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Friday, June 26, 2020

The Effectiveness of the "Black Lives Matter" Terminology

Black Lives Matter was an organization originally created several years ago in response to police brutality against black people. Per their own words, it "began as a call to action in response to state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism." Original criticisms against the organization, as I remember the history personally, focused mostly on their failure to address other important areas of disadvantage for black people - high crime rates within their own communities, disproportionate abortion rates for black babies, cultural issues of fatherlessness and so on and so forth. These criticisms were lobbied based on the actual name of the organization - "Black Lives Matter." The argument is as such: "if black lives truly matter, why don't you focus on [xyz] issue in the black community?"

It sounds like a good argument, but it is actually not. Let me be clear - it really does SOUND like a good argument, on the surface, because the organization is called "Black Lives Matter". This is an "it's in the name" argument, which is a fallacy. But it's not a good argument, because we don't judge things based on their names, we judge them based on their actions. All people, for or against Black Lives Matter, should judge the organization based on its actions, not its name. The organization was created to fight what the creators saw as unfair treatment of black people by their own government and police force, so that's what the organization does. Arguing that they must do other things because they are called "Black Lives Matter" is the same argument used against "pro-life" organizations, since they only focus on stopping abortion, and not things like feeding the poor.

This is entirely consistent. Names are effective as the way in which we refer to things, so we can call a pro-life organization "a pro-life organization" and know exactly what that organization does, because "pro-life" is the name we have all agreed on as the colloquial term to describe someone who is against abortion. "Black Lives Matter" is the name of the organization we have understood to be against police mistreatment of black people. They do not have to focus on fatherlessness in black communities anymore than pro-life organizations do not need to feed homeless veterans.

The problem is that, while this is fair and consistent, the organization itself still - intentionally misleadingly - uses the monkier of "Black Lives Matter" to insist that anyone who is against the organization "Black Lives Matter" actually doesn't care about black people's lives. Let me clarify where we are so far, here:

1. Black Lives Matter is the name of the organization that fights against what they believe is systemic police brutality against black people.
2. Black Lives Matter does not have to do anything else, because organizations are designed to fit specific purposes and have no obligation to "branch out" into any and all related causes simply because their opposition says they must. (New organizations can simply be created to advance these other, related causes.)
3. Black Lives Matter knows this and is consistent in this regard.
4. Black Lives Matter intentionally breaches this consistency to apply the incorrect argument stated above, onto the people who oppose their organization.

What is happening is that Black Lives Matter takes advantage of the consistent and right view that they do not have to focus on every single issue in black society while turning around and enforcing that view on their opposition. If someone is against Black Lives Matter because they do not believe there is unfair treatment of black people by police, or any other reason (like their many, unrelated political issues they focus on, which can be found on their own website), then the opposition is labeled as not caring about black people in relation to all other issues, and indeed accused of believing that black lives in fact do not matter.

Despite the fact that we all understand the concept of the term "Black Lives Matter" being used as the name of the organization that has specific beliefs and goals, any opposition to the organization is seen as opposition to the actual phrase "black lives matter", absent of its context as a name of a group, and not the organization at hand. This is done intentionally to dissuade opposition to the "Black Lives Matter" organization by accusing all opposition of opposing the statement "black lives matter", using the very name of the organization "out of context" as it were.

This is intentional, a classic an easily identifiable double standard. If Black Lives Matter as an organization truly focused on all issues that black society faces, then it could be arguable that being against the organization (assuming they did not have a bunch of ulterior motives, which they do) would in fact be objectively morally wrong. The truth to the actual phrase "black lives matter" out of context of the organization is objectively true. All people are created equal in front of an all-loving God who finds every human life precious. Black lives truly do matter. "Black Lives Matter," though, is an organization with specific goals. Being against these goals is a valid stance, as there is more of them than "police killing black people is wrong." The organization, being several years old, has adopted other goals and a more defined identity, some facets of which people could find disagreeable. They are stated plainly on their website, so this should not a secret to anyone.

It would be somewhat silly for the organization to simply be a group of people who were all united against black people being killed, and yet this is what they act like they are when their opposition says that the organization is bad and does bad things. If truly the only thing the organization did was "agree that black people being murdered is wrong," how could you be against it? Only legitimately true racists would believe it was good for black people to be murdered, and thus it is so easy to turn the opposition to the organization's goals on its head and make Black Lives Matter detractors seem like they are in fact legitimately racists who want black people to be murdered by invoking the "it's in the name" argument, which is false. While there are in fact legitimately racist people who want black people to be murdered, the percentage of these people within the opposition to the organization Black Lives Matter is very small. They are used intentionally to discredit the reasonable opposition to the organization Black Lives Matter that exists because of the actions and other beliefs of the organization.

Black Lives Matter adheres to many communistic ideals and outrightly sacrilegious beliefs. They have tricked many Christians into supporting an organization that seeks to dismantle Jesus Himself by hiding behind the "it's in the name" argument. This is blatantly a trick of Satan, who often uses half-truths to manipulate people into sin. It's his number one tactic and the first one he ever used. It's proven very effective for all of history, why would he ever stop using it? It is true that black lives matter, and every true Jesus-seeking Christian would agree. But "Black Lives Matter" the organization focuses on many other things that are objectively against Christ and His commandments.

People are tricked into supporting a pagan ideology that rests firmly against Jesus by convincingly labeling all opposition as "actual monsters who want black people to be murdered." Afraid of being mislabeled as actual black hating racists, Christians opt to support an organization that seeks to destroy Jesus, because they are afraid of how the world will see them if they detract.

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