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Comment by formercoder | Hacker News Reader

Certainly. I even catch myself doing it too. I’ve had to develop a kind of framework for considering political issues to avoid it:

What’s best for me? What’s best for my family? What’s best for my community? What’s best for my country? What’s best for the planet?

Often these questions have contradicting answers. However once I think through them, I can at least begin to structure an opinion.

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I find it more concerning how quickly people forget the past. In 2016 BLM was responsible for a mass shooting in Dallas and most people I know already forgot this fact.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_shooting_of_Dallas_poli...

Your phrasing is misleading. BLM isn't responsible. A veteran sympathetic to the cause went on a shooting spree granted, but I don't know how you get from that to "BLM was responsible"

You cannot on one hand claim that BLM is an organic, grass roots, and completely headless organization while at the same time disclaiming someone as a member of the supposed unorganized organization composed entirely of people who self identify as BLM members.

There's a similar vein of argumentation that occurs with Antifa: everyone understands that there isn't a formal organization, but anyone who points out grassroots affiliation is dishonestly accused of claiming there is a formal organization, and can therefore be credibly debunked. It's highly dishonest stuff.

That logic isn't correct. Take for counter example Christians, a group of largely self identifying "members of an organisation". It doesn't logically follow that if a self-identifying Christian shoots a lot of people that "Christianity is responsible" either. That lacks nuance, of course groups of individuals that self-identify as part of a group can act as individuals and as a group, and it's often unclear externally which actions are attributable to a group and which are attributable to individuals or sub-groups.

It's simply impossible to be definitive with incomplete information, reductionist and I can't see the merit in basing a position in the presumption that all actions are of the whole.

If you want to draw a parallel to Christianity in this way then we can focus on what the organization does post-crisis.

A self identifying Christian who kills people in the name of Christianity is vocally condemned by other self identifying Christians and many would rush to say that they were mentally ill.

If BLM wants to not be lumped in with extremists then supporters of Black Lives Matter need to vocally and unequivocally condemn extremist and their acts that do not align with a supporter’s views of the group’s objectives. I have never seen a BLM supporter credibly call Micah Xavier Johnson mentally ill or an extremist. Extremist actions by BLM supporters are never condemned but rather excused by pointing to police brutality or institutional racism as being the root cause of the bad actor’s actions. While external forces may shape an extremist, it is the extremist who pulls the trigger. Personal responsibility means something and if the group won’t cast out the extremist then the group condones the actions.

Additionally, there is a key problem with your analogy: Christianity does not purport to be an organic, grass roots, and headless organization. Christianity flows from the church and it has a defined organization. It has spokespeople. It has explicit leadership.

I'm pretty sure lots of BLM supporters condemned Xavier Johnson... It's true that some activists tolerate and accept violence within their cause but that is not universally held, and while issues with police violence do complicate things, I agree with you that violent acts deserve condemnation.

The key problem you highlight with my analogy is not quite correct (although most if not all analogies have some flaws). There are various attempts at organisation and leadership in the Church, but there are also thousands of splits, sub-groups and even violence that has not always been universally condemned (such as in Northern Ireland where I'm from), as well as sanctioned in the Crusades.

An organisation that can have condemned violence while having encouraged crusades, and have members like the IRA does certainly seem like the kind of varied decentralised (or at least multi-centred) organisation that can have internally conflicting beliefs yet frequently be considered as a single entity externally. That was more my point. If you think BLM isn't a broad church, my guess is you don't know that many BLM supporters? My experience has been that a wide range of people support BLM, and most of them do not support murderous rampages, even if they can comprehend why the anger that manifested might have existed in the first place.

My experience in Northern Ireland also makes me extremely cautious about the mistake of retaliatory violence, but anyway. I'm still unconvinced that you could call BLM a singular organisations with all actions done by association attributable directly to it.

We are talking past each other. You are convinced your viewpoint is correct while I am convinced mine is correct. The reality is that we are engaging in an exercise of line drawing. You draw the line for "actions undertaken by an individual attributable to the group" at a different place than I do. I also doubt that your mind can be changed on where the line should be drawn, judging by your retreat to a "you must not know many BLM supporters" argument.

I do know many Black Lives Matter supporters. I also know that many of them no longer support BLM (note that I put BLM, not Black Lives Matter) because the movement has been co-opted by extremists. The second group includes me. While your experience may be distinct and real to you, I urge you to consider the impact that extremists have on the overall movement and how continuing to try to split hairs about who is and who is not a member of BLM while not vocally condemning and ostracizing extremists from what you view as the movement galvanizes not just BLM opponents but also neutral parties who agree with Black Lives Matter. Actions have consequences.

Well, I can see where you were coming from. As you point out, it is frustratingly ambiguous that BLM the phrase and the organisation are the same acronym.

I'm certainly not sure everyone who has funded BLM the organisation fully agrees or understands the difference either!

Thanks for clarifying what you mean.

