On this blog I tend to focus on issues relating to income and wealth inequality. And I tend to use an economic lens to view that issue. I don't apologise for that: no one can cover all issues.
But, there are moments when it is appropriate to acknowledge that injustice comes in many forms and has to be viewed through many lenses.
I am deeply aware that there is a gender dimension to many of the issues I look at, and have long been angry about it.
And there is, very obviously, a race element as well.
Ethnicity, sexual orientation and religious discrimination all, also, contribute to the inequality within the world that we live in.
These issues are not unrelated. They are all dimensions of the same issue, which is the disregard that some feel that they have the right to show towards fellow members of the human race.
I first became aware of the power of discrimination before I was a teenager. It angered me then. The more I have learned of it the more it has angered me. My anger with it motivates what I do: the harm that the deliberate oppression of some for the advantage of others causes is a crime.
As a result I put on record my support for all those protesting as a result of the death of George Floyd. Their anger and their outrage is justified. He died as a result of the contemptuous indifference of another man. Anyone who is not angry about that should be very worried about the quality of their own humanity.
I urge peacefulness: violence simply plays to the oppressor. But whilst I may not say it often, nothing that I call for can happen without other injustices being addressed, for they are all dimensions of the same issue.
Every life matters. Today we are forcefully reminded that black lives matter, and rightly so. But all who are oppressed deserve our concern: there is no solution to any problem that is not inclusive.
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Agreed. Racism is evil; but it is the inequality created by the privileged 1% who monopolise wealth & power that stratifies society and is the malevolent force that drives discrimination.
One of feature of modern capitalist societies is that we are not taught as children to rebel against monopolies of wealth and power and the abuse that stems from the control of capital and government power in concert. China would appear to be the perfect example of both with many Western democracies being in practice a watered down version of China to greater or lesser extent. Clearly if matters are to improve there has to be a greater balancing of power between the few and the many both over capital and government.
The ability to rebel should be seen in the context of the Sixties Milgram Experiments:-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Interpretations
Extremely important issue. I see it’s being widely reported that President Trump is refusing to have President Obama’s portrait hanging in the White House, breaking a tradition stretching back to Washington himself. There’s no love lost between the two Presidents but in keeping with your post, I think Trump’s racism is likely to be the reason behind it.
Agree with John Lewis all issues are socioeconomic.
My understanding is this – “Black lives matter” is a statement made within the context of a society in which black lives clearly don’t matter to the dominant majority. Black lives are treated as disposable. Black people are treated a second class citizens who have to fear being murdered for fun by a brutal police force.
Saying “black lives matter” means saying that black lives matter too, they are equally valuable.
In this context people saying “all lives matter” are trying to diminish the power of the statement that black lives matter too. “All lives matter” is saying that the issues faced by black people (I believe this would refer in the States to members of oppressed groups who are not white, not exclusively people of African origin, but I’m not sure).
“All lives matter” says the oppression that black people experience is not real and the racism that is interwoven into society’s DNA is not really there.
The black community is not saying that all lives don’t matter. They are saying that for so long they have been treated as if their lives don’t matter that they really need to point it out to the rest of us – Black lives matter. Because society behaves as if they don’t.
“All lives matter” in this context is hostile to antiracism.
I realise that’s not your intention but that is what the statement is, as I understand it.
I agonised over saying this
My statement says all who are oppressed matter
I think that is true
Do I say as a result black live matter less
Of course not
The whole point of the timing of my post was to say that black lives quite emphatically matter – I would hope that was obvious
And your claim is then wrong
Saying all lives matter is not hostile to antiracism – it is saying it is something that is a universal truth and so, of course, black lives matter as much as all others
I am sorry to disagree with you, but I think I made my position very clear and I used the term as plain English
Your position is clear. I am not saying you are using the term in the same way it’s being used by others. But it’s a term being used to devalue the message of BLM. Aren’t there other ways of communicating the message?
I have changed the title
Does that work?
The error was wholly unintentional
Hi Richard,
I understand what you are saying but given the current context, the phrase ‘All lives matter’ is detracting from the current focus, Is completely unnecessary in the current situation and is a phrase associate with white supremacists wishing to undermine the BLM message. Regardless of your good intentions and being a great fan of your work, I respectfully request that you reflect on and reconsider the title of this post. I’m sure you can find a better phrase to describe the intersectional view you are trying to express.
