Black Lives Matter
June 9, 2020
Mark Witton says this better than I could:
Like many white folks, I have traditionally assumed that simply not being racist was doing my part, and that the actions of others would eventually convert society at large to seeing race as the non-issue it should be. I have also felt that, as a white, straight male from a middle-class background, my voice would add nothing to this conversation or – worse – be seen as patronising or virtue signalling.
I now realise that this view was incorrect. The fact that people of colour are still fighting against global systemic marginalisation and persecution shows that being non-racist isn’t enough, and that we must be outspokenly anti-racist, even if we have never experienced racial discrimination ourselves. Some may accuse me of jumping on a bandwagon with this. That’s accurate, but I don’t care. This is a wagon we should all be on, and I’m ashamed for not being on-board earlier.
Go and read his post. I endorse it.
And remember: the opposite of Black Lives Matter is not All Lives Matter; it’s Black Lives Don’t Matter. Don’t be That Guy.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
June 9, 2020 at 4:46 pm
Interesting. Though I am full steam into paintings of all known tyrannosaurs (an extremely different take on them), I am also into writing. (I am better at writing than painting). However, that painting of the “Flint Makers” always bothered me for some reason. Now I finally know why because of Mark Witton. But what’s really weird is that I have spent the last 3 years developing a novel series (starting 5th novel currently), unintentionally attempting to correct that racist concept (more a speciesism concept). It involves a group of children of several farm families whose parents get together 4 a summer on a 1200 acre homestead (working farm of dilapidated buildings, farm machinery, fields of grain, flower and vegetable gardens, some livestock and small prairie villages). The 1st book is an introduction of the homogenous white raced families I grew up in. Everything is real. In short, 9 of the children and their 3 dogs find a portal to ancient worlds and disappear forever. The 1st novel is a graphic description of life in the 1930s – 50s just B 4 their disappearance. As these children slip deeper into time, they get to cross paths and join the children of many ancient humanoid species. The series is only partly on what it is to B human. I have a commitment for 80 novels over a 10 year span 4 this one single series. It’s my most ambitious project to date. It is titled CLOCKWORK STRANGE. Clockwork refers to Time. Strange refers to the most peculiar aspect of Time = Backword Time Travel.
June 11, 2020 at 4:24 pm
Wow, you endorse a Marxist organization. Black lives are important, and BLM is Marxist. If their real goal was about black lives, then why does their website contain all of the Marxist politics? I come here to read about paleontology, not read what you think is virtue signalling, but which really much more strongly resembles the beginnings of the Nazi takeover or the Bolshevik revolution.
June 11, 2020 at 4:29 pm
Xul, I allowed your comment past moderation as a one-shot because we have a light-touch policy here. But for the record, you are entirely mistaken about the purpose of BLM. I guess you decided to be That Guy, despite the warning in the last paragraph of the post.
Further correspondence will not be entered into.
June 12, 2020 at 1:21 am
BLM is a decentralized movement. If there is a central organization, it’s Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc.
From their About page: https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/
“#BlackLivesMatter was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer. Black Lives Matter Foundation, Inc is a global organization in the US, UK, and Canada, whose mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.”
#BlackLivesMatter could alternatively be called #EndWhiteSupremacy. I hope that is a cause that everyone supports. I agree that, as white people, it’s important to state that we support ending practices that favor white people and suppress minorities. I also think its important for us to use our existing platforms so that our communities know where we stand.
June 12, 2020 at 1:30 am
Thank you, dinogarret. This is helpful.
So, to spell it out: if someone opposes Black Lives Matter — and therefore opposes its mission — their goal is to maintain white supremacy, ignore violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes, encourage acts of violence, and deny space for Black imagination and innovation.
And yet their are still people out there who say they don’t agree with BLM. I just can’t wrap my head around that.
June 14, 2020 at 3:50 am
If we can’t get our race problems laundered out here on this planet, imagine how tough we’re going to get it when we meet our 1st interstellar species! They may well be supremacists and even base it on color. Imagine if they were translucent and colorless. U think the white supremacists will have an easy time explaining THEIR COLOR to them. Nay. Nay. I think not.
July 18, 2020 at 1:57 pm
I think as long as humans can “see” the superficial differences of skin color, they will react accordingly. If we were all color blind it would be a different world.
July 18, 2020 at 2:10 pm
I’m not that pessimistic, Sarah. We can see superficial differences of hair colour and eye colour, and they don’t seem to have any social significance. There is no inherent reason skin colour should be any different — only historical reasons, which it is our job to transcend.
July 19, 2020 at 7:59 pm
If we were all blind, we would smell the difference between people and genders. There R differences otherwise evolution would not be possible in our species. No races, just population variances. The problem is we put too much emphasis on the differences (which we need) and little on the similarities. As far as I’m concerned, if we can still interbreed, there is no problem. Also, an education might help. Just saying ….