I have seen all sorts of behavior since BlackLivesMatter became a hash-tag. Some of it has turned people like me off and some of it has won new allies to the campaign.

Primarily, what has turned me off is a narrative of “if you don’t agree, you are a racist or bigot” with no patience for the honest and good people will have to get past their own subconscious reactions to anything that looks like blame and judgment or is said in anger and outrage.

Try as I might, for the longest time, I couldn’t help but hear “#BlackLivesMatter, you idiots, and we shouldn’t have to say it”. Let’s agree that I can’t argue against any of the facts of that statement. It can still cause me to feel pissed off about its tone and not cooperate with a movement because I don’t tend to work with someone who is in the process of calling me an idiot (and then a racist and bigot if I don’t automatically get it).

I expect that for most people, if they have a reaction to something… that’s where they stop. I didn’t stop. But, it took a lot of work on my part to rewrite the narrative so that it lands like this: “let’s change the system until it acts like #BlackLivesMatter too”. Articles with a measured voice, like the one you wrote where we originally interacted, helped a lot.

And as for outrage, I have reasonable grounds on which to be suspicious of it in general. Outrage is often used to bypass a person’s better judgment toward immediate ill-conceived action. I will choose discussion and considered action toward specific goals every time over any action that comes from outrage. In fact, I tend to delay action as a safety mechanism when outrage is present in any moment.

I offer my own account, speaking for no one but myself… one situation where a person can see BlackLivesMatter as making the plight worse at a given point in its history. Not 100% bad either. I also see it as doing good work as well getting people thinking about something they aren’t used to thinking about.

BLM has taken more definite shape over the last couple years. I expect that to continue and, perhaps as the group matures, for them to publish an agenda proposals of considered legislative action and executive reforms.