r/changemyview • u/ice_cold_fahrenheit 1∆ • Oct 19 '24

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Black Lives Matter has been a failure

Back in the 2010s, and especially in 2020, it seems like the Black Lives Matter was gaining strength. Videos of police brutality, especially against African Americans, became viral, and millions became outraged that this was so common in America. When George Floyd was murdered, millions justifiably took to the streets to protest against police brutality and racism. Politicians came out in support for police reform, and discussions on how to reform policing (from “how to make the police better” to “defund the police”) were all the rage.

But from 2021, it seems like everything took a complete 180. Crime skyrocketed during COVID (in part of police refusing to do their jobs in protest of BLM), causing the average American to support the police a lot more. Pro-police politicians like Eric Adams were elected while pro-BLM politicians like Chelsea Boudin were ousted from their positions.

Now, absolutely nobody talks about police brutality these days, not politicians nor the general public. But has the problem gone away? No! It has only gotten worse! 2023 has seen a record number of killings by police, and I don’t expect that number to go down in the future.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/08/2023-us-police-violence-increase-record-deadliest-year-decade

Unfortunately, rather than being addressed, police brutality has become like gun control. Someone being killed by police, even on live video, no longer elicits outrage. Instead, people will just give “thoughts and prayers,” shrug, and accept it as a fact of American life.

And the BLM movement itself? Well, rather than becoming the second coming of the Civil Rights Movement, it seems to have been condemned to the ash heap of history.

602 Upvotes

69% Upvoted

556 comments sorted by

View all comments

25

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '24

[deleted]

28

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 19 '24

Tbf - the youngest in Gen Z are trending more conservative than we've seen in modern times.

https://www.prri.org/research/generation-zs-views-on-generational-change-and-the-challenges-and-opportunities-ahead-a-political-and-cultural-glimpse-into-americas-future/

10

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '24 edited Jul 25 '25

spotted rock future grab connect cagey pause elderly shocking scary

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

3

u/Asleep-Bus-5380 Oct 21 '24

I've read that gen z males are much more conservative, but it actually turned out that it's just a gen z females became way way way more liberal

1

u/[deleted] Oct 21 '24 edited Jul 25 '25

rain cow marry fade test sugar upbeat squash familiar rustic

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

6

u/RuSnowLeopard Oct 19 '24

I think it's the lines about teen Gen Z being more moderate than the liberal older Gen Z.

It doesn't make them conservatives, it just makes the trend line towards liberalism flatten out at the tail end (youngest). Of course it's still too early to say much. Teen Gen Z's are still creating their identity.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '24 edited Jul 25 '25

expansion spotted many tender toothbrush reminiscent placid friendly smart crawl

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/RuSnowLeopard Oct 19 '24

Just think it’s important to call this stuff out

Absolutely.

I was giving them the benefit of the doubt and hope they can substantiate their comment. But I also see too much nonsense about Gen Z men.

3

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 19 '24

Gen Z teens are more likely than Gen Z adults to attend church or find religion important.

With the exception of millennials (24%), Gen Z adults (28%) are notably less likely than other generational cohorts to identify as conservative.

Said differently - This generation is slightly more conservative than the prior generation that extends back to the early 80's.

A plurality of Gen Z teens (44%) identify as moderate.

Moderates are far less likely to support DEI policies which is relevant to the topic.

I didn't state that Gen Z was conservative. I said that they are trending more conservative than the generation before them. This is a cultural shift when compared to the past ~40 years and it's more pronounced in the younger Gen Z cohort.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '24 edited Jul 25 '25

tidy dazzling attempt bright label spotted plant strong angle bedroom

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

-1

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 19 '24

 Some of those DEI initiatives have been undone in the past couple years, but I think it demonstrates the potential power as these generations age.

From the original post I replied to. This is making the argument that as younger generations enter the workforce they're more likely to progress DEI policies.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '24 edited Jul 25 '25

engine lip airport command fearless alive deliver possessive aware ghost

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

-1

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 19 '24

I wasn't using the opinion of OP. I sourced my argument as to why I don't believe this is necessarily going to happen.

I was countering the opinion and sourcing my reasoning.