I made a mistake
It was innocent but I recognise it
I have changed the title
I hope the new one works
You’re intentions may be good, but using the title ‘all lives matter’ a mantra and slogan used by the right to diminish the impact of systemic racism seems ill-advised. It’s as bad as saying ‘I don’t see race’ and I’m sorry, but it does diminish the very specific experiences that black people have in white dominated societies.
Go take a look at the alllivesmatter hashtag to see both people explaining why it’s problematic as well as people on the right using it to call BLM racist for excluding whites and other such nonsense.
I was genuinely unaware of this
I write in good faith
And I can’t be aware of everything
So – what do I change the title to?
Yes, on the face of it, “All lives matter” seems to be the reasonable response; we are all equally deserving of respect from our fellow humans.
However, the exact phrase “All lives matter” has been used as a slogan by right-wing racists in the US as a direct counterpoint to the “Black lives matter” movement, in an attempt to distract from neuter it.
I agree with Joe on this one. Unfortunately, we cannot be concerned simply with what words mean literally; we also need to be aware of their cultural cachet.
I was not aware of that
Apologies for that
So what do I change the title to?
Totally agree with the all the sentiments, it was and is disgusting what is happening in the US. There is a video of police in Seattle using the knee on neck tactic and it a was done on a white guy. The was chaos and two police officers grab this guy and pulled him to the ground, that is when the police officer used his knee on the guy’s neck.
The crowd was shouting get your “F+++King knee off his neck”. The police officer partner push the officer knee off the guy’s neck. It seems it is a police tactic to use it as a form of pinning. To use it to on a guy who as part of crowd protesting about the death of man who died from the very same tactic is stupid. Also i think a lot of the riots are pent up frustration at the state of the US, black people treatment and inequality.
Apparently the Israeli army uses this kind of restraint on Palestinians as well.
https://twitter.com/Bazal02/status/1266585659831091202?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1266675209676959745&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.trtworld.com%2Fmagazine%2Fthe-knee-on-neck-long-a-staple-of-israel-s-occupation-of-palestine-36787
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/the-knee-on-neck-long-a-staple-of-israel-s-occupation-of-palestine-36787
The video of the Seattle Police using the Knee on Neck technique is the second video down. A guy with a orange sweater.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1267011092045115392
https://twitter.com/chadloder/status/1267011092045115392?fbclid=IwAR3c0QK5tzdfjk9zF8YSjeXygKPf8SLbPMMt12PfbEcxIa_lQAUcLfAEVYs
Richard, I am a fervent supporter of so many of your ideas, and your work has done so much to push good ideas to a wider audience.
However, the phrase “all lives matter” has gained some toxic baggage which I am sure you do not want to be associated with.
In plain English, of course I agree with you. However, in this particular context, “all lives matter” as a slogan is taken as a repudiation of the BLM movement, which I fully acknowledge is not your intention.
Sometimes choice of language matters, and sometimes a “plain English” reading is impossible.
For these reasons, please consider revising your use of “all lives matter” as I fear your work could be tainted by unfair associations.
I am changing the title
FWIW, it never crossed my mind that there was anything remiss in your intentions and I’m sure your readers would not think so either. I realise that all of us can only be aware of so much stuff, especially when the zeitgeist is so very flitty. I assume you’ve taken the trouble to check the use of the phrase and I think the new title works a lot better.
(Sorry, I can’t directly reply in the thread with my comment.)
Thanks
It shows how hard it is to get things right, even with best intent
Trump has just said he will mobilise the army to “dominate” the streets in Washington DC (and elsewhere, if the governors and mayors don’t do it with the national guard – not far off declaring martial law, in effect) and has labelled all of the protesters as terrorists. Both common ploys for authoritarian hardmen. Extraordinary.
If he follows through, there are likely to be dozens of deaths. Does he think a bloodbath will improve his re-election chances with the “silent majority”, as it did for Nixon in 1968?
Hard to know
I hope it won’t
I’m thinking he’s probably hoping to get to a stage where he can cancel the election altogether.
So glad you changed the original title, based on constructive and courteous challenge from others. Good call and good new inclusive title. Personally, ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’ does it for me.
When I make mistakes I admit then
I did both
Richard, even though it’s now changed on your website, it showed up as ‘All lives matter’ when it appeared on my Facebook feed ☹ï¸
I can’t do much about that I think – but I know remarkably little about Facebook
PS I taught myself how to delete a post on Facebook….