[ilugaslifg]

Yes, "black lives matter as well". That is a statement that I now understand and strongly appreciate the power and full meaning of, after spending a good amount of time and emotional and intellectual effort on it.

The problem is innocent people who happen onto the conversation, interpret it at first glance, not unreasonably, as some insane asshole saying "only black lives matter", engage in good faith on that basis, to uphold ideals that we can all agree are right... and subsequently are piled on by a mob who agree that the offender has just instantly and irredeemably proven themselves to be one of the worst things they've been taught it's possible to be. With a real, non-zero chance of their real lives being actually, materially ruined as part of this public shaming.

The problem is things like "Black Lives Matter" being used as a shibboleth[0] -- an excuse to form a gleeful lynch mob, giving everybody a pleasurable and community-affirming chance to engage in collective norm-enforcement against The Other.

The problem is an atmosphere where I'm so paranoid about even attempting to have a good-faith intellectual conversation about this that I have to create a throwaway account to remove a not-at-all implausible chance of having my life ruined for even engaging on this topic at all.

And this isn't even getting into the atmosphere that seems to really be setting in, where agreeing to listen to someone has become tantamount to agreeing with everything they say. That's the really frightening one.

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[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth