One of my friends is very proud to have been arrested during a BLM riot. Flash bangs, tear gas, all that. Now he brings it up as some sort of arguing point: “YEA WELL WHERE WERE YOU?”
So they all got arrested and had to stay outside all night while being held. Today im talking to him and he claims they changed alot. He brought up “all those convictions” but only one cop was convicted last year while over 200 were killed. Then he mentioned Aubery who was murdered in Alabama, but they were private citizens not cops, and there was literally video of the murder. Naturally he didn’t seem to take that fact well.
Defunding didnt happen much either. Is this just a liberal brain trying to convince themselves theyve done something useful? Because nothing really changed after they dragged Bernie away either.
if it helps, they also think only red fascism has existed and theres never been a successful communist country.
building movements and organisation takes a long ass time & BLM definitely accelerated that. And its not like, dead yet. For what its worth a bit of meaningful reform got thru on local levels & we didn’t always hear about it (and some of its already been rolled back)
its very defeatist to treat it as over and a total waste because it wasn’t the revolution. there’s gonna be many more struggles and moments between now and the revolution and they’re all important and necessary
Pessimistically, I feel like the question being asked at all is itself the answer - no, mostly not. All the political talk following the protests was about how much more money the cops should get. Again pessimistically, it seems to me that until uprising of that magnitude becomes a pattern, there won’t be meaningful lasting change.
Good point, he shoulda stayed inside with you
