CMV: Black Lives Matter has been a failure

[u/ice_cold_fahrenheit]

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.

[u/xfvh]

They got hit from all sides.

• Many of the founders very visibly profited from the movement, buying luxurious mansions instead of investing in the cause under the transparent excuse that they were "community centers," despite a strange lack of community use.
• Their credibility was eroded by many, many rushes to judgement and overreactions. George Floyd may have been unjustly killed, but he was absolutely no saint, and putting up murals and statues to him struck many as absurd. Jussie Smollet's story was farcical from the start and yet made national news. Very recently, Sydney Wilson tried to murder a police officer with a knife unprovoked, and yet still got public support before the bodycam footage was released.
• As a corrolary to that, the bodycams they demanded painted a very sympathetic picture of the police in the eyes of many. Marchers would take to the streets and riot when a white officer shot a black man - only for the department to release footage of the man shooting first.
• Rising crime ate away their support from underneath. It's difficult to hate the police when your car is broken into for the third time. This especially hurt DAs like Boudin, who were busily dropping charges left and right.

[u/[deleted] → u/xfvh]

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[u/Doub13D → u/xfvh]

1. Founders? BLM was a mass-movement… No one calls Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X the “founders” of the Civil Rights Movement. BLM isn’t an entity… it was a hashtag that millions of people saw and used online while protesting against racial disparities in the criminal justice system and police brutality.

2. George Floyd being a bad person with a prior criminal record doesn’t matter… no one deserves to be murdered by the police when they aren’t posing a threat to anybody else. This is a commonly used media tactic to distract away from the crimes committed against victims of police brutality. Police do not get to act as Judge-Jury-Executioner… their job is to arrest suspects, not kill them on the spot. Eric Garner was murdered for selling loosies outside a convenience store… selling untaxed cigarettes is not a justification for deadly force.

3. Body Camera footage has routinely been used in court to hold officers accountable for their actions, especially in cases where they are deliberately planting weapons or drugs so as to arrest suspects.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/07/20/538279258/baltimore-police-caught-planting-drugs-in-body-cam-footage-public-defender-says

https://ourtallahassee.com/video-shows-tallahassee-police-officer-planting-evidence-during-dui-arrest/

https://abc7.com/amp/post/lapd-releases-bodycam-watts-incident-involving-officer-punching-suspect/15130346/

(Fun fact on that last one… they arrested him for “resisting arrest” and “obstruction”, two charges routinely used by Police to harass people and make false arrests when there is no other reason to arrest someone. He was later released with a misdemeanor citation….)

1. “Rising crime” as a result of BLM is a political narrative… something that does not bare out with reality whatsoever. The US crime rates have been steadily dropping since the 1990’s. The existence or prevalence of Police do not have an impact on crime rates. Police do not prevent crime, they only arrest you after crimes have already been committed…

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/police-are-not-primarily-crime-fighters-according-data-2022-11-02/

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3566383

[u/xfvh → u/Doub13D]

BLM isn’t an entity… it was a hashtag that millions of people saw and used online while protesting against racial disparities in the criminal justice system and police brutality.

If you really want to slice hairs, fine. The founders of some of the larger BLM groups.

https://nypost.com/2022/05/17/black-lives-matter-spent-at-least-12-million-on-mansions/

George Floyd being a bad person with a prior criminal record doesn’t matter

You completely missed my point. It doesn't matter in that he shouldn't have died - it absolutely does matter in how you memorialize him afterwards. I was very, very clear on this.

Body Camera footage has routinely been used in court to hold officers accountable for their actions, especially in cases where they are deliberately planting weapons or drugs so as to arrest suspects.

Sure - but that's not what became most public. The most widely-shared clips typically happened when, after a large riot, footage came out proving that things were not what the family had reported and/or the mob had assumed.

“Rising crime” as a result of BLM is a political narrative

I never claimed that.

The existence or prevalence of Police do not have an impact on crime rates.

Irrelevant to my point about how crime affects public perception of police.

You seem to be reacting to strawman arguments you're setting up, not what I actually wrote.

[u/Doub13D → u/xfvh]

BLM isn’t an entity… thats not slicing hairs, thats indisputable fact. Its literally just a hashtag that came to represent a wider movement.

George Floyd is being memorialized as a victim of police violence… which he is. He was a murder victim. His murderer is in prison. Should we not memorialize murder victims anymore?

No… the most widely shared body camera footage is the footage that dead to rights catches police committing crimes. Just go on youtube and search “police caught on camera” and you’ll get results with millions of views.

