toterunner posted:

Like what? A common criticism of BLM is that they don't make concrete demands. The two responses to this I see are that they are making the clear demand to stop killing black people, or provision of lists of hundreds of demands, neither of which is helpful.

It seems plausible that policy demands associated with BLM are unpopular with the electorate (defunding the police polls terribly but I've heard its substance isn't so unpopular when phrased differently) and its also plausible that accomodating BLM leads to increases in crime since both eruptions of the movement happened concurrently with spikes in the murder rate. Its also plausible that police officers who kill black people are more likely to be charged that they were a few years ago and that there have been changes in how police operate (there are studies claiming that police have become more passive to avoid situations where they'd have to defend themselves). So I doubt there is any evidence from supposed lack of response to BLM's demands that proves elites aren't overhwlmingly pro BLM.

If elites are just paying lip service to BLM, then why are they doing this despite the movement not being particularly popular and the narrative being really easy to criticize?

What I mean by the narrative being really easy to criticize is that black people account for less than 30% of fatal police shooting victims, but around 40% of cop killers and violent criminals in general. These numbers don't prove that police shootings are racially unbiased (I've seen a number of arguments about why this is, some better than others) but its suspicious that they're rarely mentioned, given that Trumpists are accused of being disinformers. Perhaps more importantly, well over 90% of police shooting victims whose names become well known are black. I've heard a number of explanations for this and the only one that isn't obviously flawed or doesn't involve a conscious attempt to amplify stories of black victims is that whites are more likely to be shot by police in rural areas. Why do mainstream media and corporate takes on BLM act like the narrative is obviously true, and never point out that media coverage wildly overrepresents the portion of victims who are black?