Protesting during a pandemic (split)

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Protesting during a pandemic (split)

Post by EACLucifer » Sun May 31, 2020 1:43 pm

Mod note - thread split from here.

It'd be useful if the idiots out chanting in Trafalgar Square would remember that viruses don't care how righteous you are, though. It's BME people who have borne the brunt of the pandemic in London.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun May 31, 2020 2:34 pm

The photos in the Standard show most protestors wearing masks and distancing somewhat. A lot of them are BME and clearly made their own decision to be there. I'm not sure why you feel the need to dismiss them all as "idiots".

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ ... 55596.html
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by EACLucifer » Sun May 31, 2020 2:49 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 2:34 pm
The photos in the Standard show most protestors wearing masks and distancing somewhat. A lot of them are BME and clearly made their own decision to be there. I'm not sure why you feel the need to dismiss them all as "idiots".

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ ... 55596.html
Because 1) chanting is one of the most dangerous things you can do for people around you, 2) because gathering means travelling, and in London that generally means public transport, which is dangerous, 3) because neither the murderers of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery nor their enablers will be the slightest bit put out by these protestors getting COVID, by them taking it back to their family members, or contributing to the pandemic in London, and 4) because the outbreak in England is still raging, and distancing measures are falling apart with everyone saying "well they aren't distancing, so why should I?*" and this isn't helpful.

To be clear, I object to any mass gathering right now, and have done since it became clear how bad this pandemic was going to get, and I have f.cking lived by it, enduring pain because I have had to turn away carers, so yes, I'm going to call them idiots. They are idiots. They are endangering the people they claim to care about. There are ways of making their feelings known, and their support for those oppressed in the States known, without needlessly, stupidly worsening a f.cking pandemic.

*Various of the usual mostly white trots and tankies on twitter have decided that every single objection to their mass gathering right now is motivated by racism and nothing but racism, because there were crowds at Durdle Door and one can apparently only object to one kind of needless public gathering.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by lpm » Sun May 31, 2020 9:16 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 2:34 pm
The photos in the Standard show most protestors wearing masks and distancing somewhat. A lot of them are BME and clearly made their own decision to be there. I'm not sure why you feel the need to dismiss them all as "idiots".

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ ... 55596.html
Are you kidding? The photos are damning. We are still (officially) in lockdown and these people are endangering themselves and others.

Arguably protests in the USA are more important than contagion prevention, but no way is that the case in a foreign country.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sun May 31, 2020 11:20 pm

Ok I've seen more photos, and clearly not everyone was masked or socially distancing.

However, I'm still not happy about calling protests organised by and attended by black people "idiotic", nor the way EACL implies that they don't actually care about others and are just trying to be righteous.

Of course the foreign protests have value. They demonstrate that the black community in the USA is not standing alone while their government uses the tactics of fascism to oppress them.

There are of course issues with police brutality in the UK, which disproportionately affect black people. Black people are also disproportionately incarcerated, where overcrowded conditions create a huge risk. I know that BLM in the UK would like to increase awareness of those problems - too many people have this smug idea that judicial racism is an exclusively foreign problem.

So there are clearly sensible, legitimate reasons to protest, along with sensible, legitimate reasons not to. I'm not comfortable with people dismissing the protestors as idiots. It would have been safer for them to have found an alternative protesting strategy, sure. But it's an important and emotive issue and I can't blame people for reacting emotionally.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Millennie Al » Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:17 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 11:20 pm
However, I'm still not happy about calling protests organised by and attended by black people "idiotic",
Well, I'm not happy deciding whether or not a protest is "idiotic" by looking at the organisers' or attendees' skin colour. There's a word for that, and that word is "racist".

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Bird on a Fire » Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:49 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:17 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 11:20 pm
However, I'm still not happy about calling protests organised by and attended by black people "idiotic",
Well, I'm not happy deciding whether or not a protest is "idiotic" by looking at the organisers' or attendees' skin colour. There's a word for that, and that word is "racist".
Nice try, but I don't think this is the right thread to troll.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Stephanie » Mon Jun 01, 2020 7:39 am

Yes, do not troll this thread.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by EACLucifer » Mon Jun 01, 2020 7:43 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 11:20 pm
Ok I've seen more photos, and clearly not everyone was masked or socially distancing.

