uziq
Member
+492|3422
no, when something happens and you finally notice it, my first reaction is 'welcome aboard'.

critiques of the met police or institutional bias, corruption (and, yes, racism) are not exactly new.

you're acting like the latest report is a complete game-changer. but of course: you ignore everyone else's analysis because you're a racist.

defund the police doesn't mean 'eliminating' the police. laughing my fucking ass off. here we go ONCE AGAIN.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
It's the worst possible slogan if reform is the intent. Very 21st century though.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
why? it’s your problem if you don’t understand the concept of defunding. defunding the military doesn’t mean abandoning all defence, does it?

hospitals and schools are frequently referred to as being ‘defunded’ in a given budget. conservatives often like that sort of thing. is the aim to abandon education and healthcare?  no. the understanding is clearly that funds must be diverted elsewhere, other priorities shuffled forward, or simply spending reduced.

how anyone can look at america’s militarised, spoiled, overweening police forces, and then consider the piss-poor provision of social services, mental healthcare, or just plain old-fashioned community investment … and then feel threatened when poor and harassed people campaign to divert funds from the police to social services … is astonishing to me.

now jay isn’t here i’m honestly surprised we still have to point out the difference between reformist strategies (defunding, building alliances, peaceful protesting) and revolutionary anarchists who want to topple society. radicals generally aren't very interested in democratic participation or tax+spend.

Last edited by uziq (2021-06-17 10:07:35)

SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689
Wasn't Larssen also upset at the phrase Black Lives Matter? Is there a phrase he would be comfortable with? I don't think there is any phrase that will make mouth foaming republicans come around to police reform.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
uziq
Member
+492|3422
yes larssen has a bit of that old provincial belgian thing going on where he likes to grumble on behalf of aggrieved white working-class people (i.e. his grandparents or whatever).

'saying black lives matter makes working white people feel left out'. because of course how could it be any other way?

better to talk in vague and abstract terms about enriching everybody whilst, of course, working for huge centrist bureaucracies and management consultancies that effect the exact fucking opposite result.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
I was 'upset' at the exportation of a phrase used in a distinct, unique american context to all other parts of the globe, down to being painted on a metro in Brussels. If uzique is honest with himself, he will be able to acknowledge that in countries with divides along totally different social, cultural, economic, historical lines, the stupidly lazy copy paste of concepts from one culture to another will not exactly be a great starting point for public dialogue. It's americanisms and american history being imposed on everyone else. It has since evolved to a more ambiguous phrase that's adopting more or less its own meaning in different contexts but whatever, I still feel that piece of cultural encroachment isn't doing much good for anyone. I don't want the historical american divides to become truths in themselves elsewhere through the cultural fallout that occurs whenever you assholes decide to pelt stones at eachother once again.

Having said so, the 'defund the police' slogan is obviously more about controversy in the sense that it makes for fantastically enraging headlines to quite a few people. It's also a great rallying cry for a broad group of people from those who are genuinely reform minded to those who actually are more anarchist inclined because they'll all attach their own meaning to that little slogan. No I'm not about to side with your police either, fuck them. But I feel it's a terrible slogan for anything other than organising riots and pissing people off. (oh but it really gets the conversation going!!)

Last edited by Larssen (2021-06-17 10:55:42)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

We could always try kneeling at football games instead. I'm sure that peaceful approach won't get under anyone's skin.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
'organising riots'.

https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news- … arch-finds

Here is what we have found based on the 7,305 events we’ve collected. The overall levels of violence and property destruction were low, and most of the violence that did take place was, in fact, directed against the BLM protesters.

First, police made arrests in 5% of the protest events, with over 8,500 reported arrests (or possibly more). Police used tear gas or related chemical substances in 2.5% of these events.

Protesters or bystanders were reported injured in 1.6 percent of the protests. In total, at least three Black Lives Matter protesters and one other person were killed while protesting in Omaha, Austin and Kenosha, Wis. One anti-fascist protester killed a far-right group member during a confrontation in Portland, Ore.; law enforcement killed the alleged assailant several days later.

Police were reported injured in 1% of the protests. A law enforcement officer killed in California was allegedly shot by supporters of the far-right “boogaloo” movement, not anti-racism protesters.

The killings in the line of duty of other law enforcement officers during this period were not related to the protests.

Only 3.7% of the protests involved property damage or vandalism. Some portion of these involved neither police nor protesters, but people engaging in vandalism or looting alongside the protests.

