Remedial Math

In a FB discussion earlier this week, a commenter complained that BLM was just a bunch of thugs and the violence that sometimes is to be seen at their protests just makes the movement seem antisocial.

In response to her claims, I offered this: 

"Mary* (not her real name of course), somehow, your response is entirely unsurprising.

Just as an FYI though, I feel compelled to remind you that the subset (those who use the cover of legitimate protest to violently express their, some might say 'righteous', anger) is not the whole.  But of course, in American sociology, anthropology and politics for a long time, when it has come to people of color, the subset and the whole have long been identical. Y'all really need some remedial Math. A subset is not the whole." 

When her response indicated that she hadn't heard me clearly, I responded again with: "You've missed the point I was making, Or maybe not. So let me ask you, they (BLM) are thugs, but the system they challenge isn't thuggish? The system that - fairly routinely now - uses violence against their bodies isn't thuggish? A system that rarely holds itself accountable for the violence it unleashes isn't thuggish? But a violent response when utilized by some (again, subset not whole) protesters - makes the whole movement thuggish?"

"What," I wondered aloud, "might you have said about riots in the sixties? What might you have said of violent response to oppression in 1776? Or is some violence in response to systemic injustice somehow more appropriate than other? I await your response with bated breath." 

Well she did respond and with more of the same but two things became immediately clear to me: first was the apparent ease with which she and others dismiss the movement because every single participant therein isn't above reproach. Second, the commitment to this thinking is complete and it's not cognitive dissonance, it's cognitive dishonesty.

For many people, it is nearly impossible to see one bad Black actor as just a single bad actor. No, every swallow portends a coming spring. Every bad actor portends a raging flood of others. In their minds, the part doesn't just foreshadow the whole, the part IS the whole. And yet, these same over-generalizing folks do not have the same response to one bad White actor. Dylan Roof is not (nor would he ever be seen as) the totality of White maleness between 15 and 25; Charles Manson would never be considered the quintessence of 30-something White maleness; Harris & Klebold (of Columbine infamy) were not and will never ever be taken as emblematic of White male teenage psychopathy but a minority of Black protesters throwing stones, looting or burning renders the entirety of the protest movement unworthy of consideration. This thinking is an extremely convenient way to de-legitimize our every issue. 

When asked whether she felt the same level of disdain for all sports fans because some sports fans turn destructive after their teams emerge victorious or teams face unexpected challenges, all I could hear was crickets. Unsurprising really. 

2015 Ohio State University wins NCAA Championship
Source: Paul Vernon/AP

Which led me to my second epiphany: that the commitment to the wrongheadedness is real; that in certain minds 2x + 3x =/= 5x, certainly not when it comes to the interpretations we have of public misconduct of the two groups. 

I received no response to my invoking images of celebratory White thuggery. I was left to conclude that either the referenced behavior was (i) not all that bad (just boys having fun) or it was (ii) not as bad as the violence in which people of color might engage in standing up for equal treatment under the law (ie. 2x + 3x  =/= 5x). 

She is  not alone in her feelings. Others have espoused a similar view. I wonder though, would they feel the same subset = whole way about say, every imperialist nation, cuz yunno, they stole other folks' land, murdered their people and generally made a nuisance of themselves the world over; about all anti-abortion crusaders, cuz yunno, Robert Dear committed murder on account of the strength of his beliefs; every Trump supporter being a thug because these guys brutalized a Boston man and this guy brutalized a protester. Do these cases also support the subset = whole hypothesis? My guess is, no. Over-generalization is not appropriate in these instances. The why of that is self-evident. 

Clearly, it is only when people of color stand up for themselves that the taint or bad behavior spreads system wide, invalidating, toxifying the entire system. Only when two dozen (out of many dozens), two thousand (out of many thousands), two million (out of many millions) do something stupid, the taint rests on all of us?

This is not cognitive dissonance, it's worse, it's cognitive dishonesty. It's bad math. It is a choice to hold two-diametrically-opposed-standards-in-the-head willful ignorance. Why willful? Because the minute you challenge this line of thinking, these folk take their marbles and go home, clutching their prejudicial beliefs tighter than a baby clutches her favorite stuffed piggy.

These types are no more interested in the truth than they are interested in honest discussion. Neither is the goal. The actual goal is to air their petty grievances wrapped in moralistic blatherings about 'security' and 'decency'. This particular commenter deleted the entire thread and went home to sulk. Carry on my friend. Carry on! But while she and others carry on with their cognitive dishonesty, the rest of us are going to look at the data and draw mathematically sound, cognitively honest conclusions to wit, that by her very reasoning, people of color are probably not wrong to view all police as dangerous and violent thugs (since subset = whole and all).

What is good for your goose is equally as good for our gander. Quack, quack, quack!