Will the Black Lives matter movement create lasting change?

Systemic racism is a constantly moving target

Question: Will the Black Lives matter movement create lasting change?
Position‹2 of 2: No, the #BLM Protests will not create lasting change
Argument‹2 of 4›: Systemic racism is a constantly moving target

“The United States has the remarkable ability to reconstitute old oppressions from the ashes of social movements.” — Tressie McMillan Cottom, Politico

The argument

Proponents of this position begin from the scope of the problem. Racism pervades every aspect of daily life, including but not limited to schools, workplaces, public facilities, law enforcement agencies, and the justice department. People in power have built the societal system upon racist tendencies for generations, so what is being confronted is not a set of discrete practices but the architecture those practices were built into. As a result, the issue of systemic racism is so complex that it seems like a constantly moving and evolving target. The argument does not deny that the protests achieved things. The #BLM protests around the world have raised many peoples' awareness of systemic racism, and the demonstrations succeeded in short term change, such as banning harmful riot weapons on protesters, and long term change such as banning no-knock warrants with "Breonna's Law." Those are real wins; but on this account they also show the shape of the problem, since each is a change to one instrument, secured only after the harm that instrument caused had become undeniable. What makes such wins insufficient is the historical pattern they sit inside. Slavery led to segregation; segregation led to discrimination; discrimination led to mass incarceration; mass incarceration led to criminal profiling — all of it is systemic racism in various disguises. Each of those transitions followed a moment when the previous form had been named and outlawed, and in each case what was abolished was the form rather than the thing itself, which reappeared under a description no existing rule covered. Proponents therefore expect the same sequence to follow these protests. Systemic racism has taken over society to the point that it is irreversible, and it will only continue to evolve — possibly in lesser degrees — in our society. Because systemic racism is a constantly moving target of that kind, the #BLM protests will not create lasting change.

Context

Following the death of George Floyd, protesters around the world demonstrated their intolerance for police brutality and system racism. A major caveat is that systemic racism is a constantly moving and evolving target.

Premises

[P1]Systemic racism pervades every institution and has been built into society over generations, making it a constantly moving, evolving target. [P2] BLM protests achieved short- and long-term wins like banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants, but racism keeps re-emerging in new disguises — from slavery to segregation to mass incarceration. [P3] Because it is so embedded that it seems irreversible, each reform only shifts the target. [C] Therefore, because systemic racism is a constantly moving target, the BLM protests will not create lasting change.

Counter-arguments

Others may contend that society could work together to dismantle systemic racism to create lasting change. Laws against discrimination in schools, workplaces, the police system, and the legislative system could help eliminate racist tendencies. In addition, leaders of the movement have established a clear set of goals called Campain Zero dedicated to abolishing the plague of systemic racism.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Calling something a moving target does not show it cannot be hit. The premise establishes that racism is embedded across institutions and adapts, which is an argument for sustained and varied effort rather than for the futility of any effort. [Rejecting P2] The premise contradicts the conclusion it is offered to support. Restrictions on crowd-control weapons and bans on no-knock warrants are lasting changes; the argument concedes them and then denies that lasting change is possible. The sequence it recites — abolition, then the end of legal segregation, then the civil-rights statutes — likewise records changes that were not reversed, even though each left further work. [Rejecting P3] "Irreversible" is asserted rather than argued, and it is a claim about the future that no premise here supports. The defensible version of this position is that reform is slow, partial and easily eroded, which is compatible with lasting change. The absolute claim would require showing that every gain has been fully offset, which the argument does not attempt, and which the counter's example of an explicit reform programme is offered against.