In short, our data suggest that 96.3% of events involved no property damage or police injuries, and in 97.7% of events, no injuries were reported among participants, bystanders or police.

These figures should correct the narrative that the protests were overtaken by rioting and vandalism or violence.
it seems one of those terribly passé 'americanisms' you deplore is, you know, civil disobedience and democratic protest.

spoken like a true eurocrat.

but don't let figures and statistics get in the way of your passional defenses of the status quo!
DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+794|6654|United States of America

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

We could always try kneeling at football games instead. I'm sure that peaceful approach won't get under anyone's skin.
That's right!
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689

Larssen wrote:

I was 'upset' at the exportation of a phrase used in a distinct, unique american context to all other parts of the globe, down to being painted on a metro in Brussels. If uzique is honest with himself, he will be able to acknowledge that in countries with divides along totally different social, cultural, economic, historical lines, the stupidly lazy copy paste of concepts from one culture to another will not exactly be a great starting point for public dialogue. It's americanisms and american history being imposed on everyone else. It has since evolved to a more ambiguous phrase that's adopting more or less its own meaning in different contexts but whatever, I still feel that piece of cultural encroachment isn't doing much good for anyone. I don't want the historical american divides to become truths in themselves elsewhere through the cultural fallout that occurs whenever you assholes decide to pelt stones at eachother once again.

Having said so, the 'defund the police' slogan is obviously more about controversy in the sense that it makes for fantastically enraging headlines to quite a few people. It's also a great rallying cry for a broad group of people from those who are genuinely reform minded to those who actually are more anarchist inclined because they'll all attach their own meaning to that little slogan. No I'm not about to side with your police either, fuck them. But I feel it's a terrible slogan for anything other than organising riots and pissing people off. (oh but it really gets the conversation going!!)
Complaints about cultural diffusion is comical when it comes from someone who talks up globalization and the free exchange of ideas. If you don't like foreign concepts taking hold in your country, advocate for Soviet style censorship.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
What, you live in a world where nuance doesn't exist? Being a proponent of a very broad and far reaching concept that influences all aspects of life means you can't be critical of certain facets? That's a bit of a dimwitted argument don't you think.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857

uziq wrote:

it seems one of those terribly passé 'americanisms' you deplore is, you know, civil disobedience and democratic protest.

spoken like a true eurocrat.

but don't let figures and statistics get in the way of your passional defenses of the status quo!
Riots, protests, whatever the commoners get up to these days. Qu'ils mangent de la brioche hon hon hon
uziq
Member
+492|3422
your nuance is just bullshit. pretending that black people
in belgium climbing on a statue of king leopold is somehow a category error, and they’ve been ‘misled’ by an alien american history, is just so much nonsense.

as i said above, and as macbeth has you nailed, you retreat into academic discernment and hair-splitting. it’s nothing but white anxiety on your part, a wish to disarm the issue via endless analysis.

you talk a lot of fine claptrap about supporting social movements for equality, but you keep them abstruse enough for policy. more empty boardroom talk for self-satisfied bureaucrats and SPADs. meanwhile a real movement went off like a hand grenade last year and all you can do is cry out for ‘nuance’.

is it ‘nuanced’ when you profess ignorance of what ‘defund the police means’? are you really being sophisticated and nuanced when you say BLM ‘organises riots’? lmao give us a fucking break. you’re an intelligent guy, you can read a manifesto and appraise some statistics.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr … ra-donegan

relevant.
uziq
Member
+492|3422

Larssen wrote:

uziq wrote:

it seems one of those terribly passé 'americanisms' you deplore is, you know, civil disobedience and democratic protest.

spoken like a true eurocrat.

but don't let figures and statistics get in the way of your passional defenses of the status quo!
Riots, protests, whatever the commoners get up to these days. Qu'ils mangent de la brioche hon hon hon
you are a commoner. your pretences of being some elevated bureaucrat are badly undone when you start talking like a small-town belgian grocer.
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
I was plenty clear even back then that I strongly prefer social movements within a given culture to choose their starting point for internal debate in a way that it is fully informed by and respectful to the context of their own surroundings. To me it was about underlying american conceptions of (historical) black vs white being a significant influence in debates and protests for equality elsewhere; it was absolutely front and centre if we're looking to the murder of george floyd by a police officer in the US. I saw for example a possible threat in that event & slogan translating itself to posturing vs police forces in many other parts of the globe, while each of them wildly differ in so many ways it's not even worth comparing the varying contexts.

