The past week has been a huge introspective journey for me as a person in relation to the events that have transpired lately.

I have never considered myself a racist, but up until a few days ago, in the midst of rhetorics such as "Black Lives Matter", "Blue Lives Matter", gender identity and sexual orientation acceptance movements, I would sit here and say "All Lives Matter". Not because I disregard that there are people who are suffering because of inequalities, but because I believe that all people should be treated equal.

After seeing both the mainstream media as well as social media continue to document the events happening in the world, as well as consuming the commentary of many people involved in the situations, I have come to understand something about these rhetorics: Extremists withheld, they are not there to say that other lives don't matter. They are there to draw attention to the people that need it because their lives, their opinions, and their freedoms are not being respected.

I grew up on IRC, a platform that I'm sure a lot of us here on the Fediverse are familiar with, but that maybe we have lost the feeling of. Once upon a time, online communication was not afforded such luxuries as picture, video and audio, at least not in a convenient matter. The people that you talked with were nameless and colorless, and it didn't matter one bit "what" they were, so much as "who" they were. I ended up on IRC because I never had many friends locally, and the one decent friend that I had when I was a kid was black. I wasn't allowed to talk to him, with no reason given to me by my parents, and my family ended up moving because of the fact that his family was black, but I was unaware of this until I was an adult. I've always seen the world to be full of equal people, and never really considered it to be a concern because I have never been blatantly presented with this kind of bias before. It's a mindset that I'd be happy to have if it weren't for the fact that so many others out in the world don't share the same, and now we're seeing the consequences.

While going through recent events, I came across Martin Luther King Jr's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", readable at https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html . In school, we had learned that racial equality had been achieved by the actions of Dr. King, among others, but after reading this letter in contrast to so many of the things happening now, and in hindsight, it appears that just isn't so. Much of the literal imagery that he discusses is still visible in a less literal sense. I encourage anybody reading this to read his letter, as many sentiments that he expresses in there are still very applicable today.

I'm not going to deny that I'm privileged, because I here I sit, a cis white male, living in an area where we haven't seen any visible effects of protests or riots. And I also don't mean to detract from any of the minorities being affected by all of this with my following statement, but I believe it to be the truth: If you're an American, regardless of color or other distinguishing factor, your freedoms are at risk. Have a look online at any of the videos circulating and you'll see that governments and law enforcement are illegally taking our rights, and being told to do so by the people who claim to be giving us these rights. Privacy, 1st and 4th amendment rights are all going out the window. 2nd amendment rights are preserved as of the moment, because it furthers political agendas, but don't be surprised if you see those go along with everything else. People are being killed, pointlessly. People who have families that they need to take care of, and that love them, who will never see them again. People who are friends to others who will deeply mourn their death. It's not just blacks, either, so to anybody comfortable in your privilege, be wary.

I hate to be political in public as it can be so polarizing, but it's not about politics anymore. It's about the fact that basic human rights are actively being disposed of. History has shown, the events that lead to the kind of dystopian future that we don't want to see again are slow and incremental, and history is replaying itself right now. Not doing anything is just letting it happen. Everyone is responsible at this point. Stand up for what you believe in.

"History is written by the victor. History is filled with liars. If he lives and we die, his truth becomes written - and ours is lost." - Captain Price, Modern Warfare 2
It's a modern reincarnation of the original quote, but I feel that it applies here, and explains better. Make your voice heard, or someone else will determine what these events will go down in history as. Make sure our children know that we fought for the freedom of all, instead of having them taught in schools that the US rioted only for the government put them in their place.

@kitty
Here's the thing though. No matter how much BLM type activists claim that they're concerned for the rights and lives of everyone, that they're not saying that anyone else's lives don't matter, the reality is their rhetoric, their actions, their politics, everything is centered around "black" identity, "black" lives, "black" statistics and body counts.

They didn't start the movement by saying "corrupt and incompetent cops are killing people". They didn't start by saying "the government is taking away everyone's rights". From the very start they only framed everything with a racial lens. And heck, maybe if the statistics and studies actually supported the view that cops are overwhelmingly racist, maybe I could have supported them. But that's not the case.

