BLM Is "You're A Racist" Writ Large

As everyone knows (and as pointed out forcefully, but almost in passing, here):

The PC / Identity-politics is a movement built on a strategy of shutting down debate rather than winning it.

And at the heart of that strategy is a more specific strategy:

Their main sub-strategy is character assassination.

And they have a specific, characteristic tactic:

Their most characteristic tactic is: accusing their opponents of prejudice: typically racism (but, less frequently, some rough racism equivalent--misogyny, homophobia, etc.)

   They have another tactic, though, that runs a close second:

Their second-favorite tactic is to claim that voicing opposing views puts them in physical danger.

 But I only just realized:

BLM is the accusation of racism writ large.

   BLM is basically an accusation of racism plus an assertion that black Americans are in physical danger. It is, in large part, a massive push to shut down debate via a mass act of character-assassination: it's an accusation that all American whites are racist. 

   This is already a component of contemporary progressivism--it manifests itself in the bullshit bit of pseudo-conceptual analysis according to which "whiteness" has nothing to do with skin-color. It is, rather, asserted to be a social position: that of oppressor. But that's really stupid and only marginally relevant here.

   Now, basically every part of all of these strategies and tactics are the utterest bullshit...but I just aim to lay them out--quickly--here, not to criticize them.

   BLM is rampaging across the public mind because we have allowed progressives to create a set of conventions such that accusations of racism are trump cards in every discussion. The progressive left doesn't merely overplay the race card--rather, playing the race card is almost all it does. It's interrupted its scheduled programming a couple of times, e.g. to try to construct similar kinds of trumps: e.g. the transgender card. But mostly it simply pushes forward throwing down race cards in every direction. What used to be limited to people like Al Sharpton is now the basis of an entire political movement--a movement that's already taken over all our important institutions in the U.S., and that's likely to win the White House in November.

   The ideal progressive discussion basically goes like this:

Progressives: We want policy P

Non-progressives: We oppose that.

Progressives: That's racist.

NPs acquiesce to P

Progressives: Now we want policy Q.

Non-progressives: We oppose that.

Progressives: That's racist.

Non-progressives acquiesce to Q

etc.

   And that's what's going on with BLM. BLM is based on a largely empirical claim that is proven to be false, and that information is at the fingertips of almost every person in the country. And yet it is slashing its way unopposed to its goals. Why? Because progressives have succeeded in establishing social conventions such that facts are irrelevant...because the accusation of racism trumps everything. And that includes facts. And logic, too.

   Needless to say, this argument, the one I'm making right now, can also be defeated--like any argument can be defeated--by simply throwing down an accusation that it is racist--which is basically indistinguishable from the accusation that the person making it is racist--that is, of course, yours truly.

   (Interesting theoretical question about this idiotic view: is the argument racist before the accusation? Or is every argument--and, in fact, everything--always already racist because it can be accused of being so? Or do things only become racist upon being accused? Do the magic words actually create racism upon being uttered? Because that would raise certain problems...)

   So congratulations, progressives. That's what you've wrought. Every subject must be seen through the lens of race, and reason and facts are irrelevant because the left gets to win every argument merely by uttering the magic words: that's racist (and/or: you're racist). If there has ever been a blueprint that led more directly to disaster, I haven't seen it.

   Could the right play this game too? Theoretically, I suppose...but doing so would affirm the legitimacy of the rules...

   BLM is unstoppable if this convention remains in place. And don't forget: BLM's esoteric doctrines include things like dismantling capitalism and reengineering the nuclear family--two courses of action virtually guaranteed to be disasters almost beyond anything Western civilization has ever seen. "Black lives matter" is merely the name of the group--and its marketing slogan. Its actual goals are another matter entirely.