The controversy surrounding the name "Black Lives Matter" is multi-faceted, both in terms of the advocacy, as well as the opposition to it.
Name and mission ambiguity creates a series of complications.
Is "Black Lives Matter" slogan, a movement, a series of political and economic ideologies, an organization? The answer tends to be different based on who's asking, and who's answering.
...and "opposition to BLM" can come from both racial and non-racial sentiments. For instance, you have people who oppose them because of some of their mission statements surrounding things unrelated to the stated cause of protecting black lives from police brutality and systemic injustice:
"Dismantling the patriarchy" doesn't seem to be be directly related to the semantically stated mission implied by their title...and is more of a postmodernist feminism thing (which a non-racist can be opposed to)...much like one doesn't have to be a racist to oppose a group for wanting to dismantle capitalism...and certain chapters have stated the goal of "disrupting the western-prescribed nuclear family unit"...one doesn't have to be a racist to oppose that sentiment either.
But then there are those who oppose it purely for racist reasons...or ones that sure seem that way on the surface. For instance, the people who immediately rebuttal with "now now, ALL lives matter"...which is about as disingenuous as heckling women at a Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Awareness event saying "hey now!, fighting against ALL cancer matters!"
It's easier to gauge which place a "pro" or "anti" sentiment comes from when the "ideological profile" is more focused and precise. The more broad the ideological profile gets, the harder it is to determine what place support or opposition is coming from.
For instance:
If someone started an group called "End Baby Seal Clubbing", and across the various chapters the stated goals were various combinations of the following:
- "End Abuse of Baby Seals"
- "Make Drunk Driving legal"
- "Provide free meals to the homeless"
- "Promote gay rights"
- "Bring corporal punishment back to schools"
It gets tougher to tell why someone may be supporting or opposing the movement...because both support and opposition could both be coming from a good or bad place.
Is a person supporting it because their local chapter is big on the "provide free meals" portion, and they're someone who cares about the poor? Or are they supporting it because they're an "old school" person who likes the idea of bringing back corporal punishment? Or are they just supporting it purely for the semantically described purpose of protecting seals?
If a person claims they are opposing it, is it because they really don't care about baby seals?, or is it coming from a place of being very opposed to drunk driving? or is it because they hold animus toward gay people?
That's the issue of having a group/movement/etc... promoting too many non-overlapping ideologies simultaneously.