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The #BlackLivesMatter Platform
Via the NYT:
More than 60 organizations associated with the Black Lives Matter movement have released a series of demands on Monday, including for reparations. […] “We seek radical transformation, not reactionary reform,” Michaela Brown, communications director of Baltimore Bloc, another participating group, said in a statement. “As the 2016 election continues, this platform provides us with a way to intervene with an agenda that resists state and corporate power, an opportunity to implement policies that truly value the safety and humanity of black lives, and an overall means to hold elected leaders accountable.”
The six planks of this platform are: End the War on Black People, Reparations, Invest-Divest, Economic Justice, Community Control, and Political Power. And if you follow that link, you’ll likely find — as I did — that the actual proposals are even worse than than the titles imply.
In the years leading up to the present, many folks on the Right began adopting a skepticism toward some police powers, including night-time no-knock warrants on drug suspects and “Stop, Question, and Frisk” when used to ensure that all citizens are legally disarmed. The mean-spirited challenge such people often gave — I know because I did it myself several times — is that some folks’ well-earned skepticism for government power evaporated the moment somebody appeared with a badge and a gun muttering something about law and order.
This was not, of course, to deny civil peace required both that there be people with badges and guns protecting our lives and property and that the people doing so required our support for doing their jobs well as much as our opprobrium for abusing their powers. It also acknowledged that our legislators often put police in impossible positions by requiring them to to enforce unjust laws and that the media was often a knowing and eager participant in the trouble.
The Black Lives Matter Movement, however, does not believe any of that. This is evidenced not only by this manifesto, but by their actions, including their celebration of criminals alongside genuine victims, their dismissal of the sacrifices made by black officers, and their repeated incitements to violence. These are not police critics, but Marxist race-separatists.
Policing is deadly serious work and officers deserve to have their work judged — positively and negative — on its merits. But this summer has brought me to the point where reading this profile of some of the hundreds of applicants to the Dallas PD filled me with unmitigated relief.
May they chose the best candidates.
Published in Policing
Whose reality?
I never gave into a bully and I won’t start now.
Just look at how much this country has spent since the “War on Poverty” began and how much we still spend. All it has done is make the Black community more dependent and poorer in ways beyond just financial.
Do we have to limit the offer to any group other than those who profess to hate America, consider the US to be the worst place in the world, but steadfastly refuse to leave for greener pastures?
Stand up to them. Laugh at them. It won’t be long before Hispanics have the majority, and they won’t give a darn about any of these ‘grievances’.
Yes, I get that point of view, and you could be right. But we could try. What do you think of my method?
Who CARES what they do with their savings? That’s not our problem. Plenty of people get insurance proceeds, but then don’t pay their doctors or contractors too. What do you want to do, insist they all buy a new suit?
If you are making “Demands”, what happens if demands go unmet? Are there threats to go along with the demands?
I don’t care, the point I’m trying to make is that no matter how much we pay, it will never be enough. The money will be squandered, their situation will be no better off and the complaints and demands will continue.
In fact, it’s likely to get worse, the squandered money will go where? Into the pockets of business owners of course, thereby exacerbating the problem, and the volume on the demands just grows louder.
You cannot appease those making these demands. You simply can’t.
[Edited to correct a grammatical error]
Oh yes, but the Hispanics have a whole different set of grievances.
True. And if we decide to throw money at everyone with a grievance, there will be no end to the number of people with grievances. Old economic adage: “If you subsidize a behavior, you encourage it”
IMHO, yes. Anyone who loves America should be satisfied with being an American and enjoying everything this country offers. There is a reason so many immigrants risk their lives to come here. BLM and other groups that hate the U.S.A. seem to miss the irony in that.
I think the reparations thing is interesting and tricky. As best I can tell, from a quick reading, their reparations largely come in the form of free college, free school, increased school spending, expanded governmental housing, and universal basic income.
I know nothing is free, and I’m skeptical of all of these things but they are more or less mainstream policies that pop up from time to time. I mean, Sanders wanted free college. That would be less mainstream. But it is probably going to come up again. There are disparities in public school spending given the way its funded. Some states have formulas that make up that gap. But that is one issue. However, I’m skeptical that increased school spending will really improve educational performance.
The free wage for blacks– that’s basically Universal Basic Income. Charles Murray recently updated his “In Our Hands” book and that book supports UBI. He makes a good point about UBI compared to our current welfare state, but I’m just very skeptical of the idea.
I’m skeptical of a lot of this platform. Some I didn’t go into. I’ll say that UBI may make the most sense if it is implemented the way Murray lays it out. Big “if.” (Of course, none of this is only for blacks, it would be for everyone.)