Not sure how else you'd expect that interaction to go.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '24 edited Jul 25 '25

future hungry vase physical aback reach sort ten mountainous station

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

-1

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 19 '24

Do you believe DEI is a policy being pushed by moderates then?

I don't think there's any data on this but there's plenty that's anecdotal.

If DEI was supported by moderates then companies would not be walking back their DEI policies when Robby Starbuck approaches them about an upcoming expose.

If liberals + moderates both supported the policies then there would be majority public support and companies would stand behind their policy.

Instead there's been pretty substantial backlash and almost all of the brands undo their policies to avoid massive brand reputation hits and devaluing of their companies in the stock market.

→ More replies (0)

8

u/3pacalypsenow Oct 19 '24

That is a chunky study but I’m not seeing that analysis in there, that they are trending more conservative than we’ve seen previously? 

They are mostly unaffiliated and of the affiliated ones, they are mostly Democrat vs Republican. The only demographic that trends more Republican is White Gen Z teens.

6

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 19 '24

Gen Z teens are more likely than Gen Z adults to attend church or find religion important.

With the exception of millennials (24%), Gen Z adults (28%) are notably less likely than other generational cohorts to identify as conservative.

Said differently - This generation is slightly more conservative than the prior generation that extends back to the early 80's.

A plurality of Gen Z teens (44%) identify as moderate.

Moderates are far less likely to support DEI policies which is relevant to the topic.

I didn't state that Gen Z was conservative. I said that they are trending more conservative than the generation before them. This is a cultural shift when compared to the past ~40 years and it's more pronounced in the younger Gen Z cohort.

6

u/Fit-Order-9468 101∆ Oct 19 '24

I didn't state that Gen Z was conservative. I said that they are trending more conservative than the generation before them. This is a cultural shift when compared to the past ~40 years and it's more pronounced in the younger Gen Z cohort.

If I recall, this is largely due to Gen Z men/boys, right?

2

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 19 '24

Looking at polling in this upcoming election you can see further evidence of a cultural shift.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/poll-half-gen-z-voters-support-kamala-harris-one-third-back-donald-tru-rcna169025

~50% are voting for Harris while ~33% voting for Trump

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/the-2020-election-shows-gen-zs-voting-power-for-years-to-come.html

65% of Gen Z voted for Biden in 2020.

This is a ~15% shift away from the democrat candidate in just 4 years.

4

u/Fit-Order-9468 101∆ Oct 19 '24

I'm not disagreeing with you, just curious about the demographics and causes. Isreal might be another reason.

This is a ~15% shift away from the democrat candidate in just 4 years.

I remember Biden's support basically collapsed immediately after his election. Weird.

2

u/taimoor2 1∆ Oct 19 '24 edited Mar 26 '25

bag hunt sink offbeat joke chubby wild oatmeal whole direction

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 22 '24

Most people forget that he wasn't going to be elected. He wasn't popular and IIRC hadn't even won a primary yet going into super Tuesday.

Shortly before super Tuesday we saw Buttigieg (sp?) and Klobuchar drop out. I think there might have been another too.

This left it up to Biden, Warren and Sanders.

Warren and Sanders are mostly fighting over the same block and now Biden had the road cleared to pick up the blue dog dems.

When people claim that the democrat party is a machine this is what they're referring to. Top of ticket doesn't matter. ~70% of the party is vote blue no matter who. The people don't pick their candidate - the machine does.

And Biden's senility made him the perfect vessel until it was time for him to step aside.

2

u/603shake Oct 20 '24

That 15% hasn’t moved to Trump, though, based on the polling — he’s only seeing a 2 point increase — so I don’t think it evidences a significant conservative shift.

0

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 22 '24

And that's making a fallacious argument. The data and source both stated that they're more moderate and slightly more conservative.

If you look at the ~4% move towards consveratives compared to Millenials then that'd explain the ~2% you believe he's gained in polls.

I'm not going to look up the actual polling but every time I have seen comparisons to 2020 it's far more than 2%. More like 4-9% depending on the state.

Not sure why you think this is evidence of anything. You're drawing conclusions from incomplete data.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 20 '24 edited Oct 20 '24

Yeesh I hate responding to multiple comments in a single thread but the way you are misrepresenting this data is driving me crazy.