However, I'm still not happy about calling protests organised by and attended by black people "idiotic", nor the way EACL implies that they don't actually care about others and are just trying to be righteous.
It was a bunch of student protestors - I did not see a single person involved* who did not fall somewhere in the last couple of years of school through to end of undergrad age range, nor a single person with any sign that they were not fully fit, a striking contrast with the American protestors. This was a group of people in the lowest risk category, privileged in the knowledge that their chances of dying from the virus are relatively low compared to the people they will spread it to.
Of course the foreign protests have value. They demonstrate that the black community in the USA is not standing alone while their government uses the tactics of fascism to oppress them.
They are other ways of expressing solidarity - all people in the US will get from this is a few pictures online or (relatively unlikely) on the news - that kind of effect can be got without an unnecesary mass gathering in the middle of a pandemic. They could have said "we are in the worst hit country, with a government that has f.cked up the response at the cost of BME people; we are with you, and here is how we are showing it without further endangering those communities most endangered by our government's terrible handling of the pandemic"

The calculations are very different in the states, where this is an immediate and local issue, be it the cold blooded murder of a man by police, or the attacks on peaceful rallies by militarised police. And in the states, I think the protests probably did lead to the arrest of Chauvin. They are still a danger, but given the fact that much of the US has not been hit as hard as London and the much greater need for immediate protest, the risk/necessity calculations come out very differently.
There are of course issues with police brutality in the UK, which disproportionately affect black people. Black people are also disproportionately incarcerated, where overcrowded conditions create a huge risk. I know that BLM in the UK would like to increase awareness of those problems - too many people have this smug idea that judicial racism is an exclusively foreign problem.
Police brutality absolutely is a problem here, and nobody has denied it. However, to put things in context, British police killed three people last year, twenty two in the last decade. Let's put that in or compared to the pandemic this protest ignored, which takes less than half an hour to kill that people, or, putting it another way, takes just a few hours to kill as many people as the police have killed in the last couple of decades, regardless of justification. This is not an attempt at whataboutery, not an "how can you care about <small number> when <big number> exists. The need for the comparison exists because they did one of the worst things they could do to to worsen the big number.

By contrast, not only are the American protesters responding to an immediate event - and achieving something with their protest - American police kill people at something like ninety times the rate of British police. I saw someone run through the numbers and show black men are, despite the pandemic's disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities in the states as well as here, still at greater risk of being killed by the police than the virus.
So there are clearly sensible, legitimate reasons to protest, along with sensible, legitimate reasons not to. I'm not comfortable with people dismissing the protestors as idiots. It would have been safer for them to have found an alternative protesting strategy, sure. But it's an important and emotive issue and I can't blame people for reacting emotionally.
Frankly, I don't care what you are comfortable with. They put out an invite for people to travel to all meet up in one place. As far as I can tell, it is the first such event since the start of the lockdown. Going by videos people there and supportive of the event posted, social distancing was completely ignored, and some people in masks had pulled them down to chant.

The involvement of planned, organiser lead chanting shows they weren't interested in adjusting their protest to reduce the risks to those present, or their families, or healthcare workers. Compare and contrast with this protest into the far more immediate issue of inadequate PPE for healthcare workers, something that has killed BME people far more than police brutality has lately.

Image

It's not that their cause is not important, it is, and outside of a pandemic, I'd be supporting them, it's that they didn't make the slightest adjustment to how they protested, didn't give the slightest consideration for those without the privilege of youth and good health who they have endangered. They put out a call for people to travel and meet up in one place and do the highest risk thing they could do short of an orgy or a mass licking session. Had they asked for actual social distancing**, only local people to attend, a silent protest - silent protests can be very powerful - they would at least have tried. They chose not to even try.

*Not saying there weren't any people outside of this age range, but if there were, they were vastly, vastly outnumbered.

**There was a footnote on their communication calling for people to attend saying "please attempt social distancing". That was it. Not only did we see hundreds just ignore it entirely, including, as far as I can tell, the people leading the chants, those that were spaced out could still have reached out and touched people in several directions without moving their feet.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Jun 02, 2020 9:50 pm

Interviews with some of the London protestors on the BBC, if anyone is interested in why members of the UK's black community felt moved to show solidarity with protestors in the US.

I think it's fair to question whether protesting during lockdown was sensible (and it does sound like they were surprised at how many people showed up), but not to dismiss concerns like those shared by these women by calling them idiots.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Millennie Al » Wed Jun 03, 2020 12:40 am

bolo wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 3:35 pm
Millennie Al wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:14 am
2. It uses bold letters to highlight points
<snip>
The second shows that it is written for idiots who cannot simply read a passage and understand it. If that is their audience, what chance is there of it containing a fair report of anything, rather than a biased or simplistic one?
Now I am wondering how the rest of us should take the bold letters in your sig?
A bold move, from someone who is almost bold incarnate.

And your implication is right, because it's the simplistic case. Anyone who thinks that a pandemic can be reduced to a short slogan is an idiot, but I'm sure you knew that already.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Millennie Al » Wed Jun 03, 2020 1:17 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:49 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:17 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Sun May 31, 2020 11:20 pm
However, I'm still not happy about calling protests organised by and attended by black people "idiotic",
Well, I'm not happy deciding whether or not a protest is "idiotic" by looking at the organisers' or attendees' skin colour. There's a word for that, and that word is "racist".
Nice try, but I don't think this is the right thread to troll.
I'm not trolling.

Do you really think that this thread is the one thread in which racist comments should be left unchallenged?

