[dagmx]

Please don't invoke MLK as a bastion of peace and hope. it's so contrite: "look at this well behaved person there. Be more like him"

Except MLK also called out the passiveness of people, he called out the folks who were moderates. He worked with many who were deemed troublemakers and are hero's today. He spoke with anger and rage many a time.

So when people point at MLK and Gandhi as "peaceful models to follow", it's just a dog whistle to sit down and behave, and not step out of line. MLK didn't make the movement for civil liberties by being polite and taking everything in his stride. Neither did Gandhi. This is just plain white washing of history to appeal to "order" that befits people who don't need to care.

And no, you can't simply just understand what other people are going through just by proxy. No, most people don't know what Injustice feels like until they experience it, many don't even know when they do. It's about a conscious shifting of minds, and understanding that other people go through life differently than you, so maybe instead of saying "I understand", it's okay to say you don't and that you're there for them. Because you cannot understand. You cannot understand unless you live it. You can only sympathize, but first you need to even acknowledge the depth of the problems.

[skinnymuch]

Thanks for your comments in this thread. Per your last paragraph. That’s why I’ve begun going through the idea of compassion over empathy. For many reasons including what you’re saying.

[TeeMassive]

I'll involve who I want the way I want even if it rustles a few "holier than thou" feathers. And MLK is cited as a model to follow, what are you talking about? Standing up to an angry mobs who wanted to kill him? Dude, we'd need some of that right now.

> He worked with many who were deemed troublemakers and are hero's today.

"Worked with", maybe (that's hardly arguable, and not because of their violence but despite of it), but he always stood for non-violence that's just a fact.

> So when people point at MLK and Gandhi as "peaceful models to follow", it's just a dog whistle to sit down and behave, and not step out of line. MLK didn't make the movement for civil liberties by being polite and taking everything in his stride. Neither did Gandhi. This is just plain white washing of history to appeal to "order" that befits people who don't need to care.

And no, they didn't just "sit down and behave", that's just not factually true if you read anything about the civil rights movement. You're simply conflating "peaceful" with "passive" which I never meant or said. And the idea of "dog whistles" is just BS. I mean, secret codes that people pass around as if they were part of a nation wide grand conspiracy is just frivolous. It's clear that it is used only because it's an accusation that's impossible to disprove, which easily shows how honest people using that term really are. And I'm not appealing nothing to befit nobody, that's just a trial of intentions at this point.

> And no, you can't simply just understand what other people are going through just by proxy. No, most people don't know what Injustice feels like until they experience it, many don't even know when they do. It's about a conscious shifting of minds, and understanding that other people go through life differently than you, so maybe instead of saying "I understand", it's okay to say you don't and that you're there for them. Because you cannot understand. You cannot understand unless you live it. You can only sympathize, but first you need to even acknowledge the depth of the problems.

Ooof, I wouldn't want you to be my dentist...

This is demonstrably not true. Empathy definitely exists in most of people, otherwise we would not be able to live in society and it would literally be the law of the jungle. The fact that most activist didn't even experience what they're fighting against just completely destroys that notion. I think this section of your post is more a reflection of your psyche than anything else but I digress.

[skinnymuch]

The person is rightfully saying you are describing MLK in a way in which he was not. At his core, his anger and his saying a whole lot of angry things as well as much more hyper leftist and radical thinking towards his later years are not discussed much if at all. Instead society presents this basic image of him. Which is what the OP and myself now are pointing out to you. MLK should not be invoked the way you did because it’s not correct.

Not because MLK is not a role model. The guy is amazing. The more I read of his outrage and radical thinking, the more I like him. Personally speaking.

—

The OP isn’t saying they ever sat down and behaved. They are saying that invoking the white washed versions of Gandhi and MLK are some ways to tell people either directly or indirectly to calm down, chill out, and relatively speaking, keep the status quo.

—

Empathy isn’t necessarily that helpful in these sort of situations. I appreciate Yale’s Paul Bloom’s idea of compassion over empathy.

[TeeMassive]

MLK's message was never about "I'm angry at you, I demand reparations" like we're seeing today and he NEVER advocated for violence or "positive" segregation. The idea that he's radical the same way we're seeing the radical anti-racists of today is simply ridiculous.

