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Comment by DanHulton | Hacker News Reader

Because there is no "genuine honest neutrality" behind those phrases. They're shibboleths. They're commonly understood slogans, used to indicate what side you're on (or at least what side you're opposed to) while SOUNDING innocent. The people who know, will KNOW what you mean when you say them.

(And in the incredibly unlikely situation where you'd somehow been exposed to enough of the discourse to come up with these phrases on their own, but NOT so much that you hadn't heard them yet, they're still terrible concepts that have been roundly denounced on their own merits. For just one example: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAsrVFXD3Ju/?utm_source=ig_embed...)

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> They're commonly understood slogans, used to indicate what side you're on (or at least what side you're opposed to) while SOUNDING innocent.

This confusion was created the other side's choice of name, whether purposely or not.

You start off with a phrase like Black Lives Matter. This is clearly a political slogan designed to provoke opponents into taking the negation of it, i.e. into claiming that black lives don't matter.

The problem with it is that it's too clever by half, because it gives opponents the ability to claim the middle. All Lives Matter.

And it's a two party system so now both the center and the right are standing under the banner of the neutral slogan. Now BLM declares that ALM are really just a bunch of secret racists because otherwise they have to eat the rhetorical self-own.

But this is just an attempt to reassert the politically-motivated original framing, i.e. that anyone who disagrees with any BLM political position -- even if the disagreement comes from the center -- is saying they think black lives don't matter. Which is not necessarily the case.

“All lives matter” is not a neutral slogan when it is said in the context of the death penalty, nor is it neutral when spoken as a response to “Black lives matter”. It is only neutral when spoken out side of any political context.

If you define away neutrality, there is no neutrality, yes. But does everyone agree with your definition?

This seems more like a "you're with us or against us" trick.

"I care about protecting all children" is still neutral, right? But if someone popularized "ICAPBC", by your argument "ICAPAC" would innately become a shibboleth? Something doesn't seem right here, where neutral positions automatically get converted to dog-whistles without any proof.

What is neutrality in this scenario? BLM is about protesting anti-black racial injustice in the criminal justice system. Is neutral ground that there is no injustice? That it doesn't matter?

Yes, there was violence at a small fraction of protests, and it's fair to have pushback on that. That seems a separate issue than rejecting BLM on the face of it with an expression like ALM.

Neutral ground is that injustice is wrong, no matter who it happens to. It's wrong when it happens to blacks, it's wrong when it happens to Asians, it's wrong when it happens to Hispanics, and it's wrong when it happens to whites. That's neutral.

From there, you look around and you see that blacks and Hispanics seem to have injustice happening to them in ways that don't often happen to whites. (Not sure about Asians; but my perception is that they may experience injustice, but less of it than blacks.) And then, coming from a position that all injustice matters, when you seen injustice happening more to specific groups, you say "That injustice matters." Not that it's the only injustice that matters, or that other injustice doesn't, but that specific injustice seems to happen a lot, and it's not OK. We need to do something about it.

I see your example of a neutral stance, and it’s true, and racially neutral. It’s also not relevant to the conversation around BLM, which focuses on anti-black injustice. I take issue with that ALM is used to subvert BLM; why else would the phrase exist and popularize at this time and context? Therefore, ALM is not an assertion of the neutral stance you propose, but instead a rejection of the reality or importance of race-specific injustice.

"The lives of people to whom injustice happens due to extra-judicial murders by the police, who are predominantly black matter and should be considered" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

In contrast "Black Lives Matter" describes the issue exactly, succinctly and pithily. As a bonus it outs the people who want to remain willfully ignorant about it.

> they're still terrible concepts that have been roundly denounced on their own merits

Hol' up, "it is ok to be white," is a terrible concept denounced on its own merits? Lol ok

It's a good thing that under Critical Theory, since race is a social construction (that's why Black is supposed to be capitalized, because it refers to the construction, not the color) there's no reason besides being "roundly denounced" (which will happen eventually to you anyway if you're an untermensch White) that you can't be transracial.

I'm not White, I'm a light tan person. Get off my lawn with your racist Theory.

You are falling into the trap that was explicitly set up by trolls. If it was not well known to be explicitly set up by trolls, "it is ok to be white” would be a fine, boring statement.

But, it has been established that chan trolls came together to figure out a slogan that they could use to stir up heated arguments exactly like you are making. They settled on "it is ok to be white" and started using it to troll people into saying things that can be interpreted as hating white people. Then the arguments based on misunderstanding start and trolls laugh at you while they feed on your outrage and frustration.

