Thank you for the explanation, I'm going abstract my response somewhat rather then address your actual examples, because I don't want to get dragged into discussion of those particular incidents. I also want to respond to a couple different points, so this might be a bit all over the place.
I believe it is certainly possible to look at the details of an individual police shooting of a black man and come to the conclusion that it was justified. But there are cultural forces at work that influence every police shooting, and I believe that racism often has played a role in putting that black man into the position where the police can justifiably shoot him. So I may not believe the police officer has done anything wrong in some particular case, but I don't absolve society for it's share of the blame in creating the situation (nor do I absolve the man).
I don't disagree there. I just disagree with protesting the lack of prison time given to police officers who haven't broken the law.
There are some situations where I don't believe a reasonable person could believe the police officer wasn't justified. In those cases, if someone protests I assume they are knowingly prioritizing politics over justice, and I don't like that. In other cases, I may not think the police did anything wrong (and they may have been found not guilty, or not charged with anything) but I still see enough ambiguity that I can understand why someone would protest. If some people chose to protest something which I disagree with (the protest), it has no effect on my opinion about the situation. So I'll continue to believe black men are unfairly and unlawfully targeted by police, even if sometimes BLM protests what I would consider a justifiable (though still lamentable) shooting, and I will continue to try to be an ally to that movement. I don't think we differ much on this, but if you'd like to expand where you disagree, that would be appreciated.
On the subject of reasonableness-- lets look at the way women's rights have been pursued. Generations of politeness didn't do them any good-- it took agitation and protest. And yet they are still told to manage their emotions despite the fact that (at least some evidence suggests) people listen to them more when they stop managing their emotions. If white men didn't have the vote, we wouldn't be polite, we wouldn't protest peacefully. We would start a fucking war. (And in this country, that's precisely what we did). We should be relieved women have been more patient than men would have been.
I'm not opposed to assertive protest, and I agree it is effective. It's the abandonment of critical thinking and contempt displayed to those who engage in it on these issues. Think of those who argue that racism = power + prejudice. Racism already has a definition, and this new definition has simply been created to let racists of historically oppressed groups off the hook. That actually hurts the cause by turning off all of the fair minded people who might otherwise by sympathetic to their cause.
This part wasn't even necessarily in response to your post, just something I wanted to say. I think I understand the point your making about racism, though do you mean historically
un-opressed groups?. You are saying that it bothers you when people say you can't be racist towards white people, because you have to have the power to oppress to be racist. Do I have you right?
If that's the case, I think it's not a fruitful subject to argue. Because we're not discussing the underlying actions, we're discussing what arbitrary label we apply to those actions. If the left had started saying
opressism to mean when a group in power is prejudiced towards a group not in power, rather that modifying the use of racism, nothing would be any different, but you'd presumably be okay with this word. The words we use are meaningless in isolation, it's the action that they point to that matters. No one is harmed by this new definition of racism (we still have the word prejudice to refer to actions against white people).
On the carrot and stick thing-- isn't that what we all do all the time? A few posts back dustin22 wrote "well said" to a post of yours. While I'm writing this he's added "really fantastic post" and you've replied with a "I agree with your recommendation". You two are doing the same thing Kris did when she agreed with me, so I don't really see the issue.
There's a slight difference, but an important one. It's fine to compliment folks you agree with and hold them in high esteem if they are fair minded thinkers. I think it's messed up to base your judgment of a person based on how closely they adhere to your ideology and publicize that. I'm not saying Kris intended to communicate to everyone that unless they agree that male socializing leads to misogyny, she doesn't hold them in high esteem, but that's what I think can be reasonably inferred from her statement. It falls into the vein of the "If you voted for Trump, unfriend me now" facebook status. It's a positively framed version of that.
I don't know, this still feels like Russell's conjugation: I am righteously indignant, you are annoyed, he is making a fuss over nothing.
Or to offer an updated version: I am complimentary, you are virtue signalling, they are enforcing an ideology.
You are reading a different meaning into someone else's action than you do your own, despite the fact the the actual actions are quite similar.
While I have many friends on the left, I only have a few that are far left - and they're more sympathetic to far left ideology than aggressively promoting it in person. All of my in person interactions have been pretty respectful and fair minded when politics come up. I haven't used facebook in a couple years, so my sources of this bad behavior of the far left I'm reporting are mostly based on what I read in the news, hear in podcasts, read in this forum, etc. I think the internet is a place full of nuance if you look in the right corners of it. NPR, good podcasts, long form articles from Atlantic, Quillette, NYT, etc.
Good perspective on believe women. Thanks for sharing it, I tend to agree with what you've mentioned although it originally struck me as dangerously oversimplified.
My language was sloppy. I agree that there are plenty of places on the internet where nuance can thrive (including here, hopefully). Rather, I suppose I meant to say whatever corner of the internet that is bothering you might not be an accurate reflection of people on the whole.
*edited for clarity*