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Comments on Puzzle #35086: BLM3
By Kristen Vognild (kristen)

peek at solution       solve puzzle
  quality:   difficulty:   solvability: line logic only  

Puzzle Description:

Not the clearest picture of Jaslyn Adams, but hopefully enough of a tribute

#1: besmirched tea (Besmirched Tea) on May 6, 2021

Such a tragedy what these cops are allowed to get away with.
If they're that trigger-happy, they should just reenlist.
#2: Beep (Boop) on May 6, 2021
While I agree with you B.T., Jaslyn wasn't killed by police gunfire. She appears to have been collateral damage in a targeted hit on her father.
#3: Kristen Vognild (kristen) on May 6, 2021
hers was still a life that mattered, regardless of the hand pulling the trigger.
#4: Joshua (jag) on May 6, 2021 [SPOILER]
One thing we need to be careful of is diminishing certain black lives against others. I don't think Kristen is doing that (I read her comments on Brian's BLM puzzle from last June).

I also can't speak to the reasons for requesting Jaslyn's portrait (along with David Doorn), but it looks an awful lot like an attempt to point to black people who are "good" people (a police officer and a child) and away from George Floyd. The not so veiled statement is that certain deaths of black people are more tragic, with the slightly less obvious implication that certain black lives matter more than others.

The reason George Floyd's death is front and center is because too often the death of someone like him is ignored. We all know that the deaths of Jaslyn and David Doorn are tragic. But we (especially white people like myself) need to be reminded that *all* black lives matter.
#5: Jota (jota) on May 7, 2021
Kristen the artist!
#6: Kai-Uwe Zickerick (conzick) on May 10, 2021
thx Kristen. I wasn't satisfied at all with my portrait of Jaslyn. Yours is a piece of art.
#7: Kristen Vognild (kristen) on May 10, 2021
I had to do it small, because all the photos of her were kind of low-res.

And thank you. :)
#8: Juli Simmons (jonis) on May 11, 2021
Thank you for this.
#9: BlackCat (BlackCat) on May 12, 2021
Good try.
#10: Michael Eddy (meddy) on May 14, 2021
Nice puzzle, and I'm glad for the opportunity to learn about this young girl who was yet another victim of gun violence.

That said, I somewhat agree with Joshua. It's hard not to see the requests as a thinly veiled diversion from George Floyd and from BLM's cause (at least as I understand it) in general. Not so much to say "look, these are better black people who were killed, and we should care even more about them" (as I think Joshua suggested might be the sentiment behind the requests) but rather to say "look, these are black people killed by other black people, so really whites don't bear any more responsibility than blacks - and maybe less - for not treating black lives as if they matter."

Now I don't presume to fully understand or feel everything behind BLM, but I can and do try, and I think BLM's focus is more about the racism and mistreatment that is ingrained in government and society, and which directly and disproportionately affects how black people are treated, notably by the police. Other violence against humans deserves awareness and mitigation, but not in a way that distracts from or diminishes another (frankly unrelated) cause such as BLM.

I may be wrong about the feelings behind Juli's requests, especially since I know essentially nothing about the person, but I've definitely observed such feelings in my white friends and family, and they often seem to manifest in faux righteous indignation about the violence visited upon black people by black people, and "why don't their lives matter?" It's only a slightly different flavor of the "all lives matter" argument against BLM, and is likewise rooted simply in good old fashioned racism.
#11: Liz P (lizteach) on May 15, 2021
Agree with others. These deaths are no doubt tragic, especially as black-on-black crime is one of the more insidious and pervasive outcomes of systemic racism, but as a white ally I feel the need to point out that titling some of these portraits "BLM" is disingenuous. Essentially, you're co-opting the words of the movement to criticize its intent and point blame elsewhere.

I don't like to "go all political" on a fun puzzle website, but I'm disappointed to see this act of artful misdirection here (pun unintentional).
#12: Kristen Vognild (Kristen) on May 16, 2021
I'm not going to change my title. Jaslyn's was a life that mattered, regardless of how she died. I couldn't care less about the ways in which the phrase Black Lives Matter has been politicized. I could say Urban Lives Matter, or Black Children's Lives Matter, but regardless, her life mattered.
#13: Michael Eddy (meddy) on May 17, 2021
Kristen I believe you made this puzzle with good intent and from a place of caring about this person who was tragically killed, and I like that you did it. It is Juli's intent that I was questioning; I don't get the impression that you were trying to make any kind of a deeper political point about BLM.
#14: Kai-Uwe Zickerick (conzick) on May 19, 2021
I was the one beginning these puzzles doing a portrait of George Floyd. Juli asked me to try David Dorn and Jaslyn Adams. So it became a small series. This discussions shows me as a german guy how deeply americans are divided in these days. Calm down and try to be again one of the greatest nations in the world. And to show you my opinion: The Trump years were the darkest in modern american history.
#15: Jota (jota) on May 19, 2021
Well I do think that all lives matter! Nowadays that could be construed as politically incorrect, but I won't let that change my heart or how I feel about horrible acts amongst human beings.
#16: Kai-Uwe Zickerick (conzick) on May 20, 2021
Jota, it is obvious that all lives matter. But when white lives matter more than others something must change. Listen to Stevie Wonders "Black man" and you know what I mean.
#17: Kai-Uwe Zickerick (conzick) on May 20, 2021
I've just read the comments on Puzzle #34214. Well said!
#18: Jota (jota) on May 20, 2021
Well I have to say that the fact that a group of people want to save the rain forest, doesn't mean to me that all forests are not worth saving, I will never burn fires in any of them or leave garbage behind, so I say all forest matter, and live by it. I don't have to belong or endorse a particular group to be who I am.

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