#blacklivesmatter

I made no attempt to suggest that your country of origin or skin tone discredits your opinion, rather I simply pointed out the ignorance of your statement and made clear that these problems are not unique to the United States. On the contrary I actually gave you the benefit of the doubt because you are not from the US.

Again, if you are still unclear on the systems of oppression that still exist in the US then you are not paying attention, and it suggests an ignorance that, like I said, can be solved by educating yourself on both historical and modern context. If you cannot see the link between historical oppression and modern discrimination then I don't know what to tell you. These problems didn't just disappear with the Voting Rights Act.

It is entirely worthless to suggest that Spain and Ireland are both "extremely tolerant societies in the global context" when racism is still prevalent in both. Relative tolerance does not matter when Black people and URMs are still being oppressed and discriminated against on a daily basis. Statistics and trends are important but they are no excuse to discredit the experience of Black Americans, and to suggest that they are not presently oppressed is further discrediting their experience and precisely the reason behind the Black Lives Matter movement.

Moreover, to accept that racist acts continue to be committed while simultaneously denying the existence of systemic oppression in present day America necessarily implies there must be an alternative basis for such discrimination. One could argue that mode of thinking is, on its own, racist. It suggests there must exist an alternative explanation for the mountains of evidence of racial disparity among wealth, income, health care, political power, employment, housing, education, etc., and to divert the liability away from these institutions (the oppressors) is to direct it toward the oppressed.

Lastly, it is also a logical fallacy to suggest that somehow historical oppression plays no role in modern discrimination of Black people just because Jewish were also oppressed, and because they have had relative success in business and industry since WW2. (The suggestion that Jewish people have outperformed across the board is also patently false and only discredits the experiences of discrimination and oppression among Jewish people in modern America.)

It is unclear what you hope to achieve by denying the systemic oppression of Black people in the US and beyond, but I hope you will reconsider your perspective and continue to educate yourself on the sources of racial disparities in modern systems of power.

I’m not sure I understand the point you’re trying to make. Of course there are numerous examples of successful black people, as well as people that haven’t been targeted by police. Of course it’s not as simple all all black people have it bad. Of course there are socio-economic factors at play. That does not mean systemic racism does not exist. You’re quite right a good researcher would want to find out why. You should try doing a little research ;)

It’s overly simplistic to say that “in 2020 people aren’t allowed to have opinions without being lambasted for it.” As a society, we generally regard some values to be axiomatic. Opinions can’t be wrong, per se, but if they go against those axioms the pushback they receive is a feature, not a bug.

As a contrived example, an adult saying they find very young children attractive is a perfectly valid opinion. But it would receive near–universal condemnation — one of the axioms of our society is that sexual relationships between adults and children are wrong.

The Black Lives Matter movement advocates for an end to the US’s disproportionate violence against black people. @getflookup is essentially placing the blame for that violence on black people themselves, the same as saying “she was asking for it” when a woman is raped. It’s a valid opinion, but it goes against the axiom that people should be able to live their lives without being subject to capricious violence.

No one is owed a space for their ideas to be considered. Expressions of bigotry are still ugly, even when they’re dressed up in seemingly level–headed words.

Saying "movements like this will not change anything until black families realise that their destiny lies in their own hands" shows nothing but a lack of understanding. If this is an opinion, it's incorrect. Systemic racism (Jim Crow laws, redlining, stop and frisk...the list goes on) has exactly NOTHING to do with what "black families" realize. BLM calls to light this very idea: that the lives of black people are currently treated as less valuable than those of white people. Two names in the headlines in the last week: Floyd and Cooper. I don't need to list the hundreds of other needless deaths from headlines over the past century. RIGHT NOW unarmed protesters are being violently attacked in the streets by police. A journalist was arrested on air. A photographer lost her eye to a rubber bullet. Perhaps being in the UK has shielded you from what's happened in America in the past week, but it's as good a time as any to fill yourself in.

And moreover, the notion that BLM has unfortunate connotations whitewashes so much of the American civil rights movement. As if people of color expecting not to be killed, regularly, by the police, for silly reasons shouldn't make white people uncomfortable. Look around. Some of the largest IH companies have posted support for BLM today. Maybe it's time to listen and understand.

It bothers ME that in 2020 folks can post BLATANTLY racist comments and expect that their racism is defensible because "it's a different opinion." It really doesn't matter, that doesn't make it less racist. And it continues to be unwelcome.

Opinions can be uninformed. When opinions are expressed through language using oversimplification, generalization, and lacking nuance it makes it pretty obvious that they are uninformed.