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Come on people! Use your brain like an adult. To affirm Black Lives Matter is not to be a Marxist. To advocate for universal health care does not make you a Socialist. And to work for social justice is one of the basic moral imperatives of the Old and New Testaments.I mean no disrespect - just trying to get your attention. We are placed in this world to help each other, not look the other way - that's what I believe. Do you?
The "guilt by association" fallacy in today's political discourse is usually combined with the "red herring" fallacy of changing the subject or going on a tangent, and these combine with the "straw man" or straw argument fallacy by taking down a weak caricature of a position or cause that one is against. For example, adherents of the status quo attack health care reform by calling it "socialism" (red herring) and referencing the failed policies of a "socialist dictator" (guilt by association and attacking a weak "straw" argument) or saying "no one wants Canadian health care" which, actually, is pretty good, and, available to ALL Canadian citizens.
These fallacies are equal opportunity - you can use them from the right, from the left, or even from a position of rambling incoherence (not naming any names here). The tragedy is that this undisciplined and uncritical thinking cuts off constructive dialogue and gives us an excuse to stay right where we are and do nothing, or gives us shallow talking points to attack others who are passionate about issues that we don't value.
I say "black lives matter" because I recognize that we have a specific history that demonstrates specific problems of devaluing lives of African-Americans, and we have by no means overcome the racist legacy of the first 250 years of this project we call the U.S.A. It is the need of the hour for people of good will to work together against the racism that is still embedded in many of our institutions - yes, that is "systemic" racism. First we need acknowledge the problem. To respond with "all lives matter" or "blue lives matter" (both statements of course true) is to say, in effect, "NO! I deny that racism is a problem."
If you deny that racism persists in our institutions and systems - the education of our children, the real estate market, law enforcement practices, business practices (including wages and benefits) and corporate control of wealth and fiscal policy, then you have not looked at the data and the realities of racial disparities which are the legacy of our racist past, beginning with 246 years of legal enslavement of black men, women and children, followed by (see the article link below) 1. Abandonment of reconstruction; 2. Jim Crow laws and practices; 3. Violence of white supremacy in killing and rioting; 4. Federal investment in white home ownership and education; 5. Public school inequities; and 6. Race disparities in criminal justice, along with other alarming present day regressive social policies in the area of race, such as the reemergence of voter suppression largely enabled by the dismantling of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the 2013 Supreme Court decision Shelby County (Alabama) vs. Holder.
Truth, Justice and Reparations, June 20, 2020
The BLM movement was founded in 2013 by three women in response to the tragic death of Trayvon Martin, raised to national awareness after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. It became a rallying cry around our need to address racism after a series of tragic murders in 2020, and the movement continues just as the unjust and disproportionate killing continues. These women, founders of the movement, espouse a number of social causes and I am not here "proof texting" their beliefs, their loyalties, or their ideological affirmations. To do so can become an endless distraction that can change the subject of any conversation into a myriad of red herrings. (I am a Christian ... and in every conversation about my faith I don't necessarily want to hear about all of the various historical side roads of Christianity or the unlimited range of ideological commitments of those who have carried the Christian banner over the centuries - many of whom I disagree with, many which are embarrassing, and many downright evil.)
So, if a BLM founder makes reference to Marxism in her ideology, or espouses or even connects BLM with other causes such as LGBTQ rights, how does this qualify the validity of BLM as a cause or movement? (And for the record, I am an LGBTQ ally.) This tendency to attack a position by making connections to the beliefs or affiliations of movement supports is not helpful - for the most part it is a way of changing the subject. If you don't feel a moral imperative for reform in our society in the area of race then you will find an excuse - it really doesn't matter what the excuse is. Those who enjoy a position of power and/or privilege in any realm have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and that is the way of human selfishness that we all (of any race or heritage or ideology) must fight against.
Those who enjoy a position of power and/or privilege in any realm have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and that is the way of human selfishness that we all must fight against.I support BLM as a slogan, as a cause , and as a movement that is worthy of support and advocacy. More than that, the negative impact of racism in U.S. history, and ongoing today, requires our attention and our moral action. Unfortunately, racism defines our national story in a way that cannot be overcome in a state of apathy. How I support BLM - how any of us support any cause - requires critical thinking and considered moral contemplation, in the light of my story and in the context of my own community. For me, for example, I cannot work for an organization or associate with a group or fellowship with a church that is not willing to engage issues constructively and unless it has clearly distanced itself from racist practices and from apathy (and other similar immoral and unjust practices).
Yes, we must have these conversations. We must advocate for change in our schools, places of work, houses of worship, government agencies, and legislative bodies. Yes, these confederate monuments are offensive, and require either removal or, perhaps in some cases, an educational context that tells the rest of the story. Yes, our police agencies need to reform and diversify their mission and practice (and I say this as a former corrections professional who has been advocating and developing the social services component of our mission since the first day I was on the job over 20 years ago).
There's much more to learn, much more to say... much more to debate ... in order to create positive movement. But we cannot engage the issues by changing the subject.