If this movement were called "Police Reform Now" instead of "Black Lives Matter", we would probably have significantly fewer numbers of people thinking that this is about race, and instead, directing their energies on the "real enemy"
Am I alone in thinking that this will only lead to more racism?
So, when I talk about BLM here, I'm specifically talking about the US chapter when I say this, but...
Okay, here's the thing. BLM, I feel, potentially shot itself in the foot when it chose the name. Because on one hand, BLM has a point, that blacks in the US are disproportinately affected by the police. More likely to be shot, more likely to be arrested, more likely to receive harsher sentences for similar crimes. Here's the thing though. US police, even accounting for the US having a larger population, are far more likely to use force than other countries, period. Like, double digit times more likely compared to similar countries. But before I get to that, I'm going to share another statistic.
Inside the US, blacks commit more homicides with guns than whites, per capita. However, whites commit more mass shootings per capita, and it's mass shootings that get the media attention. For better or worse, it's mass shootings that have spurred every major movement for gun reform that I've seen. But when people marched in the streets, it wasn't a "Stop White Mass Shootings" movement (SWMS?), it was a broader movement to stop gun violence. It didn't work, granted, but it at least operated under the premise that gun violence is a universal problem.
Now, you may be saying at this point that BLM chose the name, because as I've already stated, blacks are disproportinately affected by police. Again, I agree. Question is, did the name choice help or hinder the cause? Because there's been a lot of time debating the idea of "All Lives Matter" and "Blue Lives Matter," and on the fringes, "White Lives Matter." One statistic that shocked me was that if the US released every POC from prison today, leaving only PWCs (apparently that's a term now) incarcerated, the country would still imprison more of its citizens per capita than any other country on Earth. From where I'm standing, everyone in the country has a vested interest in preventing over-incarceration and police violence, but BLM strikes me as both intersectional and anti-intersectional, with some of the former reaching.
BLM has highlighted a problem, correctly, but that problem is focused through a racial lens. BLM will boo a mayor for not defunding police, while also meeting with Nicholas Maduro, despite Venezuala's police violence being even worse than the US. BLM extends its mandate to black LGBT folks, but also have Palestinian flags at their rallies because that's somehow related, and gays are treated better in Israel than Palestine. BLM will recount the names of George Floyd and Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice, but not the names of Daniel Schafer, Andrew Thomas, or Dylan Noble. BLM, to shift to the UK a bit, will rightly point out that Black British are over-represented in arrests, while simultaniously yelling "hands up, don't shoot," despite the fact that UK police don't carry firearms, and deaths at the hands of police in the UK come to around three a year. BLM, in the US, will point out, correctly, that blacks are over-represented in police shootings/violence and whites are underrepresented, but much less is said on Amerindians (also over-represented) or Latinos and Asians (under-represented). It's why you'll get into a debate about whether the police are racially biased or blacks commit more crimes. Far less is the acknowledgement that both statements can be true.
A refrain I've heard is that if BLM's demands are met, then the reforms that follow through will benefit everyone. And to this, I agree. But that isn't the point here. The point I'm curious about, and maybe we won't know the answer for decades, when we look back at this in a similar manner to the Civil Rights movement, is whether the racial name and focus helped or hindered the cause. But on the question of the name, I can't help but wonder if the movement might have had more success if it made its focus on police brutality all-encompassing, because again, looking at the stats, over-incarceration and police brutality are universal problems, even if some groups suffer from it more than others.
I dunno, I guess how you feel about the movement's name and nature will depend as to whether you look up to Martin Luther King or Malcolm X more.
USA