I think their “End the War on Black People” section has a few interesting things. Overall… I’d say we should definitely begin to decriminalize things more and more. I’m all for limiting interactions with the police through the mechanism of decriminalization. It has to be done carefully, of course, but we can begin to start the process of removing some laws on the books.
I think there are definitely some issues in some states where the inability to pay fines leads to jail. And they do also have a point about bail. I am not for completely ending money bail, but it is incredibly disruptive to people’s livelihoods. In many black families with someone in jail, that person was the primary breadwinner.
Unfortunately, they aren’t thinking everything through. This reads more like an attempt to hollow out the justice system than reform it. I’d prefer to see it run more like Kleiman (2009) suggests– the “swift and certain” school of thought. But I think that also means we need more spending on parole, public defenders, judges, prisons, and jails to accommodate the faster movement of people in and out of the prisons and jails. I think few people want to suggest the last part, but I think it is needed. That way, bail becomes less of an issue, and juvenile detention facilities aren’t so crowded, and sentences would be shorter.
In my,original comment, I noted that it DID get the victims off Germany’s back. So,worth a try?
Anybody who is in this country should be down on their hands and knees giving thanks–no matter HOW they got here. We are the light of the nations.
Perhaps we should all just self-identify as ‘black,’ claim our reparations (I’m all for tax-eliminations, even if temporary; they can always be extended), and become the big, happy family that would result.
The way modern liberals are heading, that would probably be reasonable. I wonder if college kids would actually be willing to doubt whites who claimed to be black.
But I think people are making way way too much out of the reparations portion of the platform. The word reparations is a loaded word but many of their actual policies are… on the edges of mainstream or they are alterations of already existing policies.
Skeptical that UBI would be better, or skeptical that it would actually replace the current welfare state? To me, the former is obviously true, the latter is unlikely.
I wrestled with both questions. I don’t want to just fund everyone. As a matter of principle. I’d rather actually have a safety net than paying people to basically sit on their butt, get divorced, and live a minimum wage life. But I agree with Murray it would probably be more efficient to just cut everyone a check. He does show that his calculations are robust to a variety of assumptions, but it is still a fine-tuned model whereby we save money on UBI versus the many welfare agencies. Whatever comes out of congress will almost certainly be a mess and probably violate those assumptions. But, as you say, I doubt we will ever scrap all those agencies, and we will end up with both probably. The minute a bill says “by 20XX all states will be on UBI” you can guess half the states wouldn’t have transitioned. Then they will push for emergency UBI “while they close their remaining programs.” Then they will decide “well actually we need to keep our state program around.”
Wait, so that’s not what they meant by “End the War on Black People?”
I’ll go along with reparations. But for any individual to collect, they must renounce their citizenship and leave the country.
When do blacks start paying reparations to the rest of us for destroying our inner cities?
But we don’t only save money, we would give people back their self-determination and responsibility. If they want to blow it on booze, now they had their chance and they must rely on the kindness of others. This could rebuild social cohesion the same way eliminating the welfare state would. Maybe we could even phase out the UBI after a while. But I dream…
My response to The “planks” :
Cities and towns with a black majority are already “controlled” by either African American or other minorities, including mayors, city council, school superintendents, in some places governors, and most definitely, and usually vote Democrat. So if things have not improved, look to these people and ask why. We have been pouring federal and state funds into these communities for decades.
School and higher education is not free. Nor is anything else. However, you can apply for grants and scholarships. You cannot forgive student loan debt for one group / race of people or create laws for one group / race of people that is separate from the laws for everyone. Many minorities, including first generation, succeed in school, work to pay their loans and go on to have a great life and contribute to society.
To continually pay for what was slavery at one point in American history is unfair. People are not living under those conditions in this country. They do in other countries, like the Middle East. We cannot erase history – it is a snapshot of the past – but you don’t stay there. You live in the present. Our past, good and bad, is a part of all our history.
Be careful that you are not embracing socialistic/Marxist ideology – it is how Hitler gained control over an entire country. The Constitution applies to everyone – all lives matter. Let’s change things so they are better for all with a positive spirit.
I’m all for reparations. It is time to end this fiasco once and for all. Put a few billion dollars into an account available to any of these idiots who renounce their citizenship. Buy them a one-way ticket to any other country in the world, give them their check and be rid of them forever. Send them all to Liberia. That is why it was created in the first place.
My granddaughter is 1/2 black and 1/2 white (and there may even be a part white person on the black side of her family). How much should she get in reparations? I envision us beginning to sort people like in the old days: quadroon, quarteroon, octoroon, etc.
I posted this over on @susanquinn ‘s thread and thought others here might be interested:
I don’t think it would be accepted as the “full” conversation because the interviewee has conservative views and I sense that he is a Christian.
If you have one drop of AA blood, you get to clean out your white neighbor’s bank account.
In that case she should pay reparations to herself.
Good one, Joseph! (and convenient).