> The OP isn’t saying they ever sat down and behaved. They are saying that invoking the white washed versions of Gandhi and MLK are some ways to tell people either directly or indirectly to calm down, chill out, and relatively speaking, keep the status quo.

You simply reframed what he said. He made a big straw man making statements based on nothing and therefore I simply pointed out it can be dismissed with nothing.

> Empathy isn’t necessarily that helpful in these sort of situations. I appreciate Yale’s Paul Bloom’s idea of compassion over empathy.

Why it's not useful? If seeing and recognizing injustice does nothing at the emotional level there would never have been a motivation to make things right. Even Bloom recognizes that. The idea that "you can't know if you're not it" just doesn't make sense and has plenty of counter-examples from every day life.

[skinnymuch]

You’re doing and have kept doing many of the things you claim others are doing. He is unlike “radical anti-racists of today”. Who are these people? They can be grouped into one? I’m not violent. Yet I fit the description.

For your last pt - no one said it isn’t useful. I didn’t. Your entire argument is based off a made up scenario.

—

I believe you’ve dug your feet in and can not accept you are not 100% correct and the rest of us are all wrong and do not know MLK or history. No point in continuing discussing when the intellectual discourse goes away and it becomes semantics snd minor bickering.

[dagmx]

Firstly, I think you need to reread what I said, because some of your responses are non sensical in context of what I'm saying. I'm not saying that MLK shouldn't be a role model. He's a great role model I'm just calling out your use of him as a purely hopeful idol. Many of MLKs most famous speeches and letters are full of outrage. It's only the white washed history of him that paints him as this one dimensional person to point to when people get "uppity".

Thinking that dog whistles don't exist speaks to your privilege. That in and of itself shows why you can't understand what other people go through. Because you don't believe that the things they go through exist.

[TeeMassive]

> Firstly, I think you need to reread what I said, because some of your responses are nonsensical in context of what I'm saying.

How? I directly quoted you.

> I'm just calling out your use of him as a purely hopeful idol. Many of MLKs most famous speeches and letters are full of outrage.

Of course if you speak in absolutes, there was outrage, I never made the purity argument. I'm simply pointing tout that it wasn't the message nor that the main point was to express outrage or complaining in hope of pity. MLK's message was appealing, the other radicals' are not, even to this day.

> It's only the white washed history of him that paints him as this one dimensional person to point to when people get "uppity".

It's your opinion that you backed up by nothing and therefore it takes nothing to dismiss it.

> Thinking that dog whistles don't exist speaks to your privilege.

Do you accuse anyone who disagrees with you of being "too privileged to understand"? This is just an empty accusation based on the quality of someone you don't even know. "Privilege" is a meme at this point. In fact, I think you are tool privileged to understand, prove me wrong.

> That in and of itself shows why you can't understand what other people go through. Because you don't believe that the things they go through exist.

Sorry you can't be taken seriously after that. I mean, people nationwide coordinating in a secret language? Maybe that just doesn't make sense?

[lordloki]

The whole concept of dog whistles is to build a strawman argument. There may be some small groups that use some coded language, but extrapolating that out to the entire population is a straw man argument. It basically allows you to alter what the other side says and demonize them for that interpretation instead of what is actually said.

The entire concept of dog whistles is pretty nefarious and only causes more division by causing one side to be able to assume the worst of the other side. It's also silly to assume that the people who actually think the things that you interpret the dog whistles to mean, are somehow afraid to actually say the things you interpret them as saying. Actual white supremacists don't talk in code, they say actual, clearly racist things. They don't feel the need to hide it.

I read a funny article recently that many minority groups supported the "dog whistle" policies, when it comes to securing the border. The author seemed confused that all the minority groups were racist against undocumented immigrants, or just not understanding that the policies listed in the survey were "dog whistles." The most likely explanation is the simplest, many Americans are against illegal/undocumented immigration.

[dagmx]

Minorities , are shockingly, still human and not exempt from tribalism and racism themselves.

Dog whistles are a thing, and well documented. Your characterization of it as a way to say it's not a thing feels to me like white fragility. It's akin to saying sexual harassment isn't a thing and is used by women to paint men in a bad light, as long as it's not overt.