(disclaimer: still ZealotX. Still not white)
And again, BLM is not whatever you say it is. It's not what its critics believe. The problem is, and I'm going to say this as clearly as possible...
White people are not used to hearing black people speak openly about white supremacy, institutionalized racism, and policing black communities.
They simply aren't. They found themselves in the deep end of this conversation and they didn't know where to begin. So what happened was that many whites got offended at the NAME "black lives matter" before ever hearing what it was about. And they judged it out of their own defensiveness because the truth is THEY are the ones who feel victimized when they are even remotely equated with racists.
How does this work? Is it because we call them racists? No. The problem is that many if not most whites have race-based biases and prejudice. But most of it is kiddie stuff compared to southern whites who were taught to hate blacks by the rich back when blacks were first entering the paid workforce with skills. Suddenly they had to compete for jobs and a lot of whites don't like capitalism that much.
Quick story. I was in a YMCA swimming pool in Ohio maybe 6 miles from where I live. Whites with money tend to flee the inner city and so this area is one of those outer communities before it turns to farmland. Somehow a disagreement between my son and a white kid turns into that kid saying "white people are better" and it was in front of his father who said not a single word. Am I saying all white are racists? No I'm not. But there is a tendency towards racial ideology and there is a gradation of racial tinge. It's not simply this guy is racist and this guy is not. Whites want to point at the obvious provocative racist who is deeply uneducated and typically "white trash" (their words). Those who have money don't want to be thought of this way and feel attacked when their own guilt indicts them. And we've seen a rash of white women especially getting caught on camera either calling the police on innocent black people or trying to take some non-existent law into their own hands. When I was young there was DWB (driving while black) and WWB (walking). Now there's grilling while black, play with toy gun while black, parking while black, lawn mowing while black, legally owning a gun while black, selling drinks while black, selling loose cigarettes while black, wearing a hoodie while black, playing music in a car while black, and I could go on. Point is that any assertion of racism hits too close to home for many whites who feel indicted. They are the true victims.
Let's look at Webster's definition of victim.
Definition of victim
1 : one that is acted on and usually adversely affected by a force or agent
the schools are victims of the social system
: such as
a(1) : one that is injured, destroyed, or sacrificed under any of various conditions
a victim of cancer
a victim of the auto crash
a murder victim
(2) : one that is subjected to oppression, hardship, or mistreatment
a frequent victim of political attacks
b : one that is tricked or duped
a con man's victim
2 : a living being sacrificed to a deity or in the performance of a religious rite
The problem is that whites do not want to discuss black people being victims of systematic racism and oppression because then they would have to confront who that makes them. If blacks are the victim what are whites? Whites want to keep victimizing black people because it serves their social economic interests. And what they're not used to is black people en mass, saying with a loud voice, that racism is still a huge problem in America and it is systematic. Whites want racism to be the overt racism barely captured in their history. They rather think they saved us from Africa, gave us clothes and food and prosperity. They white wash the truth which is why they don't want to hear it. That's why MLK was shot. Because you can be as non-violent as you like but the truth still hurts. Only whites think that BLM is about victimhood. Black people just want to stop getting summarily executed by the police. Mischaracterizing BLM isn't going to help. The truth is racism is alive and well. And its not black people's problem. It's white people's problem. That's also why WHITES were offended by Kaepernick's protest. What are YOU and All Lives Matter going to do to fix it? I'm guessing not a damn thing.
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