I think a better question to ask is whether the groups and ideologies involved in the BLM protests (which were MASSIVE) were ever allowed to have power?
If BLM failed to enact significant policy change than I don’t think it is because BLM wasn’t focused enough, had unrealistic goals or was handled badly, I think it is because in terms of law enforcement policy it really doesn’t matter what voters do or don’t want. Any kind of noise made by voters and the public about police violence and the inherent problems with police (and their vital role in maintaining economic injustice and inequality through state violence) will be aggressively pushed back in the opposite direction by the political forces of law enforcement, and because the average person has no power and their vote is useless this will result in a broad push in policy in the opposite direction of BLM’s goals.
However, the function of BLM must be seen for what it was then, to lay bare the true nature of the power relationship between voters and cops and in the minds of countless, countless people living in the US it delegitimized the authority of law enforcement to commit violence wherever and howsoever it chooses. It sent a massive crack through the entire structure of policing, jails and systematic divestment from minorities and the poor. Just because BLM didn’t create significant policy changes doesn’t mean that the battle hasn’t already been lost for the legitimacy of law enforcement in the long term in the US, and I call that a victory.
Yeah, I think this is it right here. While the protests might not have done much for those of us who were already painfully aware of the cops’ racism, behavioral issues, and lack of accountability, it did make it so that everyone else had to pay attention. You couldn’t ignore the protests, they were everywhere. I don’t have numbers, but I think a whole lot of white people who by default didn’t believe there was any real injustice in the system finally saw it, at least for a little while.
That said, it was unfortunately fleeting, and there hasn’t been enough sustained motivation to address the systemic issues that would need to be fixed for law enforcement to ever be properly held accountable. The people doing that admirable work are still doing it while the cops still have too much power. They might think twice before murdering someone in front of a camera. Maybe. They’ll still do the murder, they’ll just make sure there’s no evidence.
So, a net positive, but the bar was already so damn low.
I think there is a big piece missing if we want to make lasting change. Protests should be the first part and we have missed many opportunities by skipping the second part. Challenging the legality of the issues in court. The MLK jr. movements were so powerful because they changed the laws. In many cases they “got arrested” on purpose and then challenged the legality of the issues in court with some amazing well armed lawyering. The protests, though important, should only be to stir up public opinion and momentum, followed by a timely well thought out and public challenge to the laws we wish to change. That’s where to orgs should be focusing their energy to capitalize on these fleeting moments.
I think there is a big piece missing if we want to make lasting change. Protests should be the first part and we have missed many opportunities by skipping the second part.
Certainly so, but also I think an important difference between the civil rights movement with MLK and current day is the public is actually much closer to siding with the civil rights protestors now, MLK and others were not necessarily anywhere near as accepted during their time as a political activist figures though their ideas may have won out in the long term. We forget this when we see people like MLK as “popular figures” now.
I think the current problem is not that the majority believes in defending the racist structures of society, we don’t need an MLK to convince us that systematic and direct racism are abhorrent. The majority of us know, but the other difference between the civil rights movements of the MLK era and now is that we are far more powerless as a public body of normal people to actually wield power politically and enact the changes Black Lives Matter advocated for. We can’t change the laws, the rich and powerful WILL NOT let it happen, and we live in a time period where their power is near absolute.
We can’t judge the BLM or Occupy movement for failing to create policy changes when both movements were specifically born out of a desire to directly express the unsustainable nature of disempowerment in the US of the average person. We have reached a maximum point of powerlessness against an entrenched, corrupt political system and at this point policy just isn’t going to happen unless we all collectively keeping threatening to shut it all down.
Define "BLM", "protests", and "success" because any combination of different variables produces a different result. Additionally, even then, there is a lot of nuance to being successful when it comes to political movements.
The protests undoubtedly brought more attention to policing and racial issues in general. They obviously didn't solve either problem. Some states passed progressive policing laws, some regressed out of spite or in reacting to the other states.
Then you also have the category of "well, it might have made an impact on this but we'll never know". For instance, does Biden win in 2020 without the Black Lives Matter protests? No idea, and nobody truly does or even can. That would be an enormous impact on many things, some of which may not even have been goals of the protests.
Tldr: nahhh
In the cities in which the protests took place within America, I don't know of a single one that lowered the funding for the police from 2020 levels. Most, maybe ALL including liberal bastion NYC, gave record increases to the policing budget. So from the metric of the stated goals of the protests, "Defund the Police," it was a massive failure and waste of time and energy.
But from the perspective of getting the public to take notice of ongoing police brutality?
I have no idea. Lemmy's pretty much an anti-pig echo chamber, and I couldn't tell you the actual cultural zeitgeist on bootlicking
Probably bad
Yes. To put it simply: we didn't solve the problem - but it is undeniable there is a problem.
Well it got some politicians and corporations to do some performative "we stand with them" gestures. That's the same as enacting meaningful change in the criminal system and in systemic racism, right? /s
From my perspective, largely not. More of a cultural speedbump with a bunch of pale white people painting BLM on stuff in their neighborhoods and clapping themselves on the back over it and the BLM flag they hung in the window. Here's why I think that:
Recently we got a measily $1.9m in funding for a civilian-led group to deal with non-violent conflict resolution instead of the police, but that feels like small potatoes compared to lifting up people of color living in poverty in poor neighborhoods, improving public schools in poverty-stricken areas so that people can actually get decent jobs, and cleaning up pollution in poorer neighborhoods, which tend to get pushed next to sooty highways, commercial rail tracks with poisonous cargo, and smoggy airports (not to mention food deserts).
I'd consider it a success if there was a massive push for better funding public schools and trade schools in poor areas, significant prison reform and in-prison job & budget training, significantly better social safety net programs for the bottom 35% of the population, and much, much tighter regulations on emissions and pollutants that make low income neighborhoods unhealthy to live in due to undesirable infrastructure nearby.
Currently, we aren't doing much to ACTUALLY lift people out of the doldrums of poverty, in both direct and indirect ways. It's frustrating to watch.
There were massive protests in Hamburg, so at least you can say it had a long and powerful reach.
To an extent, yeah, at least where I live, albeit at the cost of worsening the pandemic.
Literal nazi talking point.
What else do you think it would've done, honestly?
Seeing how nobody even knew who they were before despite organizing an equally large protest a few years before, yes. Liberal media was desperate to cover it up just like they did last time but they weren't able to. Just the fact Valve outed themselves as a racist company by refusing to stand with them is evidence enough that they found success, because before then they were a squeaky clean company with the PR to smooth over all the dark money shit they were profiting from on their platform. Did they end racism? No, but it was a huge step towards making people realize it was very much a real and ongoing thing. Their biggest failing in my opinion was not calling it what it was; a deliberate genocide.