Seriously, if cops are that god damned racist, why aren't Hispanics mixed into this thing too? I'm sure you can name plenty of black individuals killed by cops from the countless media coverage storms over the years. But how many Hispanics can you name? Am I to believe that cops are racist towards black people but not hispanics? I've yet to see protests and riots over hispanics losing their lives, let alone Asians or other ethnic minorities.

"Stand up for what you believe in."
Personally I am. I stand against an inherently racist movement, that is being used to undermine democracy and currently threatens the US 1st amendment more than anything else. Because right now, if you go out in public and express an opinion against the dogma of progressivism and BLM, you can say goodbye to your livelihood.

The more I examine USA, the more I realize that the government no longer has the most power over our individual lives. The ones you should look at as the ones ultimately responsible for your rights being trampled on are: activists that masquerade as journalists, the mainstream media and every large corporation that shares into the progressive ideology. They not only have power to influence our lives, by manipulating the information we have access to, and even destroy them through the use of mob justice, but they also have power to influence and control the politicians that will feel compelled to vote certain laws, or else they will be the ones destroyed in the name of "social justice".

You're right, human rights in USA are threatened more than ever. You're just not looking in the right place to see the ones who will be responsible for making 1984 real.

@alyx
To be brutally honest, my concern at this point isn't solely the racial inequalities as much as the overall injustice and brutality, to all individuals. At this moment, we have police out there who are trying to fight a battle against peaceful protesters, in the name of furthering political agendas and sport. Black people are not the only people who suffer from this, other races as well as whites, elderly individuals as well as children are being assaulted by law enforcement. Maybe blacks are just the first people to speak out about it.

Regardless, I was glad to see that so many people are getting out there and protesting, and frankly, I would be out there as well if things hadn't turned to riots and looting. I don't believe that's right, and I don't want to contribute the portrayal that this is about anarchy, so I stay home, but that's just my opinion.

People wide and far seem to have a large problem with generalization. Racism comes with a lot of stereotypes, and stereotypes are generalization. Police being bad is also a generalization. Not all police out there are bad, not all of them are racist, and not all of them are brutal. If you look at social media, you can see select incidents where police are out there protesting, just the same as the masses. But the ones who are being brutal need to be stopped. To play devil's advocate, not all black people are innocent, but at the same time, not all white people are innocent either.

I believe that the first amendment is important and crucial to the success of this country. However, it would seem that your portrayal of what the first amendment actually does is skewed. See https://xkcd.com/1357/. The issue at hand is that governments are trying to silence both journalists and individuals alike from being able to disclose their opinions. Governments are trying to create legal recourse for people who oppose them. People in the streets are being maced and gassed for stating their opinion in protest, an action that has a lot of history in America and is the basis for a lot of the freedoms that we have now.

By all means, you can walk out into the street and state opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement. And, if you aren't grouped in with the rest of the protesters who are being maced by police unfairly, you won't receive any legal recourse. What you will receive is social opposition, which is something that the first amendment would have never protected you from in the first place. I do not consider that a loss of first amendment rights.

Additionally, while I agree that much of the information that we may receive from mass media may have other influence in it, personal agendas and the like, would you consider it better to be receiving information from a variety of mass and social media outlets, or would you like to be receiving only the information that the government wants to you know. As of the moment, we have a sitting president who is very blatantly trying to claim that certain events haven't transpired, and calling the truth fake. We are facing propaganda, which the first amendment currently entitles us to a grain of salt to take with it.

And here we sit on the Fediverse, where, depending on where you are, literally anything goes. You can say things here that you couldn't say on Twitter or Facebook and have it viewed by masses. Hypothetically speaking, if we start losing first amendment rights, and social media companies start tightening up their rules and censoring what people are able to post, they might flock to platforms like the Fediverse. Putting these platforms in the spotlight, we start falling further down the 1984 rabbit hole. We lose the ability to legally encrypt, or governments must be given master keys. Everything that you put online is subject to inspection so that the "great leaders" of this country will be able to prevent your terrorist-like thoughts from infecting the minds of others and inciting the same kind of violence that they claim the protesters are starting today.