I have no issue whatsoever with the descendents of belgian congolese taking issue with Leopold's image in public display. I have no issue with any other minority populations in Europe taking issue with colonial monuments, though in some specific cases I'd gladly engage in debate over it.

Another white guy accusing me of white anxiety lmao get the fuck outta here. You both misinterpret and misrepresent my argument, so much for an editor knowing how to fucking read. I also think white anxiety may be one of those terms that perfectly encapsulate what I'm speaking of; americanisations defining equality debates elsewhere. A UK citizen accusing me, a continental european, of white anxiety, in a cultural context he's not even familiar with.

Last edited by Larssen (2021-06-17 13:16:53)

Larssen
Member
+99|1857

uziq wrote:

Larssen wrote:

uziq wrote:

it seems one of those terribly passé 'americanisms' you deplore is, you know, civil disobedience and democratic protest.

spoken like a true eurocrat.

but don't let figures and statistics get in the way of your passional defenses of the status quo!
Riots, protests, whatever the commoners get up to these days. Qu'ils mangent de la brioche hon hon hon
you are a commoner. your pretences of being some elevated bureaucrat are badly undone when you start talking like a small-town belgian grocer.
eurocrats are about as elevated a bureaucrat you can be, checkmate
SuperJail Warden
Gone Forever
+634|3689

Larssen wrote:

I was plenty clear even back then that I strongly prefer social movements within a given culture to choose their starting point for internal debate in a way that it is fully informed by and respectful to the context of their own surroundings. To me it was about underlying american conceptions of (historical) black vs white being a significant influence in debates and protests for equality elsewhere; it was absolutely front and centre if we're looking to the murder of george floyd by a police officer in the US. I saw for example a possible threat in that event & slogan translating itself to posturing vs police forces in many other parts of the globe, while each of them wildly differ in so many ways it's not even worth comparing the varying contexts.

I have no issue whatsoever with the descendents of belgian congolese taking issue with Leopold's image in public display. I have no issue with any other minority populations in Europe taking issue with colonial monuments, though in some specific cases I'd gladly engage in debate over it.

Another white guy accusing me of white anxiety lmao get the fuck outta here. You both misinterpret and misrepresent my argument, so much for an editor knowing how to fucking read.
By your logic, the Arab Spring, the color revolutions, etc. are all illegitimate because they were encouraged by events outside of their countries? And how do you know what is in the hearts of the people who were inspired by the BLM movement in the U.S.?

BlAcK pEoPlE were only one part of the 2020 rioting anyway. It was obvious on the ground here in the U.S. that a lot of it was backlash to COVID restrictions, economic collapse, and 4 years of Trump.
https://i.imgur.com/xsoGn9X.jpg
Larssen
Member
+99|1857
No macbeth. Not every instance of domino theory in action is immediately illegitimate. Stop thinking only in absolutes pls. There's barely any way to even directly compare BLM to the Arab spring, god.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6741|PNW

SuperJail Warden wrote:

This post will self destruct once Newbie sees it by the way.
Go-go gadget dog poison.
uziq
Member
+492|3422
imagine trying to make out BLM is a bunch of rioters, still, in 2021. imagine pointing out, tediously, that every country has its own context and dynamics. someone get this guy a nobel prize!

non-white people still experience life across this multiplicity of unique, ‘incomparable’ nations (ex-empires) in a subaltern position. they all come up against historically racist institutions and structures. they all experience racism, on the daily, in affect. the statistics plainly give a picture in which they, pretty much across the board, experience the rough end of the policing and justice systems in comparison to their majority-white denizens. death in custody or extra-judicial killings are overwhelmingly meted out to people of colour or minority-status, at the very same time as official media and right-wing popular culture minimises their suffering or perpetuates racist narratives. or does something as visceral as murder need to be ‘culturally relativised’ by fine and discerning minds such as yourself?

isn’t that all a bit, i don’t know … postmodern? (look at how emotive and invested dilbert is in his family psychodrama with the corrupt police: he’s permitted anger, suspicion, hatred towards the police because it’s of course ‘rational’; but BLM’s wide-ranging and structural critique of the police in the face of similar widespread injustices is somehow self-defeating, anti-social, a looming threat to ‘peace-and-order?’) and if we’re being postmodern and clever little relativists … it’s weird how you’re never self-reflexive and nuanced about your own subject position, and mimic the rather non-relative, absolute, dogmatic judgments and dismissals of dilbert when it suits you, isn’t it?

