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> One might broadly support the ends of BLM while being uncomfortable with the means. I sense a conflation of the statement "Black Lives Matter" with the movement "Black Lives Matter" with a third, completely unrelated concept, that being lootings and property destruction. Are you insinuating that the people who want the world to know that black lives matter are the same that are looting target? Despite extensive arrests showing these people to be agent provocateurs and white supremacists? Furthermore, it's not really accurate to even say "the Black Lives Matters," as if it's an organization. If anything, it's unfortunately extremely disorganized, with extremely disparate groups and goals (i.e. defund vs abolish vs reform police arguments), almost complete lack of a central, trustworthy 501(c) to donate to, and lack of leadership. The politics of the movement are also extremely disparate - communists, anarchists, libertarians, pro-gun anti-gun, Muslim, Christian, non-religious. It's all over the place. The only unifying thing behind people who say "Black Lives Matter" is the belief that Black Lives Matter. That's why to say "uncomfortable with the means" doesn't mean you're uncomfortable with, say, someone burning down a police station, it's more precarious, or you end up like the White Moderate that MLK warned against as the greatest threat to civil rights. |
Okay, I'll stipulate for sake of argument.
As the apostle famously said, faith without works is dead. If one believes that black lives matter, then one works to that end. Yet what should one do? Is there (to abuse the analogy) a set of ten commandments to follow? If there is no organization, then isn't one free to pursue justice for people of color as she sees fit?
It is easily seen that two people may assert "Black Lives Matter" and work towards conflicting ends.
One might, for example, work to prohibit abortion, seeing it as means by which the state sanctions genocide by murdering people of color (who have higher per-capita abortion rates than whites).
Someone else could advocate for unrestricted free-as-in-beer abortion, believing that economic inequality among women of color is driven in no small part by the disproportionate burdens placed on them by childbearing and the destruction of the nuclear family, to say nothing of reproductive rights of women.
I suppose having no organization allows for a big tent--a sort of catholicity, if you will--to unite such disparate groups of people, but it seems ineffective to me. After all, a house divided against itself cannot stand, as someone else famously said.
One way to help solve that problem is to have clearly stated policy goals (e.g., end qualified immunity) with targets to meet (e.g., here is a political contest we have a chance of swaying to get another vote against qualified immunity). A suitable organization can put people in touch (e.g. lawyers, grassroots campaigners, et c.) to get things moving. Maybe it's already been done, but in general this seems to be missing from blacklivesmatter.com.