The people don't have the power to do that. The people don't have their hands in the pockets of corporations or the financial incentive to make those things happen. Only the law, which is supposed to be protecting us from these fates, has the power to set them against us.

If you have an unpopular opinion, you face the people you voice that to not liking you. If you break what certain leaders would like to be the law, apparently you face the military of your own country that's allegedly there to protect you. Our "superiors" are not being held to the standard that we ourselves are, and to me, that's what this is about.

@kitty
Why did you have to make such a long post? Do you have any idea how long it will take me to respond now?

>my concern at this point isn't solely the racial inequalities as much as the overall injustice and brutality, to all individuals
That's fine, but please understand that this is not what the protests/riots are about, this is not what the media's narrative is focusing on, and this is not what government and corporate policies will target. Everyone out there is putting this through a racial lens. You're basically a useful idiot, that is sitting idly by, while a perfectly normal and just concern is being twisted and perverted for other interests. Actually, that's wrong, you're not sitting idly by. You're actively defending a just concern being subverted.

>At this moment, we have police out there who are trying to fight a battle against peaceful protesters
1) I disagree
2) Peaceful protests have not existed at any point in time in this particular Floyd case. It's been a free for all from day one.
3) Once things go out of hand, even if there was just a single incident of someone looting or burning something, the police has no option than to assume that further incidents can appear at any time. Which is why from that point forward, they're gonna be twice as vigilant, twice as strict, twice as stressed out, and as such twice more likely to misinterpret something, twice more likely to panic, twice more likely to make mistakes. Why are we putting unrealistic expectations on police officers that they must be perfect when they are put in the middle of a collapse of civilization? They are still humans, and we're putting them in situations where they are outnumbered 10 to 1, and we're expecting them to do what exactly? We put them in situations where each of them might face 10 individuals that turn into animals at any point in time. No amount of training is gonna stop you in such circumstances to revert to your animal instincts too.
This is why I hate these riots so much. They are the cause of all the suffering happening during them. They are at a center of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

>in the name of furthering political agendas and sport.
Let me know when you figure out that the riots also have fucked up political agendas behind them. And what do you even mean by sport? That part left me confused.

>Black people are not the only people...
Again, agreed. But once again, look at the narratives being woven. Look at the actions being taken. None of them are racially neutral.

>that this is about anarchy
It is about anarchy. Burning down housing? Destroying stores? Vandalizing a pub? None of that is about policy brutality. The only part of it that can arguably be defended as an action of outrage against policy action is the burning of the police precinct. And even that one was fucked up.
Even reactions from authorities are promoting anarchy: de-funding police, withdrawal of enforcement officers, etc.

>Police being bad is also a generalization. Not all police out there are bad
Sure, tell that to the "ACAB" crowd. See how well they'll receive it.

>However, it would seem that your portrayal of what the first amendment actually does is skewed
If you're quoting XKCD then you don't understand what freedom of speech is, and maybe don't even understand what rights themselves are.
First, freedom of speech is a fundamental principle that goes way beyond the 1st Amendment. Only thing the 1st Amendment does is to say the state won't silence you, but that doesn't make it right for anyone else to. Your next door neighbor has no right to forbid you to express your opinion just because it is not expressly stated in the Constitution that he is not allowed.
There's a reason I specifically said "freedom of speech" and not 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment is incomplete. It was written at a time when it was thought that the only institution that could ever hold enough power over individuals as to be able to censor them was the government. Surprise! That's no longer is the case. Currently news media, corporations and mob rule has more power in shutting people up than the government. Trump did not forbid people from spreading whatever information they wanted about Covid-19, be it true or false. But the likes of Facebook and YouTube sure did. And don't give me the "muh private company" bs. Social media IS the main public space today. People protest over social media as much as they do IRL, and yet freedom of speech is not protected here. And it is not governments that infringe this human right. It's corporations.

>governments are trying to silence both journalists and individuals alike from being able to disclose their opinions.
Unless you're talking about some 3rd world, dictatorial country, I disagree. In western countries, they wouldn't be able to do it even if they wanted.

>Governments are trying to create legal recourse for people who oppose them.
Did you misspoke? I'm unclear what you're trying to say here. Are you complaining that the state can send people to trial who break the law? Because if you think that just because you're opposing what you think is a tyrannical government, then anything goes, you're gravely mistaken. Illegal action is illegal action. I don't care what the circumstance is.

>People in the streets are being maced and gassed for stating their opinion in protest
Again, I'll disagree that these are peaceful protests and that using things like mace is unwarranted. But I'm just repeating myself.

>By all means, you can walk out into the street and state opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement
Except you can't. Want to know what will happen? Want to know what the mob will do? You will get attacked. You will get doxxed. You will have your house and maybe family attacked. You will be harassed online and offline. They will have you fired. And anyone that might have been your friend will be frightened away from defending you or helping you in any way. And anyone brave enough to lend you a hand will become an instant pariah and be in danger of receiving the same treatment you are.

>you won't receive any legal recourse.
Oh yes. That was exactly my concern. (sarcasm) Read previous paragraph again. The government is unable to do all that. A mob out on a witch mob is able to do all that and maybe much more. There is no "innocent until proven guilty" with a mob. There is no "judged by a jury of your peers". I'd take the state taking legal action against me over mob rule any day of the week.

>What you will receive is social opposition, which is something that the first amendment would have never protected you from in the first place.
As I said earlier, that's because 1st Amendment is incomplete. As for "social opposition", that's one hell of an understatement. Were the Salem witch trials also "social opposition" by any chance?

>we may receive from mass media may have other influence in it, personal agendas and the like,
Remove the "may"s and you're right on point.

>would you like to be receiving only the information that the government wants to you know
Did I give the wrong impression that I want a state funded information outlet?

>we have a sitting president who is very blatantly trying to claim that certain events haven't transpired
Not sure which events you're trying to talk about, so I'm not gonna comment on this for now, unless you make some clarifications.

>calling the truth fake
This is gonna depend a lot on a case by case basis, because "truth" is rarely easy to judge, and too many times what is advertised as "truth" is only a narrative. And Trump mostly counters with a different narrative.

>We are facing propaganda
The interesting part is, that removed from any context, this statement is 100% true. Put back into context, I'm given the impression that you're blind as to what the source of where most of the propaganda comes from.

>and social media companies start tightening up their rules and censoring what people are able to post,
THEY ARE ALREADY DOING THIS! Why are people so blind to this fact! The 1st Amendment is perfectly in place, and yet freedom of speech on the internet is rare. Yes, Fediverse is a good place for it. So are chan boards. But that's not where most people are having their public discourse currently. Most people are normies, and because of their ignorance of how vast the internet is, they are stuck being subjected to censorship.

>we start falling further down the 1984 rabbit hole.
We are already in the 1984 rabbit hole. Big Brother are the corporations that decide for you what is good for you to see or not, what you're allowed to say or not, what "hate speech" they need to protect you from, what information (true or false) you're allowed access to.
I don't think you get why people are putting the spotlight of social media companies.

>Everything that you put online is subject to inspection so that the "great leaders" of this country...
There's more inspection of what you do online being done by the corporations than by the "great leaders". IIRC, it was Blizzard that threatened to ban users based on what they say on Twitch chat.

>The people don't have the power to do that. The people don't have their hands in the pockets of corporations or the financial incentive to make those things happen.
I don't think you are aware just how pervasive the ideological activists are. How have you not seen the countless cases of mobs going after a corporation that didn't toe the line of progressive ideology and forcing them to basically flog themselves? Ideologues might not have the money to fuck things up, but they have other means, just as strong.