is this how you write your history term papers? by saying that nothing can ever be compared to anything because the U.K. had a different history to belgium who had a different history to france? are you being for real? wow, the finest mind of a generation … bending spoons with nuance over here!

has it ever occurred to you that the deeper economic and cultural structures which undergirded the world-system through the modern era, might have something to do with it? that maybe this is systemic? to empire? to capitalism? a lacunae in the foundation of the modern liberal democratic state, even? whoosh! where’s your analytical mind now? the ability to compare, synthesise and analogise is just as important as endless deconstruction, don’t you know. i thought you were rather against endless, arid and ultimately fruitless deconstruction? pointing out that neighbouring european states have ‘histories of their own’ is a bit sophistical when they were all mutually engaged in the slave trade for hundreds of years, isn’t it, don’t you think? what is the end behind all of your constant hemming and hawing?

‘white anxiety’ as a phrase gets at something rather succinctly in this performance of yours. your vacillation between two modes: disdainful, contemptuous, above-the-plebeian-mobs eurocrat and ‘speaking for my people’, telling-it-straight, sawdust and grit ‘authentic white person’. you can’t decide whether you’re a metternich or a poujade. ‘white anxiety’ is indeed a great diagnosis for this weird effect, whereby a person with a master’s degree and a finely tuned sense of public service (supposedly) looks at a year of 7,500 peaceful protests and talks hysterically about ‘organising riots and revolts’. it is the height of irrational ludicrousness. something about this topic gets you flustered in a way that rather gives the lie to all your well-oiled technocratic blague. and it’s because it’s capital-H History, structural history, and an historical movement which displaces you and your personal feelings as a white guy from the centre-ground of the debate.

Last edited by uziq (2021-06-17 15:27:07)

Larssen
Member
+99|1857
It seems it completely flew over your head that me poking fun was tacit admission that my choice of words (rioting) wasn't careful, but whatever, you'll invariably latch on to even the most minute of discrepancies in a text to beat it to death ad infinitum. It's ok, uziq, I can deal with your OCD-esque tendencies.

As to the content of your post; lots of blabla, but your fourth (fifth*) paragraph is actually interesting and dives down to something I would've gotten at if we carried this on a little longer. A point which I don't think figures strongly in the public debates on these issues at all. The critiques of racial inequality are rarely focused critiques of capitalism, that's a side-show to the overdominant narrative of society as a whole and particularly dominant social groups being racist, explicitly, implicitly, conscious or unconscious. But yes, the fact that minority populations all over the world regardless of the governance of a country all seem to get disproportionately stuck at the peripheries of our social-economic centres of power is about one of the only real constants you can find which, indeed, may just indicate that more fundamental systems - notably our (global) economic governance - are strongly implicated as (partially) causal to the situation at hand.

But that's rarely what's being protested now is it. It's not about the great synthesis of economic and social critique, the center of gravity here is much more in the latter than the former. And if we're going the social critique route, I really don't feel that extrapolating analytical lenses and slogans from one very different culture to another is conducive in any way. I've reiterated that point about enough times now.

White anxiety is an absolutely meaningless term to me and I think it's a very fucking pointless concept if it's pasted onto a society where people do not primarily or even secondarily identify as white. Just take one look at Europe and you'll see that the social dynamics are not ruled by fucking skin colour to the extent that it's true in the United States. There's no 'white passing' here. White as snow Eastern Europeans were and still are part of the discriminated minorities in many places. The roma and gypsies have lived and still live on the periphery since forever. In France you don't even have racial categorisation and censuses and identity is more strongly shaped along geographical lines in banlieues vs city centres etc. etc. etc. Now we're increasingly seeing a shift to american dividing lines because of the overdominance of US cultural exports, but it's not necessarily native to here and it's not catching on as well everywhere. At best slogans are merely borrowed into a local context, at worst the tireless social brigade tries to literally ctrl+c ctrl+v their reality here. They don't always succeed either, as not all of it catches on thankfully.

tiny disclaimer; this does not mean that race does not matter, which I'm sure you will somehow try to deduce because you suck.

tldr you're a stupid plebe.