I'm pretty sure he's not the one who's falling into a trap here, precisely for the reasons you mentioned.

the fact that it's so effective says more about society than the trolls though. if you squint hard enough, it's almost like the reactions provoked when you say "anti-white racism doesn't exist" without further explanation. it's true under the modern definition, but sometimes hard to take in good faith.

The phrase was set up by trolls explicitly to root out those who do not, after all, use corresponding phrases in good faith (and once rooted out, then played). It absolutely should be a fine, boring statement - and its brilliance is that it's not the trolls that make it a trap, but those who choose to fight it.

God help the mixed race people who have it from both the left and right...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9352639/Bi-racial-h...

My mother could not be any less exposed to the “discourse,” and yet she has spoken variants of the first two phrases to me. I believe they may just be common sentiments in the Deep South.

I'd be curious what you think of "Ghettoside" - a book from the left that examines the claims implied by your linked comic about the nature of the suffering we are trying to prevent: https://www.vox.com/2016/8/26/12631962/ghettoside-jill-leovy...

This kind of reaction is what phrases like "it's okay to be white" and "all lives matter" are meant to elicit. It's exactly what trolls want you to do. The other 90% of the population is appalled. Is it not okay to be white? Do some lives not matter?

You're being played.

There are people explicitly saying that no, it's not OK to be white - that if you're white you are automatically racist, and automatically guilty for what happened in the past. White Fragility is an example.

"It's OK to be white" isn't just a dogwhistle. (It may be that, but it isn't just that.) It's an explicit rejection of that kind of "all whites are guilty racists" baloney.

That's what makes it such an effective troll. If it was simply obviously bad from all conceivable contexts it wouldn't work. But, you are still being trolled. And, you are playing right into their game. They are getting you to sing their slogan and laughing at you the whole time.

Yes, there are some people out there in social media who have taken to hating white people for being white. That's not OK. Call it out. But, don't dance for the trolls in the process.

I thought we were talking about the people who have taken to hating white people for being white?

But you said they were trolls? And we should call it out? Isn't that what the poster above you was doing?

Talking in circles, in circles...

You've mixed up the groups.

There's the group of anti-white haters who need to be called out. There's the vast majority of people who don't want any form of racial hatred. And, then there's the white supremacist trolls (and just plain trolls) who want to trick the vast majority of people into fighting themselves and in the process make it look like anti-white hatred is much, much more common than it really is.

"It's OK to be white" is a troll campaign that is actively being used to bait people into fighting each other and to have both sides come out thinking the other is far more racist than they really are.

I grew up reasonably familiar with devout Christian culture, and one of the things they were absolutely convinced of is that society was filled with anti-Christian shibboleths. When someone said "let's build a tolerant society" or "climate change is an important problem", those might sound like neutral descriptors, but they knew not to be deceived. Obviously, in their view, nobody actually cares about tolerance or climate change - those phrases are just slogans people use to signal their allegiance to the anti-Christian agenda.

I'm sure you can see the problem there, and I would encourage you to think about whether you've fallen down a similar hole.

Siege mentality is real. I'm not sure I see the connection in this case to the racial issues. "All Lives Matter" is clearly a reaction to "Black Lives Matter."

Respectfully, it seems clear because you're living under a siege mentality. "All Lives Matter" is a short phrase composed of common English words - some people do use it as a slogan to oppose the BLM movement, but others use it as a compact expression of the idea that every human's life has value. When Jennifer Lopez tweeted "#AllLivesMatter #LoveMakeTheWorldGoRound" over a picture of herself holding hands with Lin-Manuel Miranda and rainbow flags waving in the foreground, is it really plausible that she was declaring her allegiance to anti-BLM groups?

You don’t believe that recent popular usage of ALM is related to BLM?

No. Again, it seems impossible to believe that JLo (and Hilary Clinton, and Fetty Wap, and...) said All Lives Matter as a covert signal they don't like the BLM movement. I'm sure some people somewhere have said it to troll, but I think the concern over the phrase is mostly a moral panic.

Shibboleths? Those phrases are intended to identify unifying intent vs deception intending division. I agree "black lives matter"; can you agree "all lives matter" and "it's OK to be white" and thus support us working together for mutual betterment? or will you viciously attack the phrases, belying your intent to divide us?

Is a phrase a "shibboleth" when intended to promote peace, unity, and mutual aid?

Is Hispanic Lives Matter a shibboleth? How about Asian Lives Matter?

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