Black Lives Matter

This post is not about the movement, the purpose of the movement, the results of the movement, nor the response to the movement. This post is about the phrase itself.

The purpose of media is to get viewers to watch or read more. This causes advertising revenue to go up for players on both sides of any issue. This same logic applies to political organizations and think tanks. For this reason, it is not in any major organization’s interest to resolve any issue, but rather to keep conflict alive as long as possible. Understanding this is getting to first base in being able to navigate our current social unrest.

One key way that these conflicts are kept going is by using language misdirects. Whether intentional or accidental, “Black Lives Matter” gets a high score as a language misdirect.

There are three components to a typical verbal exchange. First is the meaning the “speaker” wants to express, second is the “phrase” they use, and third is the meaning the “hearer” understands. We learn the meaning of phrases by seeing them used and seeing them responded to. The key here is that if we watch and read media on one side the red/blue divide, or read echo chamber comment sections, we quickly learn a strong and confirmed meaning of the phrase. That is, both sides of the red/blue divide are learning a different meaning. The exact same logic applies to “All Lives Matter”. Lets break this down.

When a typical Blue side person says “Black Lives Matter” they might mean one of the following things:

• Typical: We should make changes to reduce racism.
• Typical: We should make changes to avoid unnecessary police violence.
• More extreme: We should abolish all police.

When a typical Red side person hears “Black Lives Matter” they might hear one of the following things:

• Typical: Black lives matter more than white lives matter.
• Typical: We should abolish all police because a few have committed crimes.
• More extreme: All white people are evil, and have no place in our society.

When a typical Red side person says “All Lives Matter” they might mean one of the following things:

• Typical: We should make changes to reduce racism.
• Typical: We should make changes to avoid unnecessary police violence.
• More extreme: Black Lives Matter is clearly racists, and as such has no place in our society.

When a typical Blue side person hears “All Lives Matter” they might hear one of the following things:

• Typical: Black lives don’t matter.
• Typical: Black people are already equal in every way to white people. There is no racism in America.
• More extreme: All black people are evil, and have no place in our society.

So who owns the thoughts in your head? Who owns the right to pick a particular meaning for a particular word? That answer is pretty obvious, you do! However people on both sides of the red/blue divide are trying to force the other side to attached a different meaning to these phrases. Blue side players are trying to “educate” red players about what Black Lives Matter and All Lives matter “really” mean. Red players are also trying to educate blue players about the meaning of these phrases.

This problem, brought about by language misdirect, seems unsolvable. Just like all the major players in this game want!

But the solution is actually simple. Don’t use words that don’t have a clear meaning to the people you are speaking to. Don’t respond to a what someone else says until you know what they actually mean.

For example, a female hook tender on a high lead logging operation in Idaho might not put her occupation as “hooker” on Facebook or LinkedIn unless her audience was only other hook tenders. The police would not arrest her before they took the time to understand what she actually meant.

Another tactic is to keep things local and relevant. Do we really know what is happening in Minneapolis and Seattle? Actually, nearly everything we know came from players that want to keep the red/blue divide going. Those that want to keep us divided. So reserve at least a small amount of skepticism.

Here is an example:

How do you feel about Black Lives Matter? I live in the Clearwater region of Idaho/Washington and there are very few instances of police violence in our area. I do feel we need to be constantly vigilant about how our police behave so supporting them is always a correct choice. How do you feel about Black Lives Matter?

Feel free to give your opinion on how language misdirects are effecting us and solutions we can work toward implementing. Note that the topic is NOT about police violence or racism in the Clearwater. There will be posts for those on another day.