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by dyqik » Wed Jun 03, 2020 12:43 pm

Millennie Al wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 1:17 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:49 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:17 am


Well, I'm not happy deciding whether or not a protest is "idiotic" by looking at the organisers' or attendees' skin colour. There's a word for that, and that word is "racist".
Nice try, but I don't think this is the right thread to troll.
I'm not trolling.

Do you really think that this thread is the one thread in which racist comments should be left unchallenged?
You are doing the equivalent of the #alllivesmatter thing of calling Black Lives Matter racist. Please stop.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Jun 03, 2020 1:57 pm

Millennie Al wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 1:17 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:49 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Mon Jun 01, 2020 1:17 am


Well, I'm not happy deciding whether or not a protest is "idiotic" by looking at the organisers' or attendees' skin colour. There's a word for that, and that word is "racist".
Nice try, but I don't think this is the right thread to troll.
I'm not trolling.

Do you really think that this thread is the one thread in which racist comments should be left unchallenged?
Ok. In that case you've missed my point.

My point was about the language we use to discuss the protestors. People who are not part of the black community in particular need to listen more and react less, and when they do react should avoid being dismissive, insulting, etc. Let's not police how black people express their outrage.

By all means decide whether or not a protest is misguided, but that should include consideration of who they are and why they're there. The post I was responding to didn't do that: it not only dismissed them all as 'idiots' but went as far as to suggest that the protestors don't care about black people. That is the same kind of dismissal as those who claim the US protests are just an excuse to rob shops.

People are protesting systemic racism against black people. Calling those protestors idiots is part of the problem, given that many of the organisers and participants are black people. (If the protest organisers and participants were all white, it wouldn't be so problematic. Calling white people idiots is not part of the problem.)
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by lpm » Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:20 pm

Come off it. The "idiot" description was linked to behaviour, not identity. EACL was clear: these people acted as idiots, whatever identity they also possess is irrelevent.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:24 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:20 pm
Come off it. The "idiot" description was linked to behaviour, not identity.
I know and haven't suggested otherwise.
lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:20 pm
EACL was clear: these people acted as idiots, whatever identity they also possess is irrelevent.
Of course identity is relevant.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by lpm » Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:34 pm

What, this virus can determine someone's identity? There's something in its RNA that detects melatonin levels?
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by dyqik » Wed Jun 03, 2020 4:19 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:34 pm
What, this virus can determine someone's identity? There's something in its RNA that detects melatonin levels?
Melatonin affects the relative risks.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Jun 03, 2020 4:31 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:34 pm
What, this virus can determine someone's identity? There's something in its RNA that detects melatonin levels?
Again, I'm talking about language.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by discovolante » Wed Jun 03, 2020 5:04 pm

*coughs* melanin.
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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by dyqik » Wed Jun 03, 2020 7:30 pm

discovolante wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 5:04 pm
*coughs* melanin.
:oops:

I'm sure melatonin does as well. I mean, if you're at home asleep...

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:27 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Jun 02, 2020 9:50 pm
Interviews with some of the London protestors on the BBC, if anyone is interested in why members of the UK's black community felt moved to show solidarity with protestors in the US.

I think it's fair to question whether protesting during lockdown was sensible (and it does sound like they were surprised at how many people showed up), but not to dismiss concerns like those shared by these women by calling them idiots.
Mate, drop it. They are idiots. The pandemic does not care about rightness or worthiness. They are deliberately organising likely super-spreading events. I've already pointed out how that will disproportionately harm black british communities. Idiots like Boyega dressing up for the photo op yelling inches from his own supporters unmasked faces don't f.cking help anything other than coronavirus and tories who want to deflect blame for any second wave.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:30 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:24 pm
lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:20 pm
EACL was clear: these people acted as idiots, whatever identity they also possess is irrelevent.
Of course identity is relevant.
Not to the coronavirus it isn't.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:32 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 4:31 pm
lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:34 pm
What, this virus can determine someone's identity? There's something in its RNA that detects melatonin levels?
Again, I'm talking about language.
What language do you think appropriate for people organising a mass gathering with chanting in the middle of a f.cking pandemic in about the worst hit country in the world because of events in another country? Idiots is mild. Idiots is pulling punches. Idiots is milder than I usually call people for a lot less.

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Re: US police & murders of black men

Post by dyqik » Wed Jun 03, 2020 11:07 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 10:32 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 4:31 pm
lpm wrote:
Wed Jun 03, 2020 3:34 pm
What, this virus can determine someone's identity? There's something in its RNA that detects melatonin levels?
Again, I'm talking about language.
What language do you think appropriate for people organising a mass gathering with chanting in the middle of a f.cking pandemic in about the worst hit country in the world because of events in another country? Idiots is mild. Idiots is pulling punches. Idiots is milder than I usually call people for a lot less.
I'd use words like "angry" and "black Americans are still more likely to die of being shot by the police than of CoVID-19".
Last edited by dyqik on Wed Jun 03, 2020 11:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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