Last edited by Larssen (2021-06-17 15:33:33)

uziq
Member
+492|3422
OCD-esque, a plebe … lol. the facade of the technocrat with a superior grasp on politics slips pretty quickly, doesn’t it? i’m pretty sure i’m from a higher-class social background than yourself. which is why i’m pointing out the interesting tensions in your reactionary nativism.

it’s not at all clear to me what you achieve by emphasising the differences between BLM-USA and BLM in western europe. all this talk of context and nuance: but why? why do you need to wield endless distinctions when the structures underneath have engendered, almost without variation, the same results? every liberal democratic state which was founded on conquest, capitalism and racist systems of perception can benefit from a bit of self-reckoning. stressing that the wisconsin police force aren’t related to the belgian police doesn’t exactly seem to drive at very much to me. you’re being post-structuralist rather than structuralist, which is rather what most ‘good’ history consists of. soon you’ll be telling us that everyone ‘has their own truth’ and ultimately we can’t form any verdicts on these histories…

you massively overstate the supposed ‘cultural differences’ between the US and EU on matters of race relations. you precisely deny structural similarities and shared system of exploitation and subjugation. it’s really very silly to emphasise that post-colonial subjects in europe have a different ‘cultural context’ to post-plantation citizens in the united states.

all of this is just a desperate strategy to assert yourself and your own experience/feelings into the centre of an issue. rather than admitting their point, and building a coalition or admitting to their reformist demands, you need to reassert control over the matter, first and foremost through this lame rhetorical display of your ‘nuanced’ mind. it’s really a sad performance. you are insisting still that BLM is pointless, poorly phrased, rallying behind empty slogans … a year and many thousands of protests later. lol.

the one who calls others plebs ends up echoing right-wing tabloid media in vain. ‘b-b-b-but they’re rioting and hate white people!!! that’s MY identity!!!’

BLM is very concerned with economic critique you dipshit. that’s why they want to DEFUND the police. it’s not merely finger-pointing at identity groups. they want previously racist, capitalist societies to be more fair! equitable! inclusive! jesus christ do you even listen to
your own arguments? do you really think a movement that protests the private prison industry is economically blind? Ffs go and read something.

Last edited by uziq (2021-06-17 15:58:54)

Larssen
Member
+99|1857
No I'm defending my views at the time which I still see as legitimate arguments. Whenever I engage in discussions about this I also always insist on focusing on the post-WW2 migration surge and its economic reasons and dimensions, which are very much fundamental to our current interactions within the context of my (and wider western European) society. Why are minorities poorly represented in the (upper) middle class? The reasons for this go a little deeper than surface judgements, unconscious racisms, ideas of historical segregationism more prevalent in the US and its structures, colonialism, or the idea that we all as individuals need to be endlessly introspective and attentive in our interactions with one another. There are much more material and recent-history factors at play. I like to emphasise these, because I feel that particular analytical lens is more conducive to finding solutions that are actually worth pursuing. Most people I encounter are not necessarily aware of all this, or too preoccupied with the surface and the social interactions to dive down to the source. Most people also end up agreeing with me there, as I'm sure you'll do now.

None of them are such sour grapes as yourself though.

As for what label my mode of thinking deserves; cmon now analysis is just a tool and different perspectives offer different valuable insights.

Last edited by Larssen (2021-06-17 15:47:15)

uziq
Member
+492|3422
‘different perspectives are valuable maaaan’ = how do i insert my feelings as a white european into the centre of this debate. i must surely have something equally insightful and clever to say about the experience of racism!

turns out you add basically nothing. your posts are an almost wilful and dishonest exercise in mischaracterising BLM. climbing down and rolling back on your statements as ‘just jokes’ or ‘knowingly exaggerated language’ is pretty transparent.

time and time again you’ve expressed your basic discomfort at ‘black lives matter’ as a saying; you’ve spoken about being made uncomfortable by sweeping comparisons between the USA and europe, despite the very shared and entwined modern histories at play, despite them both being inventions of a modern world system, both being truly characteristic of an epoch. well too bad! maybe you could listen to someone else and learn a little rather than stroking yourself and talking about how ‘valuable’ your brand of analysis is to the debate. it is not.

Last edited by uziq (2021-06-17 15:51:48)

Larssen
Member
+99|1857

uziq wrote:

BLM is very concerned with economic critique you dipshit. that’s why they want to DEFUND the police. it’s not merely finger-pointing at identity groups. they want previously racist, capitalist societies to be more fair! equitable! inclusive! jesus christ do you even listen to
your own arguments? do you really think a movement that protests the private prison industry is economically blind? Ffs go and read something.
The police and its interaction with society is not an economic dimension.

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