… did you just “all lives matter” an article about mass incarceration? Gerrymanding overall is an issue, sure, but this is a post about the criminal justice system and how prisoners are used as political pawns
All lives matter is about redirecting attention away from a marginalized or oppressed group when we are discussing their marginalization.
This article is about how prisoners are taken advantage of and the commenter made it about everyone else.
Edit: to quote a Redditor
Imagine that you’re sitting down to dinner with your family, and while everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don’t get any. So you say “I should get my fair share.” And as a direct response to this, your dad corrects you, saying, “everyone should get their fair share.” Now, that’s a wonderful sentiment – indeed, everyone should, and that was kinda your point in the first place: that you should be a part of everyone, and you should get your fair share also. However, dad’s smart-ass comment just dismissed you and didn’t solve the problem that you still haven’t gotten any!
The problem is that the statement “I should get my fair share” had an implicit “too” at the end: “I should get my fair share, too, just like everyone else.” But your dad’s response treated your statement as though you meant “only I should get my fair share”, which clearly was not your intention. As a result, his statement that “everyone should get their fair share,” while true, only served to ignore the problem you were trying to point out.
That’s the situation of the “black lives matter” movement. Culture, laws, the arts, religion, and everyone else repeatedly suggest that all lives should matter. Clearly, that message already abounds in our society.
I agree that saying gerrymandering affects everyone is sort of off-topic and distracts from discussing the precise impact being discussed, but it’s really not equivalent to “All Lives Matter”.
“Black Lives Matter” => Stop police murdering black people
"All Lives Matter" => La la la, I can’t hear you
"Gerrymandering Denies Incarcerated People Fair Democratic Representation" => We should stop gerrymandering for the sake of prisoners
"Gerrymandering denies everyone fair democratic representation." => We should stop gerrymandering for the sake of everyone
The dinner example assumes only one person didn’t get dinner. If instead everyone went without dinner, wouldn’t it make sense to point out they weren’t the only one affected?
I can’t believe you’re not misunderstanding this when it’s been explained so thoroughly.
Let’s revamp the dinner example to fit this context:
A family of 8 sits down to eat. The dad and oldest son get a full portion, the mom and oldest daughter get 1/2 a portion, the youngest gets 1/4 a portion and the other three get 1/3.
Someone outside the group entirely says “The youngest isn’t getting fed fairly! Feed him a full portion!” And one of the kids getting 1/3rd a portion is replying to them saying “everyone should be getting a full portion…”
You then storm in wearing your white knight getup screaming “HOW DARE YOU!!!”
Gerrymandering is an issue indeed. It’s also an issue for everyone else. And we should work to end all gerrymandering everywhere. However I think the fact that the right to vote gets taken away from a lot of felons is a huge issue as well. I think all felons unless perhaps their felony involved specific voting violations. Should have the right to vote. Specifically in the areas there incarcerated. There would be so much schadenfreude from the screams of the rural bigots out around Leavenworth county.
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