Surely it is possible to persuade some of those on the side of the oppressor, and that persuasion might require some tact. Surely.
Surely that “tact” wouldn’t be throwing the oppressed under the bus in favor of the oppressor out of “fear for optics”. Surely.
When it does, surely call it out. But I hesitate to label everyone doing hearts+minds work as the oppressor. And the powerless saying something that, if taken literally by the powerful, might hurt someone is very different from the powerful doing something to hurt people. All models (and most arguments) are wrong. Some are useful.
God, I know it’s paranoid but I always wonder if the people expressing this are just some rightwing psy-op. “Don’t listen to the people saying optics are an important aspect of any movement! They are your oppressor!”. It’s not that they don’t have a point, the people that say you shouldn’t riot at all bcz think of how it looks etc. are just as bad, but like… do they only get shown those people at the extremes, or something? Do they really just not understand that messaging has always been a fundemental part of any social movement?
Do you understand the difference between optics and abandoning all principles?
I’m sorry, I’m unclear on what you’re saying here. That there is nuance in that difference was… my entire point. King was a master of working optics to further a social cause, it’s a large part of why he has had such a lasting impact.
Which is why he was incredibly unpopular during his time?
He was hugely popular, that’s… why they killed him?
After decades of trying to appease white liberals, he shifted away from that reformist stance to a more radical approach. That’s why they killed him.
Have you tried looking up his popularity numbers?
Big-C lenses apply to epochal statistics and northern liberals don’t like being confronted with nuance. If I’m guessing your meaning correctly.
Apparently calling everyone who disagrees with you a paid operative of a psy-op is perfectly tactful and good optics though.
You… don’t think that propaganda takes the form of capitalizing on (or even inciting) shifts in cultural attitude that widen ideological differences between two groups? Are you serious?
Did you reply to the wrong comment? Because you certainly didn’t respond to what I said.
Your misunderstanding of what I wrote spurred the content of your comment - I extrapolated the conclusions you presented as having drawn, to highlight how the prior flaw in your reasoning doesn’t hold when carried out beyond the point at which you stopped.
Oh, so you were replying to a strawman.
Dude it’s a textbook use of reductio ad absurdum.
Often the oppressor is also the oppressed in some ways. I think empathy for people doing bad things is good actually.
empathy for bullies? sure
empathy for people who literally say that empathy is a sin? you know, maybe not that one, that one might not work very well
Them too
