Surely it is possible to persuade some of those on the side of the oppressor, and that persuasion might require some tact. Surely.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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Surely that "tact" wouldn't be throwing the oppressed under the bus in favor of the oppressor out of "fear for optics". Surely.
When it does, surely call it out. But I hesitate to label everyone doing hearts+minds work as the oppressor. And the powerless saying something that, if taken literally by the powerful, might hurt someone is very different from the powerful doing something to hurt people. All models (and most arguments) are wrong. Some are useful.
God, I know it's paranoid but I always wonder if the people expressing this are just some rightwing psy-op. "Don't listen to the people saying optics are an important aspect of any movement! They are your oppressor!". It's not that they don't have a point, the people that say you shouldn't riot at all bcz think of how it looks etc. are just as bad, but like.... do they only get shown those people at the extremes, or something? Do they really just not understand that messaging has always been a fundemental part of any social movement?
Do you understand the difference between optics and abandoning all principles?
I'm sorry, I'm unclear on what you're saying here. That there is nuance in that difference was... my entire point. King was a master of working optics to further a social cause, it's a large part of why he has had such a lasting impact.
Which is why he was incredibly unpopular during his time?
He was hugely popular, that's... why they killed him?
After decades of trying to appease white liberals, he shifted away from that reformist stance to a more radical approach. That's why they killed him.
Have you tried looking up his popularity numbers?
Big-C lenses apply to epochal statistics and northern liberals don't like being confronted with nuance. If I'm guessing your meaning correctly.
Have you tried looking up his popularity numbers?
I... Yes? What's your point?
What did they say
... you did read the thing about epochal statistics right? I think we've been over this already, you can't really be arguing statistical literalism about martin luther king.
Was he popular during his time? Sounds like you are doing historical revisionism.
A third response is still valid, though. That concept is the cornerstone of everything from data science to regular science. Removing something as sensitive as a poll from it's context is to remove all meaning from it, but again, he was indeed hugely popular. Even the gallup polls at the time support this. I'm really lost as to what you're getting at.
2011 is after MLK's time FYI
Again, yes? I'm not sure how embedding the image changes it's meaning, but I'm still quite curious as to what your point is.
favorable 33
unfavorable 63
mhhhh
So instead of elaborating... you're just going to meme? I mean sure go ahead, it just feels kinda, idk, pointless. ba-dum tss.
What do numbers mean anyways?
That's what I've been repeatedly asking you.
Seems to mean that he wasn't favorable at all.
Wait hangon, is this all because you're interpreting positive approval of a contentious political figure from 1/3 of a population as not popular?
You realize that the figure includes black people right?
So... do... they not count?
The question is optics of the oppressor.
When someone tells they need to be civil and quiet and unobtrusive so straight, white, cis males will support them, and cites King, they're either wildly misinformed of history or siding with the oppressor.
Even including black people MLK was factually overwhelmingly unpopular.
... Except with black people, right?
You know what it is, you just don't have a response so you're playing dumb.
I feel like you might be casting your own conceptions as to the basis of my motivations, and they're a little unfair - if you mean that their point is "martin luther king's popularity fell between 1965 and 1966" then sure, that's supported by the above gallup poll. But that's trivially true, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the use of optics by social movements, and also has nothing to do with how hugely popular king was at the time (which is also supported by the same gallup poll).
I have no idea what their point is, though. They've been trying to, idk, entrap me into saying king wasn't popular? Which patently wasn't true, even according to their own sources. So... what? What're they even trying to argue, because this feels very much like they're just trying to 'win' based on a semantic argument I've never ascribed to, after entrenching themselves in a position that the other person never set out or has interest in discussing .
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What did they say?
Apparently calling everyone who disagrees with you a paid operative of a psy-op is perfectly tactful and good optics though.
You... don't think that propaganda takes the form of capitalizing on (or even inciting) shifts in cultural attitude that widen ideological differences between two groups? Are you serious?
Did you reply to the wrong comment? Because you certainly didn't respond to what I said.
Your misunderstanding of what I wrote spurred the content of your comment - I extrapolated the conclusions you presented as having drawn, to highlight how the prior flaw in your reasoning doesn't hold when carried out beyond the point at which you stopped.
Oh, so you were replying to a strawman.
Dude it's a textbook use of reductio ad absurdum.
It's a textbook use of a strawman
You're... not very good at this.
Do you have anything other than lazy insults?
No seriously, you've dismissed everything of substance I've put forward with some pretty clear signs you just didn't understand what I was saying - or you're a troll, which from a skim of your profile really doesn't seem likely. You're just not very good at discussing this subject, or with actual debate in general. You've come into this with hostility, and that hostility has lead you to make clear oversights in understanding. It's just not very much fun at this point, and I really need you to realize that. You're not enjoying yourself, because you're having to shift tact over and over to get a rise out of me (I mean, come on, semantics? You know that's now how strawmen work) and it just isn't working.
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Often the oppressor is also the oppressed in some ways. I think empathy for people doing bad things is good actually.
empathy for bullies? sure
empathy for people who literally say that empathy is a sin? you know, maybe not that one, that one might not work very well
Them too
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