etc.

The only reason the could "force' their way through is because of liberal principles and traditions that were widely held. These movements had to take advantage of liberal principles and without them would have be snuffed out ruthlessly before they made any progress.

Maybe go back and read what I wrote because that's pretty much exactly what I said.

So then why is so much of progressive discourse dominated by some of the most dogmatic, vicious, and unproductive people around. As much as progressives tell themselves it's about not resting on your laurels, the vast majority of the time it's just empty rhetoric and a way of letting people feel good about "helping" a group without actually having to do anything. It seems to me that Progressivism has very much become just what you wish it wasn't.

Because people from every political stripe suck, and we've given the loudest and shrillest the biggest platforms.

Just because some issues affect some groups more than others doesn't mean that you have to treat the disadvantaged groups like they are toddlers incapable of helping themselves. Too many progressives think equality is good in and of itself. It's not. Fairness may indicate that equality is in fact good in a particular situation, but determining what's fair is much more difficult that determining what's equal.

Okay but do we determine what's fair without any historical or social context? That's the problem I have with the liberal approach. It claims objectivity but then abandons objective information when the info doesn't conform to its ideals.

[Flames in 07]

Originally Posted by Leeman4Gilmour

It's just disproportionate to population (not sure if the data has changed much in the last 4 years one way or the other).

Anyway, I won't be as eloquent as most of the conversation within this thread but BLM accepted an invitation, then took advantage of the media coverage which comes with a Pride Parade and distracted from the intent and good will of this event. Regardless of their good cause, it came across as rather tasteless.

This is a poor example to support a ridiculous statement by taco.

Wake me when you aren't comparing to the overall make up of races and you index it vs who tends to interact in a conflicting manner with police in general. You may find that poor people tend to be black, and poor people conflict with cops more often.

A bit of a buzzkill to BLM and lots of others who derive heir self worth by fighting for their race, but the us has a social mobility problem that is masked by what most people think of as a race problem.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Not for those wanting to maintain a unique identity that doesn't situate queerness in heteronormativity and capitalism.

This is one of the biggest mistakes of the identity politics movement - attaching themselves to every cause that seeks to undermine the status quo. The Fight the Power sentiment is always going to be attractive on campuses. But for the broader population out there living and working, it's a big turn-off. A black man who works at an investment bank, a gay guy who immigrated from Egypt to live in a more open society, or a woman who runs a seismic exploration company can be forgiven for thinking that activists who embrace anti-capitalist, anti-Western, anti-oil trappings don't really have their interests at heart.

People are complex. Just because they're against the status quo on one issue doesn't mean they want to tear down society and remake it from whole cloth. Most people aren't miserable and furious. Most people think our modern society works pretty well. There's a reason fewer than a third of a Canadian women identity themselves as feminists, and it's because Canadian feminists have attached themselves to a host of causes that have nothing to do with ensuring self-determination for women.

[nik-]

Two things I believe to be true simultaneously.

1. Police in the US are way more likely to treat black people like ####

2. BLM is garbage.