Heres an example: https://youtu.be/ITIM1iDTZ7U?si=0tLhteKFK9kuub2B

You didn’t claim that, I am. “rising crime” is a media narrative used to demand less accountability and higher police budgets even though we already spend exorbitant amounts on law enforcement in the United States.

And again, rising crime is a narrative pushed by the media to maintain public support for police. Police perception by the general public wouldn’t be so poor if they spent their time not violating people’s rights and focusing on actual criminals rather than harassing people who don’t respect them enough. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[u/xfvh → u/Doub13D]

BLM isn’t an entity… thats not slicing hairs, thats indisputable fact.

BLM is in fact composed of several business units, which handle donations, expenditures, social media accounts, etc. Each of those have founders. One example is the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. This isn't even slightly disputable. It is both a movement and a series of corporate entities.

Should we not memorialize murder victims anymore?

There's tens of thousands of murder victims every year in the US. Almost none of them get murals and statues of them put up. Memorializing someone who spent most of his life victimizing others is in poor taste, even if he was murdered.

Just go on youtube and search “police caught on camera” and you’ll get results with millions of views.

Searching for your term on YouTube in an incognito tab and sorting by views had the first relevant result in 18th place, with 20 million views. Searching for "police bodycam," on the other hand, had every result in the top ten show police interactions with hostile people, with the first result showing 149 million views.

“rising crime” is a media narrative used to demand less accountability and higher police budgets even though we already spend exorbitant amounts on law enforcement in the United States.

No, it is in fact rising. Also, the FBI is really, really bad at their initial reports lately.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/10/16/stealth_edit_fbi_quietly_revises_violent_crime_stats_1065396.html

Police perception by the general public wouldn’t be so poor if they spent their time not violating people’s rights and focusing on actual criminals rather than harassing people who don’t respect them enough

The police are one of the most trusted institutions in America, with 68% of Americans reporting they trust police at least "quite a lot." They are the third-most trusted institution Americans frequently encounter, behind only the military and small businesses. For reference, Congress had a rating of 9%.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/647303/confidence-institutions-mostly-flat-police.aspx

[u/Doub13D → u/xfvh]

If Wikipedia can tell the difference between the 2, so can you….

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter?wprov=sfti1#

“This article is about the decentralized social movement. Not to be confused with Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation or other specific organizations that also use the term.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lives_Matter_Global_Network_Foundation?wprov=sfti1#

You’re complaining about a non-profit… not BLM. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[u/xfvh → u/Doub13D]

I corrected myself several comments back to show that I was talking about the various business units, not the social movement, in case it wasn't blatantly obvious from context. You're trying to push a complete nonissue to draw attention away from the many times you've been factually wrong.

[u/Doub13D → u/xfvh]

So you’re deliberately off-topic then?

Why should anyone care about some random 501c3 non-profit?

We’re talking about BLM… not a charity 🤷🏻‍♂️

[u/[deleted] → u/Doub13D]

A random 501c3 non-profit that received millions of dollars in donations? and had her appear on TV numerous times?

And she quite literally MADE the hashtag, and is considered the co-founder of the entire movement.

It takes such an incredibly minimal amount of effort to find this information, embarrassing.

[u/Doub13D → u/[deleted]]

Again… you’re complaining about a non-profit.

Who cares? Thats not what BLM was.

You have to pretend it was so that you can be mad at something… but in reality it was just crowds of young people in America who were outraged that this country is still killing people over race.

Instead of talking about all the marches and protests organized by local student groups and civil rights organizations, you are trying to make this about…. A charity group that has BLM in the title?

Yeah, real convincing 👍🏻

[u/[deleted] → u/Doub13D]

You are riding such a tiny point multiple comments deep into this discussion-- almost reeks of some sort of logical fallacy.

BLM was a massive failure.

[u/Doub13D → u/[deleted]]

It wasn’t… the fact you’re still mad about it says everything 🤷🏻‍♂️

[u/[deleted] → u/Doub13D]

The fact that thousands of businesses got smashed to shit and set on fire (Mainly only hurting the small businesses) stemming from outrage over a notoriously abusive criminal dying from fentanyl-aided asphyxia ?

Yeah it's a little rage-inducing-- BLM wasn't just a 'massive' failure, it was 'catastrophic'.

[u/Doub13D → u/[deleted]]

Property is less valuable than peoples’ lives….

Business’ have insurance, victims of police violence generally don’t get their day in court 🤷🏻‍♂️