>Only the law, which is supposed to be protecting us from these fates, has the power to set them against us.
You are overestimating the power of the law, and underestimating the power of pretty much everyone else.

>If you break what certain leaders would like to be the law, apparently you face the military of your own country
If you behave like a terrorist you'll be treated like a terrorist. I'm sorry, but destroying things and creating terror and panic in the name of a political goal is the definition of terrorism.

>Our "superiors" are not being held to the standard that we ourselves are,
I disagree. I believe you are trying to hold them to much higher standards. And while I'd agree that superiors need to be held at higher standards than plebs, when those standards start reaching levels that are humanly impossible, I start having problems, because there's no way the overall system can go other than completely collapse. And that's not something that anyone wants. (although there are people who foolishly believe they do).

@alyx @kitty
> There have never been peaceful protests

The protests got violent because police initiated the violence. And yes, police should be held to a higher standard because we give them more privileges. We shouldn't allow people who are too impulsive or angry to be police. Recipe for disaster.

Looters are just taking advantage of the situation for themselves. you contradict yourself here, saying they're part of a fucked up political message but also that there weren't any peaceful protests. The peaceful protests were about the political message, the violence was people who don't care about it looting. You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

News media and social media can't censor people entirely. If YouTube doesn't wanna publish your shit, they don't have to. Your ideas just have to be distributed the old fashioned way, by word of mouth - like they were for thousands of years. The founding fathers didn't fall to envision YouTube - they recognized that having a megaphone to blast your ideas to the world isn't the same as having the fight to share them.

> Trump mostly counters with a different narrative

There are objective facts that Trump is wrong about. Remember "alternative facts"? It was funny because people believed it. You're apparently one of them.


> Progressives going after corporations

Boo fucking hoo. I guess your pro freedom stance is that people shouldn't be allowed to criticize corporations that do thinks they dislike? And this is pro.free speech somehow?

@mewmew @kitty

>The protests got violent because police initiated the violence.
Maybe I missed something, but I’d say burning down buildings and attacking a police station counts as pretty much initiating violence. I’m unaware of any major police-protesters confrontation happening before Minneapolis went to shit.

>And yes, police should be held to a higher standard because we give them more privileges.
Agree.

>We shouldn't allow people who are too impulsive or angry to be police.
And here we’re gonna come to a logistics problem. In theory, this is correct. Here’s the catch: if you get someone who is opposite of impulsive, who takes too much time to make decisions, he’s dead. It’s not a joke, it’s not an exaggeration. An officer that is unable to make very quick decisions, will be unable to protect his own life from people attacking him, let alone be able to protect anyone else. A certain level of impulsiveness is unfortunately necessary. We can try to balance this of course, but I fear it might be impossible to find an optimal balance.
As for the anger thing, completely agree. If a psychologist finds a candidate has anger issues, he should not be allowed to apply to join the police from the start.

>saying they're part of a fucked up political message but also that there weren't any peaceful protests
You can transmit political messages through violence. In fact, that’s the definition of terrorism itself.

>Your ideas just have to be distributed the old fashioned way, by word of mouth
We no longer live in the old fashioned world. The online space is the new public space. And people’s right of freedom of speech should be protected on the internet.

>Remember "alternative facts"?
There is nothing wrong about that statement. You can manipulate people by giving them only one completely true fact while omitting a different 100% true fact that would change the context of the first fact, and make the situation less or more bad. This is something mainstream media is masterful at doing. By contrast Trump is not even that good at lying.

>people shouldn't be allowed to criticize corporations that do thinks they dislike?
I think you know damn well that the things we’re talking about go beyond criticizing, and at the very least well into harassment.

@alyx @kitty
> We no longer live in the old fashioned world. The online space is the new public space. And people’s right of freedom of speech should be protected on the internet.

I hope you support net neutrality then? (Trump doesn't)

> I think you know damn well that the things we’re talking about go beyond criticizing, and at the very least well into harassment.

Harassment is already illegal. Libel/slander is illegal if untrue. Go sue instead of complaining.