Here's a video of BLM/Antifa protestors in Portland 1 week ago celebrating after one of their security detail apparently murdered a right-wing protester in cold-blood:

> "I am not sad that a fucking fascist died tonight" crowd cheers

https://clips.twitch.tv/TiredFunnySmoothieTwitchRPG

There is a scary level of support / apathy to violence. Don't get me wrong. I am never going to support violence and murder, and I too will judge those that do. I am simply seeking to avoid generalisation.

I'm not naïve to movements being co-opted. I have witnessed that first hand numerous times.

>If BLM wants to not be lumped in with extremists then supporters of Black Lives Matter need to vocally and unequivocally condemn extremist and their acts that do not align with a supporter’s views of the group’s objectives. I have never seen a BLM supporter credibly call Micah Xavier Johnson mentally ill or an extremist.

I mean, isn't this literally because you didn't do a Google search? https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/national-international/dall...

I don’t think you can fairly argue that “extremist actions by BLM supporters are never condemned.” I mean, I believe that black lives matter, yet I condemn taking of innocent lives.

I worry you are letting your philosophy shape your reality. It happens to us all. No judgement. I would just urge you to reconsider whether you have factual data to support your argument.

@Fellshard makes a good point that decentralisation is often a tool, used both by people who wish to disassociate a group with its actions.

Also this is true in reverse with people seeking to group people who are not actually acting as groups.

That kind of deliberate distortion only makes it harder to comprehend what is really happening often, but there's still a burden of proof.

Obviously organised criminals have been attempting to hide coordinated activity for the longest time too, I understand that bad actors exist who seek to pretend actions are not coordinated. But again, there are times when members of such organisations commit crimes off their own backs, which were not part of any conspiracy.

A couple of data points to look at – and I would argue these are the things at the heart of the conflict – are whether the organization officially supports an particular action, and then whether it’s mainstream members casually support it. I think you’d have a hard time finding a supporter of Black Lives Matter who would go on record as supporting the shootings in Dallas, however it's fairly easy to find support for extrajudicial killings of black Americans.

As numerous people have stated, it's not clear-cut. I support Black Lives Matter and protests supporting them; I also condemn rioting and property destruction, as I think it hurts the cause and innocent bystanders (like small business owners). I'm in favor of having a police department, however I think policing in America is fundamentally unjust and needs serious reform.

There will always be murder, unfortunately, just as there will always be dingalings from all points of the political spectrum running around telling people in public spaces “You can't film here!” We have to condemn those actions regardless of whether it's coming from someone whose political ideology we agree with.

I think "responsible" might be overstating it.

But if BLM is not responsible, then it does poke holes in the ACAB and maybe even "Defund the Police" positions. If protestors can dissociate from rogue actors, can police? If not, what's the clear difference beyond political tribalism?

The trouble is the behaviors in the police seem to be fairly widespread, the perpetrators are protected, and reform is actively resisted. At that point it isn't a rouge actor.

There has always been police violence, but what cell phones have done is reveal how widespread it may have always been, rejecting the rouge actor narrative.

And how is the rogue actor narrative intact vis a vis the riots?

Leaders associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, including organizers of the protest rally, condemned the shooting -- Wikipedia

Have we seen anything in particular that strongly suggests the Dallas shooting was not a rogue agent?

I specifically asked about the arson and other violence that has been going on all summer.

I would expect the police to investigate and remove own bad actors. The police have the power to fire cops, to charge cops and imprison bad cops. I think that when police does that, the police should absolutely be able dissociate from those cops actions. On the other hand, if bad cops are not removed or are promoted, then police can not dissociate.

I would expect some similar test to be applied to BLM. Is the person who shoot up people talked about positively and promoted as role model to BLM fans? Is that person instead pushed away?

Imo, it is actions of leadership and generally of culture of the organization that determines whether dissociation from bad member is real or an not real. E.g. whether member is rogue or standard.

What does this have to do with either formercoder’s comment or with filming at protests? I’m failing to understand what point you’re trying to make here.

The previous two comments where about tribalism. I think tribalism has a lot to do with this forgetfulness of inconvenient facts

If your point is that people on both the right and the left are capable of immoral behavior and that we should condemn, I agree with you! I think I missed the point you were trying to make because it appeared that you were only highlighting and correlating heinous acts from one person who supported a position that you disagree with.

My point is actually beyond politics. If this thread was about my therapist, I might talk about a particular family member and their tribe. And how I had to cut contact with that tribe because of abuse and the tribe conveniently forgetting the abuse.

But this is a thread about BLM, so I'm bringing up an issue related to that.

For a personal take, I avoid any tribe where I see this forgetfullness and will point it out. This behaviour is gaslighting and can be a traumatic experience

This thread is about Black Lives Matter, which is a movement focused on the injustice of police brutality and criminal justice reform. Your point - which I take to be that that tribalism is bad - is less potent because you pointed out “forgetfulness” of people who support black lives matter but not in people who support the status quo of police use of power, which seems to be a demonstration of tribalism rather than a repudiation if it.

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