[johnjj257]

That is a very straw manned interpretation of the phrase. I don't particularly love the phrase myself but this is a dishonest interpretation. Of course a few people probably believe that but it's a giant movement and the large majority do not seem to think that way at all... Maybe take more opinions than a couple op eds.

Have you even spoken to anyone or gone to an event? I live in a city with a lot of demonstrations and you quickly learn that isn't the phrases intent or ideology for nearly everyone except extreme outliers and agitators.

[colechristensen]

I have a picture of a spraypainted message on the boarded up window of a Minneapolis business from last year

"actually defund the police"

What did the messenger mean by that?

[johnjj257]

You keep jumping to singular examples when I just explained yes, you can find extreme outliers, but you are ignoring the large majority of people and their intent. And you keep pointing to op eds and sensationalized news stories OF COURSE those will find the extremes and put them on a pedestal.

Look a little deeper and actually go to an event or talk to some real people and you find out what real people believe, I promise you the phrase doesn't mean no police anymore for most people in most places. YES it's a massive movement with outliers.. the two things can and do exist at the same time, lumping them all together or saying it's an even distribution is either intellectually lazy or dishonest

[colechristensen]

This is just gaslighting though.

Pick a slogan with an obvious interpretation, tell everyone it isn't what you mean, tell everyone that the only people that really mean it are outliers, continue to push it hoping it really comes true.

A protest march and slogan graffiti aren't invitations to come converse, they are statements. Most of the people I meet might have vague sympathies for these messages but don't participate and obviously don't have those views.

When I see people shouting at each other in the street (in my own experience), chanting on megaphones, businesses boarding up their windows, and people piling trash on the street to keep police and others away... it isn't exactly an invitation to come see what people are about.

It's especially manipulative doublespeak. Say one thing, mean another, and demean anybody who dares to take your message at face value.

I'm judging people with what I see. I see the actual movement with either vague messages that are hard to interpret as not extreme and specific messages that are impossible to interpret any other way. The only people I see trying to have the "reasonable" message are folks online acting as apologists for the protests trying to defend what they "actually" mean with nothing to back up their claims.

The protest nearest to me and most recent for a couple of days had "DEATH TO US MARSHALLS" tagged on the boarded up window of a nearby business. You'll excuse me for not wanting to approach people still demonstrating in the presence of messaging like that.

[johnjj257]

Ok sure complain about the phrase if you want I get that, whatever it just feels like an odd complaint given the situation. It's kind of hard to organize a giant movement and this is what you get.

Yes it's a muddled mix but two things jump out quickly. One you're not going to get attention marching with notepads and whispering. And two they don't need to cater their message to anyone's ideas but their own you are asking a totally different generation to appeal to another. Yes it might be a better political idea, but this is a young emotional movement. I don't know how people can expect a sophisticated perfect message and a completely unified front... It's just not realistic

I'm not saying you have to go to demonstrations if you dont want to, but if you want to find out the truth though you probably should it is worlds away from what you are describing you just said your only experience is through news and online forums. Yes there will be some messaging like that. Obviously I don't agree with that, or lots of other ideas and sentiments, but I still listen to everything they have to say. There will be a few extremes and colorful language but do all those folks really want to kill marshalls? Highly doubt it. Again it's getting attention and people are pissed off... These are young activists not campaign managers

[colechristensen]

It's not an odd complaint.

There is a large protest movement that is doing a terrible job achieving its goals, if its goals are to actually effect change.

It's not on me or anyone to go decypher what a movement is trying to be. Yes, messaging is hard, but if you're a movement without a message, all you are is a bunch of angry people in the street occasionally causing riots.

If you're hanging around in a protest where folks are advocating killing federal marshals (protestors can't always spell very well) you aren't exactly... not endorsing that message.

You're getting down to my point.

I've generally been opposed to recent protest movements. I think they have done a lot of harm (property damage, human lives, destruction of community resources) and very little good (confused message, no clear goals, encouraging extreme hostile views and actions).

The protests have served as a venue for people do demonstrate their virtue and a mechanism for increasing divisiveness and ultimately have done considerable harm to achieving any of the goals they might conceivably want if someone thoughtful was taking charge.

"We don't have anything to say but we're going to talk loudly anyway and expect other people with more sense to solve our problems for us" isn't a great message for a protest movement. You can't elect the right people if you don't know what you want. You can't change hearts and minds if you haven't figured it out for yourself first. And most importantly, if you have a bad message or no message and you're perfectly happy to associate yourself with the people who do have violent, destructive messaging, intent, and actions... the people who might be on the fence to support your cause are going to become your opponents... not just opponents of the extremes you tolerate, but opponents of everything you're choosing to associate with those extremes.

[johnjj257]

It is very odd to call it gaslighting when it's a giant movement, attributing something like that to a young group of people with a wide ranging message looks very odd and because you don't look below the surface at all you have no understanding of the deeper meanings or you choose to ignore them. And it is very odd to expect a group of young activists to have a perfectly crafted message for you to understand... you're not realistic at all

"It's not on me or anyone to go decypher what a movement is trying to be. Yes, messaging is hard, but if you're a movement without a message, all you are is a bunch of angry people in the street occasionally causing riots.

If you're hanging around in a protest where folks are advocating killing federal marshals (protestors can't always spell very well) you aren't exactly... not endorsing that message"

This is a truly bizarre perspective to have... you're saying that someone is basically endorsing everything at a demonstration when all they are doing is listening to what is going on... THE DEFINITION OF HAVING AN OPEN MIND you think is a bad position to take... You sound very close minded and you mix rioters and demonstrators with another wave of your hand, yikes! Try going out into your community with an open mind. I'm not saying I would run up beside a banner that says that and be all buddy buddy, because thats a crazy statement, but it would behoove you to not just lump in an entire legitimate movement with one crazy person, because also like I said there's no way those people actually advocate killing people... thats so obvious!!! You found one crazy person or someone looking to stir shit up that's all.

You seem to have a really skewed perspective of this and on top of that are resorting to childish arguments like spelling errors... get real you don't know anything about me or most of these protestors (I won a spelling bee bitch but go ahead flex some more). I said I went to one demonstration and you have a slew of ideas and prejudgments.