In response to the post on "Why Movements Fail," I'd like to share my perspective on why the 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement didn't seem to achieve its intended goals.
My Critique
From my understanding, BLM's mission included advocating for decriminalization. This involved calls to defund police forces, support decarceration, and shift toward a "root causes" approach to addressing crime. Additionally, the movement sought to tackle police brutality—a goal that I believe most Americans support. If a police officer is found guilty of wrongdoing, there should be swift, certain, and proportionate sanctions. This seems to be a widely accepted view (70% of Americans believe Chauvin's verdict was just).
However, the push for decriminalization is where many Americans, myself included, take issue. The belief that crime stems primarily from "root causes" rather than antisocial norms is unsupported by evidence. Effective formal social control is the best way to reduce crime, not the weakening of law enforcement. Moreover, this approach doesn't align with what Black Americans actually want.
There's a misconception, particularly among some left-leaning individuals and even some Republicans, that Black Americans view law enforcement as inherently harmful. While a vocal minority may hold this view, it's not representative of the majority.
Black Americans are just regular people. They, like most people, want to live in safe, healthy, and comfortable neighborhoods—free from violence, theft, and public disorder. A 2024 study supports this, showing that despite somewhat strained relations with law enforcement, Black Americans want the police to operate at optimal capacity.
I believe the movement unnecessarily polarized Americans, especially with useless discourse about whether BLM implies that other lives don't matter (note: I don't believe it does). Most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, likely agree that law enforcement should be both effective and fair. The biggest mistake activists made was assuming that supporting law enforcement's effectiveness and advocating for fairness are mutually exclusive.
I also believe the movement strained community relations by exaggerating the risk of being shot by the police, creating a heightened sense of fear among many Black Americans. It's likely they did this for mobilizing purposes, but it's important to be truthful. The reality is that the risk of being killed by police is significantly MUCH MUCH lower than the likelihood of being killed by a peer. It is also quite rare.
Violent encounters with law enforcement typically involve individuals who are engaged in some form of illegal activity, which does not apply to the vast majority of the 40 million Black Americans. For instance, Rodney King was suspected of drunk driving, and George Floyd was suspected of using a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill (whether he actually did is unclear). I’m not mentioning this to justify the obviously horrific treatment they received, but to emphasize that most Black Americans aren't in situations that lead to such encounters with the police.
Another issue is that the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation seems quite sketchy and suffers from mission creep. However, since it doesn't seem to represent the majority of activists, this concern is relatively minor.
The Alternative
When discussing problems, it is helpful to bring up solutions or alternatives. As I said before, fair and effective social control is key.
In criminology, there's a concept known as the "law of crime concentration," which suggests that violent crime is disproportionately concentrated in a small number of locations and committed by a small group of chronic offenders. There is a common conception that violence is randomly distributed in violent places, but this is untrue.
With this in mind, two forms of precision policing are essential: proactive and reactive policing.
Proactive policing aims to prevent crime before it occurs by identifying and addressing potential risks. This includes strategies like hot-spot policing and focused deterrence.
Reactive policing focuses on responding to crimes after they've happened, such as by improving the investigation of non-fatal shootings—which often have lower clearance rates—and conducting targeted gang takedowns.
I think that's all I'll write, since this post is quite long. Thoughts?
Posted by SoWhatKnowGenius
3 Comments
> However, the push for decriminalization is where many Americans, myself included, take issue. The belief that crime stems primarily from “root causes” rather than antisocial norms is unsupported by evidence. Effective formal social control is the best way to reduce crime, not the weakening of law enforcement. Moreover, this approach doesn’t align with what Black Americans actually want.
> There’s a misconception, particularly among some left-leaning individuals and even some Republicans, that Black Americans view law enforcement as inherently harmful. While a vocal minority may hold this view, it’s not representative of the majority.
It’s deeply ironic how you call out the left for assuming black people support Defund the Police but then make the mistake of thinking black people support tough on crime politicians out of some misguided and biased understanding of black politics. You can look at how black people vote and who they vote for. The candidates at the local level who often position themselves as the toughest on crime are the candidates who tend to suffer in black communities electorally. People thought “tough on crime” was going to win black votes for Rick Caruso in LA and Paul Vallas in Chicago and they both flopped hard with black voters
> I believe the movement unnecessarily polarized Americans, especially with useless discourse about whether BLM implies that other lives don’t matter (note: I don’t believe it does). Most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, likely agree that law enforcement should be both effective and fair. The biggest mistake activists made was assuming that supporting law enforcement’s effectiveness and advocating for fairness are mutually exclusive.
> I also believe the movement strained community relations by exaggerating the risk of being shot by the police, creating a heightened sense of fear among many Black Americans. It’s likely they did this for mobilizing purposes, but it’s important to be truthful. The reality is that the risk of being killed by police is significantly MUCH MUCH lower than the likelihood of being killed by a peer. It is also quite rare.
In reality, the Black Lives Matter Movement still draws the most support from black Americans so, again, it’s hilarious how you are saying this when you just chastised “the left” for speaking on behalf of black people. Is absolutely absurd and deeply ignorant for you to try to blame black perceptions about police violence on Black Lives Matter when racism in policing and police violence against black people were acknowledged by the federal government as issues over a century ago. Police violence against black people has resulted in deaths and backlash in the form of social unrest for over a century
> Violent encounters with law enforcement typically involve individuals who are engaged in some form of illegal activity, which does not apply to the vast majority of the 40 million Black Americans. For instance, Rodney King was suspected of drunk driving, and George Floyd was suspected of using a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill (whether he actually did is unclear).
> I’m not mentioning this to justify the obviously horrific treatment they received, but to emphasize that most Black Americans aren’t in situations that lead to such encounters with the police.
To quote Kamala Harris, “why are you being so weird”? If you have to explicitly go out of your way to say you aren’t justifying racism, at some point along the way of you writing this screed you realized it clearly sounds like you’re excusing racism (because you are. George Floyd was murdered, Rodney King was assaulted and abused, there are no justifications for what happened to them)
The main reason it failed was because it had no clearly defined goal, no message discipline, and was led by its most extreme ideologues. They ignored every lesson from the success of the civil rights movement. Protests ended up opposing capitalism, america, the existence of police, the legal system, perceived biases that cannot be disproven, and so on. Think about that while reading this [transcript of the “I Have a Dream” speech](https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety). Imagine a left wing protest leader today giving a speech in which he praises american presidents from the 1800s, refers to the Constitution as magnificent words, says his cause is deeply rooted in the american dream, thanks god, hopes for brotherhood with his biggest opponents, calls white people his brothers who must not be distrusted, and insists upon peaceful protest. It’s kinda hard to imagine. MLK had a very specific cause that was achievable (civil rights laws being passed) and he constantly talked about it using popular and even conservative language. Modern “left” social leaders are incapable of ever deviating from the most extrene rhetoric, lest they be targeted by their own supporters
This post would have been extremely controversial here if it was posted 3 years ago, and is milquetoast now, which really shows how much this sub has changed.