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Thanks Sheree. Like you I recall the Moratorium campaigns against the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. A different time – I recall there were teach-ins and debates where all sides would be heard. The now well-known gay academic Dennis Altman made a speech to one of the demos in which he urged all present to get thoroughly familiar with the pro-war case, the better to refute it. He was clearly a follower of J.S. Mill’s dictum that ‘he who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that’.

You are right that I use the term ‘social justice warrior’ pejoratively. However I am not applying it to anyone who campaigns for a more just society – as someone who is still strongly sympathetic to an egalitarian politics I could hardly do that. The people I am critical of are those who stress the ‘warrior’ part, the idea that they are in a kind of war with those of a different view and who see their adversaries as not just mistaken but morally bad people, whose views must be suppressed and who must, if possible, be punished.

You say that Black Lives Matter has highlighted ‘systemic racism’ in the US, as highlighted by evidence of unequal treatment of blacks by police and the justice system. The problem is that they presume that these statistical differences can be attributed to police racism, which is debateable, to say the least. No doubt there are some racist police, but the overwhelming cause of, for example, differences in incarceration rates, is the difference in rates of committing crimes by different racial groups.

I am not saying that is the end of the matter – the reasons for those differences in propensities to crime need to be analysed and addressed, but this debate is stymied by the insistence it is all down to racial discrimination. In the previous article I cited the case of two law professors at the University of Pennsylvania who made the case that these differences had more to do with cultural norms. Petitions were immediately organized demanding their sacking, signed by a large number of their colleagues. What hope for a rational debate in these circumstances?

But the main point about BLM is that the upsurge in their activism, with regular confrontations with the police, was followed by a distinct reluctance on the part of cops to engage in pro-active policing (identifying and investigating suspicious behaviour, etc), and then a surge in crime rates in black urban areas across the country. The possibility that BLM activism led to many more black deaths than it saved should provoke some serious soul-searching, at the very least.

I agree with the points you make in the last three paras of your comment. So thanks for your contribution!