First let me say, you are absolutely gorgeous. Beauty and brains is an exceedingly rare combination. Kudos to you.
That said, I still take issue with your premises. And I don’t mean I take issue with your right to hold them, we are all certainly free to believe what we like. What I am saying is I believe they are logically flawed.
Take your first rebuttal above. As a good writer, you will be well aware that words have literal meaning. So, when you say, “To say Police Lives matter LITERALLY” (my emphasis) “erases black people and replaces them with their killer” you have to agree that you have departed from sound logic. Words alone do not have the power to change physical reality. You must agree with me here. Actually, you don’t have to, but my reasoning will be nonetheless sound. And saying police lives matter is actually quite different than saying nazi lives matter, isn’t it? I mean, wasn’t the nazi plot designed to create a master race, starting with the extinction of the Jews? And hasn’t history uncovered documented evidence to confirm that was the case? Police, on the other hand, have no such sinister plan. If so, somebody forgot to tell the black people and the hispanic and the chinese, etc who have joined their ranks. Now, are there bad cops? Sure, that goes without saying. Are there bad white cops? Are there good white cops? Are there bad black cops? Good black cops? See my point?
And on your second point about co-opting a movement by taking and modifying a slogan. Are you saying that by saying Police Lives Matter, they are somehow hindering “the movement”? If so, it seems that movement was bound to be hindered by something if it was so weak that the mere uttering of a similar phrase is viewed as an existential threat. Oh, and to answer your question, yes, I think it would be perfectly appropriate for straight people to have a straight pride parade. And I can not at all see how doing so would cause harm to gay people. If I follow your logic then a gay pride parade must, in fact, be causing harm to straight people. And a black lives matter movement must be literally erasing white lives and causing harm to white people. Certainly you don’t mean that. And that is my point. Your premises, when properly thought through, don’t meet the basic tests of logic.
On point three about police lives being safe, that’s all a matter of how you measure it, I’m afraid. Police put themselves in danger of being killed Every single time they put on the uniform and clock in. I’m not sure by what measure that is deemed a safe job, but I suppose if the measurement is based on actual police deaths and the evidence says there are at least 10 jobs that have more actual deaths per capita than policing, then I would not argue the definition of safe in that context. But given that a cop knows each day could be his last, I don’t think many of them take comfort in knowing that some researcher has deemed them safe.
And on point four, yes I agree, we can’t stop being black. But why would we want to? Black is still beautiful. But you know, there are lots of things we can stop doing. I won’t go into them here though because I have rambled on long enough.
I hope you don’t take any offense at any of this, because I certainly don’t intend any. I’m not trying to change your mind. And I admire you for speaking yours. I’m only pointing out that perhaps by listening to people like me who might disagree with you, substantively, that you might use that substance to sharpen your own arguments. That’s all. And thank you for your earlier response.
