This confusion was created the other side's choice of name, whether purposely or not.
You start off with a phrase like Black Lives Matter. This is clearly a political slogan designed to provoke opponents into taking the negation of it, i.e. into claiming that black lives don't matter.
The problem with it is that it's too clever by half, because it gives opponents the ability to claim the middle. All Lives Matter.
And it's a two party system so now both the center and the right are standing under the banner of the neutral slogan. Now BLM declares that ALM are really just a bunch of secret racists because otherwise they have to eat the rhetorical self-own.
But this is just an attempt to reassert the politically-motivated original framing, i.e. that anyone who disagrees with any BLM political position -- even if the disagreement comes from the center -- is saying they think black lives don't matter. Which is not necessarily the case.
This seems more like a "you're with us or against us" trick.
"I care about protecting all children" is still neutral, right? But if someone popularized "ICAPBC", by your argument "ICAPAC" would innately become a shibboleth? Something doesn't seem right here, where neutral positions automatically get converted to dog-whistles without any proof.
Yes, there was violence at a small fraction of protests, and it's fair to have pushback on that. That seems a separate issue than rejecting BLM on the face of it with an expression like ALM.
From there, you look around and you see that blacks and Hispanics seem to have injustice happening to them in ways that don't often happen to whites. (Not sure about Asians; but my perception is that they may experience injustice, but less of it than blacks.) And then, coming from a position that all injustice matters, when you seen injustice happening more to specific groups, you say "That injustice matters." Not that it's the only injustice that matters, or that other injustice doesn't, but that specific injustice seems to happen a lot, and it's not OK. We need to do something about it.
In contrast "Black Lives Matter" describes the issue exactly, succinctly and pithily. As a bonus it outs the people who want to remain willfully ignorant about it.
Hol' up, "it is ok to be white," is a terrible concept denounced on its own merits? Lol ok
It's a good thing that under Critical Theory, since race is a social construction (that's why Black is supposed to be capitalized, because it refers to the construction, not the color) there's no reason besides being "roundly denounced" (which will happen eventually to you anyway if you're an untermensch White) that you can't be transracial.
I'm not White, I'm a light tan person. Get off my lawn with your racist Theory.
But, it has been established that chan trolls came together to figure out a slogan that they could use to stir up heated arguments exactly like you are making. They settled on "it is ok to be white" and started using it to troll people into saying things that can be interpreted as hating white people. Then the arguments based on misunderstanding start and trolls laugh at you while they feed on your outrage and frustration.
If you disagree, then please explain what happened here with coke: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/366132 "Coca-Cola Asks Its Workers to Be 'Less White' to Fight Racism"
"The seminar entitled 'Facing Racism' , given by Robin DiAngelo , was presented through LinkedIn Education publicly, although not free of charge. The company admitted that, in effect, it invited its workers to take the course, but they clarify that it was not mandator"
I would assume that Robin DiAngelo would be on the left.
For all I know the slides she presents from Robin DiAngelo’s lecture were taken out of context. I think this is a pretty poor example. Can you do better?
However, from the article, you can see several of the slides that are presented. I find it hard to believe that there's some other context than race being referred to in these slides. Do you have reason to believe that the "white" in the slides is referring to something other than race? And if not, could you provide a possible greater context that doesn't place these slides under the guise of making broad generalizations about a group of people based on their identity? I am trying to think of one myself; however, I am failing to do so.
Here's a more bland article on the incident: https://www.fox5dc.com/news/coca-cola-staff-told-in-online-t...
Robin DiAngelo is talking about empathy. She asks people to put them self in the sues of a minority, knowing how boring it is, she puts the words “Try to be less white” on the slide in an attempt to humor.
Another possibility:
She has been working up the argument that whiteness is a social construct, and in this context, “being white” is the same as “being socially constructed to perceive your self as superior”. In that context asking people “to be less white” is not a judgement on the color of the skin.
It may be something entirely different though, point is it is not hard to come up with a context where these slides are not criticizing the color of people’s skin.
I agree that your above scenarios could change the context.
However, given that I perceived the slides in a different manner, and several others did as well (if no one perceived this to mean white people, then there would have been no news). Would you agree that using "white" to mean something other than the race in a seminar titled 'Facing Racism' is less likely than 'white' being used to refer to race? If not, would you agree that the Robin's usage of 'white' was poorly thought out, considering that people ended up with the conclusion that she was referring to race?
I do believe that Robin was referring to 'white' in terms of race; however, I'm willing to explore the possibility that this wasn't the case.
In the event that my assumption is correct - that Robin is referring to race - would you then agree that Robin is a member of the left who believes that white culture should be viewed negatively based on the content of the slides within the seminar?
The "privilege" concept is original sin, and you can't even be absolved of it.
Colorblindness (aka. not being racist by the old definition) is considered white supremacy.
"There's only one human race" is white supremacy.
"All Lives Matter" is white supremacy.
"Cultural appropriation" is white supremacy.
Being an "ally" is white supremacy.
Meritocracy is white supremacy.
Celebrating Columbus Day is white supremacy.
Being attracted to people of your own race is white supremacy.
Questioning the white privilege theory in the first place is white supremacy.
...and many more.
source: https://twitter.com/CoralineAda/status/1267529522041282563
You're being played.
"It's OK to be white" isn't just a dogwhistle. (It may be that, but it isn't just that.) It's an explicit rejection of that kind of "all whites are guilty racists" baloney.
Yes, there are some people out there in social media who have taken to hating white people for being white. That's not OK. Call it out. But, don't dance for the trolls in the process.
But you said they were trolls? And we should call it out? Isn't that what the poster above you was doing?
Talking in circles, in circles...
There's the group of anti-white haters who need to be called out. There's the vast majority of people who don't want any form of racial hatred. And, then there's the white supremacist trolls (and just plain trolls) who want to trick the vast majority of people into fighting themselves and in the process make it look like anti-white hatred is much, much more common than it really is.
"It's OK to be white" is a troll campaign that is actively being used to bait people into fighting each other and to have both sides come out thinking the other is far more racist than they really are.
I'm sure you can see the problem there, and I would encourage you to think about whether you've fallen down a similar hole.
Is a phrase a "shibboleth" when intended to promote peace, unity, and mutual aid?
(And in the incredibly unlikely situation where you'd somehow been exposed to enough of the discourse to come up with these phrases on their own, but NOT so much that you hadn't heard them yet, they're still terrible concepts that have been roundly denounced on their own merits. For just one example: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAsrVFXD3Ju/?utm_source=ig_embed...)