@turambar: Ok, then lets discuss it. The peaceful protestors for George Floyd and police brutality are much more worthy and have much higher merit to do so than Michigan protestors vying for the government to reopen their counties during a pandemic. So which false equivalency were you referring to? Or are you just trying to win this by 'calling me out'?
I mistook you as the same person that called the staff hypocritical for making light of the COVID-19 protests while taking the current protests seriously on the previous page.
@discohippoletsgo: "It really makes no difference, there's no reason to discuss which protest was more worthy or not. All I'm trying to say is that they both have merit."
I disagree. There is absolutely reason to. Otherwise, we get the false equivalencies that you are making right at this moment.
@theht: @turambar: Of course. And while Pride events over the decades haven't necessarily been violent, they have at the very least been loud and disruptive--things that I think most people would agree don't fall under a strict definition of "civil." I just had to push back against the idea that gay liberation has only been because of how civil everyone is, when the event that started the movement was quite literally not civil.
I think people tend associate "civil" with being "polite." And politeness has its place, as does the cessation of politeness in the face of constant bullshit.
I think we've simply fallen into a difference of semantics. Words are hard!
@ape_dosmil: The modern gay liberation movement has its basis in the Stonewall Riots. The riots were anything but civil.
This is a common thing that people--even well-meaning progressives--say to marginalized groups. "It takes time. We can't change society too quickly. We have to be civil." It shows a lack of understanding and a type of white-washing of the actual history of liberation movements. These movements and the actions associated with them are BASED ON the disruption of the status quo.
I think it's also important to remember the specifics of what the Stonewall Riots achieved. It was a symbol and an inspiration that changed the LGBT activist community to transition from a passive stance to a more active one. It gave birth to a large number of such groups in the country that greatly boosted the visibility of the LGBT population as a whole, and it was through this greater visibility came change.
I don't think it'd be fair to say that the violence of the Stonewall Riots is what led to LGBT liberation (or our current modicum of it) though, more that it led to groups taking a greater variety of actions than just passively waiting, before.
Putting it in a more concise way, Stonewall was more of a turning point for within the LGBT community, less of one for convincing folks outside it.
Please don't take this as some sort of denial that radical action is important to social change.
@eastboundspider: I'm no student of English poetry, so I had to look into this one for a bit.
Are you suggesting that there is no good solution to this problem that isn't going to be drastic in some way shape or form? Or am I just misunderstanding this part of Keats' poem?
Or are you actually just posting this for fun? (Question is not meant to sound accusatory.)
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