> Holy dog whistle, Batman

Unreasonable people are not a protest's priority. They are entrenched. If they're with you, you won't lose them. If they're against you, you won't win them.

Note that this bias towards the reasonable only applies at the early stages of organization. When one is building awareness, before specific policies have been mooted. Once policy fronts develop, the unreasonable play their part. They create your battering ram of a base that focusses elected leaders on ensuring your policy remains a priority.

Putting the unreasonable front and centre too early leads to each camp preaching to its choir while the masses disengage.

I think the problem he is pointing out in your statement is that you effectively just said everyone either agrees with your or is unreasonable. There is no middle ground. I can not be a reasonable person who disagrees with you.

My interpretation is reasonable not in the senses of being establishment, elite, or some other socioeconomic signifier, but as in literally amenable to being convinced by reasoned argument, based on evidence and logical relationships between premises, evidence, and conclusions.

Contrasted with insensitive to reason.

So no, not a dog whistle.

A more charitable reading: a large subset of all reasonable New Yorkers support the police in general. Not sure if that was what they meant, but it's how I read it.

Where you say reasonable, I think you mean to say mainstream.

> Where you say reasonable, I think you mean to say mainstream

Able to be reasoned with?

Mainstream pertains to "ideas, attitudes or activities" [1]. A protest probably wants to appeal to those who hold mainstream views. Or bring its supporters' views into the mainstream. But the whole point of the protest is something isn't mainstream that should be.

[1] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/mainstream

Reasonable seems valid. With the information they had, those New Yorkers reasoned that the police were doing a good job. Likewise if you were to bring them new information, they might reason that the police are doing a bad job. And there are also reasonable people who think the police are doing a bad job, they were just exposed to a different set of information and/or different values than the people who think the police are doing a good job.

And then on the extremes are the unreasonable people. Those who will support the police regardless of any negative change, and those who will oppose the police regardless of any positive change.

Grandparent comment did not say that people who disagreed were unreasonable. It said that reformers are taught to target to target people who, reasonably, are NYPD supporters. It does imply that being a supporter is within reason, but more so indicates that set intersection exists and is both large and who can be influenced through reason (due to them being reasonable).

It does not purport to limit those who are reasonable. The phrasing could have been used in a dog whistle which does, but this particular remark isn't it. Moreover, there is little audience for such a dog whistle in the midst of a conversation about practical ways to effect meaningful reform.

This should not be a wedge between us that impedes us from working together towards justice and peace.

> target people who, reasonably, are NYPD supporters

Slight edit, to target reasonable people. Period. Reasonable people can hate the NYPD. But because an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers support the NYPD, the average reasonable New Yorker is likely to as well.

Speaking to the current environment, I believe there is overlap between support for the protestors' cause and the NYPD in general.