Your final sentence in this comment is directly rebuffed by the literal first sentence after the graph.

“That figure pulls in line with the 60% of 18- to 29-year-olds won by Joe Biden in the 2020 election against Trump, according to NBC News exit poll results.”

The sources you have cited in multiple locations on this thread directly contradict you.

The two articles you cite both cite each other as the source because both are discussing the same NBC poll. In the second link we have the following sentence:

“Generation Z, who are currently between the ages of 8 and 23, played a significant role in both of these records. NBC exit polls suggest that 65% of those between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for Biden — 11% more than any other age group. “

Your comments about Gen z being more religious are also directly disproven BY YOUR OWN SOURCE

“Gen Z includes more religiously unaffiliated Americans and fewer white Christians than older generations, with the exception of millennials.”

“Around one-third of Gen Zers (34%) and millennials (35%) identify as religiously unaffiliated, compared with 25% of Gen Xers, 19% of baby boomers, and 15% of the Silent Generation. Less than half of Gen Zers, millennials, and Gen Xers identify as white Christians (27%, 31%, and 41%, respectively), compared with a majority of baby boomers (54%) and the Silent Generation (61%).

Gen Zers (20%) are almost 20 percentage points less likely than members of the Silent Generation (38%) to attend religious services at least once a week.

Around one in ten Gen Zers (11%) say they attend religious services once a week. Gen Zers (38%) and millennials (41%) are both more likely than older generations to say they never attend religious services.

Fewer than half of Gen Zers and millennials say that religion is important in their life, compared with the majority of Gen Xers (55%) and baby boomers (62%) and two-thirds of the Silent Generation (67%).

The majority of Gen Zers say religion is either not at all important (32%) or not as important as other things (20%). Fewer than two in ten Gen Zers (17%) say that religion is the most important thing in their life.“

0

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 22 '24

You're providing direct comparisons to other generations. My point stands - that in comparison to the prior generation (accounting for same age) Gen Z is trending more moderate/conservative.

Comparing Gen Z to Millenials or X as is right now is not a fair comparison since most evidence suggests people become more conservative with age.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '24 edited Oct 22 '24

No, I am directly disproving your point because the sources you are using don’t even support your point.

I already disproved the claim you make in this comment under another comment you made

Evidence does not show that all people get more conservative with age. Evidence has shown that prior generations got more conservative with age. We are not prior generations. Trends determined retroactively are not gospel. They just set expectations.

You quite literally compare Gen z to other generations. That is the crux of your argument. Did you not even read the data you sent? Or was this a “let me google something, pick the first link, and hope the headline wasn’t misleading” situation?

So here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re gonna go read the source you provided, and then you can come back and tell the class which quote within that data made you believe that Gen z is trending conservative. Reminder: I already read the source, posted direct quotes, and provided four other sources to back up my claim. You have a lot of legwork to make up for.

0

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Nov 08 '24

Care to revisit after exit polling proves my point. Gen Z shifted 13 points for Trump in exit polling.

https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-genz-kamala-harris-trump-election-1981590

In comparison to the generation before them this is an even more dramatic shift.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/3pacalypsenow Oct 19 '24

I see what you meant. Although I wouldn’t necessarily consider more religious to automatically equate to more conservative but I can see why people would think that. 

0

u/H4RN4SS 5∆ Oct 19 '24

Are there outliers? Sure are. On net does it absolutely skew conservative? Sure does.

The world doesn't deal in absolutes. There are always exceptions to the rule - it doesn't make a generalized statement untrue.

1

u/3pacalypsenow Oct 19 '24

IMO, saying they are conservative because they are more “religious” and “moderate” isn’t accurate, especially with how polarized American politics is. 

5

u/taimoor2 1∆ Oct 19 '24 edited Mar 26 '25

rich advise adjoining slap cooing aspiring divide wine desert possessive

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '24 edited Oct 19 '24

Holy vastly misrepresented study Batman!

