Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

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You see your problem as "police enforcement in the US is out of control". Other people see different problems. You saying, "We should all work to fix my problem because I am sure your problem is the same as mine" is effectively saying, "help me fix my problem before I will listen to you about your problem". Because your notion that you understand the problems of black people better than they themselves do is definitely a sign that you aren't listening.

And sure, the American notion of race is a bullshit social construct, but it is one that white people created, put into law, and enforced. And of course used as a tool to gain power. So if white people would like race not to be an issue anymore, they should get other white people to stop making it a thing. Telling black people to stop noticing the racial bias directed against them by white people will not actually end the bias, it just hides the evidence.

[1] e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

Well when I see cops shooting people for the diciest of reasons, and enforcing laws with little discretion and maximum force, I'm not convinced that I'm wrong by the argument "Black lives matter". People are free to believe what they want, but obviously there is a messaging problem with "BLM".

You don't have to be convinced to be respectful. It is certainly not their job and probably not their goal to convince you.

Also, it's not obvious at all that there's a messaging problem. I get that a bunch of white people don't like the message. But a bunch of white people will dislike anything black people do to push back against a system that harms them.

For decades white people have been telling black activists that they're doing it wrong. And their main cited evidence is that white people are uncomfortable. MLK got a lot of that, and he responded to it here:

https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

I certainly agree that the "Black Lives Matter" slogan makes me, a white person, uncomfortable. But as far as I'm concerned, that's just what it should be doing. If other people are being maltreated by a system that I have the power to change, that shouldn't feel warm and fuzzy.

"You don't have to be convinced to be respectful. It is certainly not their job and probably not their goal to convince you."

Sorry? If they want to create political change in a democratic society, it is their job to convince him.

No, not at all.

Think about the technology adoption curve, as seen in Crossing the Chasm. It's not the job, or even the goal, of a person creating a new technology to convince everybody. At any moment, a small portion of people are open to changing their minds on a given thing. Mostly, they do what they grew up with, or what the people around them are doing.

The same is generally true socially. Consider this graph:

http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Prod...

Now subtract the death rate from that graph. If you do, you'll see that a relatively small number of people changed their minds at any given point. Much of the change comes because old bigots died off, taking their retrograde opinions to the grave with them.

So basically, an activist who wants to change minds, like a technology marketer, shouldn't focus their efforts on convincing everybody. Persuasive efforts are best spent on the people who are most ready to change. Which in my experience is generally the person listening carefully, not the guy who runs up to shout, "No, you're doing it all wrong. Do it my way."

"Black Lives Matter" is not an argument, its a rallying cry. They serve substantially different purposes. (Activists in the BLM movement make many arguments, but "Black Lives Matter" isn't one of them -- insofar as it has a structural relationship to the arguments, its a statement of a key uniting element of the moral foundation on which the arguments are based.)

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