It's 'we' as in 'we' rowdy Americans getting out and exercising the First Amendment, with a minority of protestors committing some property crimes along the way. A common sentiment among those who committed those property crimes was 'no one listened to us before we started burning buildings,' and in this sense I have a sympathy for their claims. I don't believe that the 2020 protests will ultimately be found to have been on the wrong side of history.
My grandfather, as an old old man, still referred to MLK as the 'bane of the south.' In his time, the civil unrest of the Civil Rights movement was an unforgivable disruption to the lives of ordinary white folks, and...well, we all know 50 years later that this was such a trivial complaint in the face of the great progress made in healing a society still dealing with the ripple effects of a most monstrous institution, which our nation firmly embraced without hesitation upon its founding. We are still grappling with the fact that when my father was a boy African Americans had to enter through the 'colored' entrance, and the song 'Strange Fruit' was disturbingly still relevant. Remember Emmett Till was lynched in 1955. That's not that long ago. The wounds are still raw.
The vast majority of protestors were peaceful, and the point of the protests was that law enforcement should no longer be able to commit violence with impunity against those without a voice.
Many, including myself, have expressed sorrow at the damage done to small businesses over the course of the civil actions. But, it's good to see a robust and healthy willingness of the citizenry to turn out in order to oppose just the kind of targeting of the little guy that our friend from the former Soviet Bloc is concerned about.
It's important to understand that a majority of the violence was initiated by folks that were seeking to take advantage of the protests to carry out violence:
"Rather, the [Department of Homeland Security] bulletin said that “the greatest threat of lethal violence continues to emanate from lone offenders with racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist ideologies and [domestic violent extremists] with personalized ideologies,” specifically pointing to boogaloo-related groups as likely to be “instigating violence” at the protests."
Does that change your reasoning about the situation at all? An overwhelming majority of peaceful protestors turned out to protest police violence and racial inequality, and a very, very small minority carried out the bulk of meaningful violence.
Does that invalidate the movement?
How am I in particular dangerous? No need to clutch at pearls comrade. Feel free to be unafraid. No one bears you any ill-will, unless you're a public servant who has murdered someone with impunity recently.
I agree with you on your first point, but in a previous comment you openly associated with the people [burning stuff down].
> No one bears you any ill-will, unless you're a public servant who has murdered someone with impunity recently.
The situation is a lot more nuanced than this and I'm sure you know it. Yes the police is over militarised, yes there's a huge problem with urban killings, but you also don't get to solve those problems with violence.
Consider the black business owners who suffered greatly from the BLM riots.
I agree with your sentiment that violence is not the answer.
I personally harbor no ill-will towards you, and I only ask that you empathize with those who have been at the receiving end of institutionalized violence themselves.
> It's important to understand that a majority of the violence was initiated by folks that were seeking to take advantage of the protests to carry out violence:
Yeah, all of Antifa and a lot of BLM. And yes, a lot of unaffiliated looters.
The WaPo article you mention clearly has TDS, and it supported Biden who said Antifa didn't exist. It probably won't be that accurate in this regard. I'd suggest looking for streams from people at the protests.
Videos of Antifa violence are everywhere, and there are comparatively few (and minor) videos of right-wingers. Considering how social media is left-dominated, it doesn't seem to be censorship related, leaving you to just conclude that Antifa was much more violent.
And from reports from friends who were at various rallies, the level of potential violence was incredibly lop-sided. The worst Proud Boys protest in Portland had the PBs shooting people with paintballs if they tried to block or attack vehicles. The worst Antifa violence was straight-up unprovoked murder. Second-worst was throwing molotovs at counter-protestors and cops. Or maybe trying to burn down residential high-rises with people in them. And with 190+ night of it, there were a lot of runners-up.
> Does that change your reasoning about the situation at all? An overwhelming majority of peaceful protestors turned out to protest police violence and racial inequality, and a very, very small minority carried out the bulk of meaningful violence.
There were a few days where the majority seemed to be sincere, but once the big crowds left it was just anti-society vandals. All the statue-removal fights, for instance, were entirely warriors and no poets. Portland doesn't seem to have ever had a single sincere protest, and there are now articles about actual black BLM members telling Portland Antifa off for ruining their credibility.
> Does that invalidate the movement?
No, not at all. But you can't reasonably claim huge turnouts of mostly peaceful people because there were months of violence. The majority, by far, was unreasonable and violent. People were killing in the first day of looting in Minneapolis. The days of protest in Kenosha were violent from hour one.
But what does invalidate BLM is that the organization has known scammers for leaders, supports nonsense such as marxism and ending the nuclear family, etc. It supports black disempowerment through rhetoric that calls hard work and good fathering 'White'. It actively supports looters, both in words and money, even when they burn down black areas. It decries all personal responsibility. (Read many of the black voices who say this.)
When protestors/rioters in Minneapolis burned the first police station it was a good target. Nobody lived there, or did business from there. Nobody's life was destroyed and the cops had to work out of an ugly warehouse for a while which is a stinging rebuke in a way a few days off with pay isn't. Good target selection, good effect. And most people recognized it and they didn't get a lot of flack for that burning.
Later that night blocks of the city burned, where people lived and did business. Many lives were destroyed and some lost that night. And BLM came out strongly in support of the violence, most of which was against black people.
> I only ask that you empathize with those who have been at the receiving end of institutionalized violence themselves.
Sure, but you wouldn't wish BLM on your worst enemy. They aren't actually focused on anything that will help, they just push the lies about Breonna, Floyd, Blake, and others.
It's 'we' as in 'we' rowdy Americans getting out and exercising the First Amendment, with a minority of protestors committing some property crimes along the way. A common sentiment among those who committed those property crimes was 'no one listened to us before we started burning buildings,' and in this sense I have a sympathy for their claims. I don't believe that the 2020 protests will ultimately be found to have been on the wrong side of history.
My grandfather, as an old old man, still referred to MLK as the 'bane of the south.' In his time, the civil unrest of the Civil Rights movement was an unforgivable disruption to the lives of ordinary white folks, and...well, we all know 50 years later that this was such a trivial complaint in the face of the great progress made in healing a society still dealing with the ripple effects of a most monstrous institution, which our nation firmly embraced without hesitation upon its founding. We are still grappling with the fact that when my father was a boy African Americans had to enter through the 'colored' entrance, and the song 'Strange Fruit' was disturbingly still relevant. Remember Emmett Till was lynched in 1955. That's not that long ago. The wounds are still raw.
The vast majority of protestors were peaceful, and the point of the protests was that law enforcement should no longer be able to commit violence with impunity against those without a voice.
Many, including myself, have expressed sorrow at the damage done to small businesses over the course of the civil actions. But, it's good to see a robust and healthy willingness of the citizenry to turn out in order to oppose just the kind of targeting of the little guy that our friend from the former Soviet Bloc is concerned about.