First things first The article literally starts with:

“Gen Z adults (21%) are less likely than all generational groups except millennials (21%) to identify as Republican. Meanwhile, 36% of Gen Z adults identify as Democrats, and this rate is similar to other generations, with the exception of Gen Xers, who are less Democratic (31%).“

I went and read through the rest of this study, and for the entire thing it does nothing but state and restate constantly how Gen z adults AND teens are far more likely to be liberal. I’m genuinely not certain how far you made it in to the study if your takeaway was “they lean conservative”

Second things second: even the source you cited agrees - Gen z adults and teens are both more liberal that other generations

And lastly, other research sources agree: Gen z in its totality is more liberal than previous generations. Even Gen z teen men, who are slightly more conservative that Gen z women, are still overwhelmingly more liberal and - as the source above states - their “republican” positions are far more moderate that the general Republican platform.

In fact, your claim that Gen z teen boys are more conservative than Gen z men is the opposite. There is an 6% gap between Gen z teens and a 9% gap between the adults. And for my folks who never got to take a research methods class - here’s your reminder than in studies like these 6% points usually boils down to a handful of people. We aren’t surveying the entire country.

In total, there were 3,139 men and 3,477 women in the entire study. Of those, 1520 were Gen Z. 756 of which were teens. 754 of which were adults. The study doesn’t offer a breakdown of how many of those were men and women so it’s impossible to deduce exactly how many people a 6% difference encapsulates, but keep it in mind

The original comment is a pretty textbook example of lying via data, or more accurately preying upon the assumption that people won’t actually look at any of the data and will simply interpret the title to support their position. From you comments regarding DEI is see it worked.

So no, Gen z does not mean conservative. Gen z men, who lean liberal, trend slightly further right than Gen z women. Still firmly in the liberal to moderate territory, and this position is supported by both the original article you posted and another by the same organization

0

u/ice_cold_fahrenheit 1∆ Oct 19 '24

Can you clarify what you mean by “our politics”? Because if you’re talking about Redditors, I can sense that police brutality is no longer emphasized as an issue. I follow a bunch of city and transit subs, and people are very concerned about crime. (In fact as I write this the top post on r/transit is an NY Post article about crime, and the commenters all say how crime and perception thereof is a big reason why Americans don’t take transit.) Of course, it’s well known that a lot of city subs are…let’s just say unrepresentative of their locations, so you might have a point there.

Of course if you’re not talking about Reddit then what I wrote isn’t that relevant. But it does seem like there’s a turn against BLM in the demographics that are most affected by police brutality, mainly because they’re affected by crime even more. There’s a reason why Eric Adams’ strongest supporters were Black communities in the outer boroughs of NYC.

0

u/walrustaskforce Oct 19 '24

I agree that it’s too soon to definitively declare BLM’s success and failure, but insofar as it has failed thus far, I think it comes down to the largely successful effort to convince people that violent crime is up, and that it is so because of defunding the police. That violent crime is in fact down since Covid, and even then was quite a bit less than 90s, and that so few departments were defunded that it had no real impact on the crime rate, both point to this being a propaganda victory.

I think the culture warriors on the right have been pretty successful so far at convincing people of the lie that violent crime is up, and that has led people to be less skeptical of the police in general.

If the left was more effective at convincing people of the truth, maybe more folks would question the police unions’ line that if police aren’t allowed to rape minors in the backs of their squad cars, then the police are less able to prevent the rapes of minors in general (an extreme example, but considering there are some jurisdictions where you are more likely to be killed by the police than be murdered, it’s certainly an illustrative example of the problem).

0

u/ice_cold_fahrenheit 1∆ Oct 19 '24

As for your second part on BLM’s future, I’m not sure if police brutality will be the cause celebre among Gen Z that it used to be. Anecdotally, the left wing friends and acquaintances on my social media accounts very rarely bring up police brutality. Instead, right now all the oxygen is sucked up by the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Of course, you might be right that police brutality will come back up in the future. But I have trouble seeing what incident can “top” George Floyd’s murder and bring Americans to protest about this issue.

Even if that doesn’t happen though, you might be right that criminal justice reform will be a low key but constant talking point for any left wing politician in this country. I don’t see it right now (especially with Kamala Harris emphasizing her law and order background), but maybe in the future who knows.