I have been to a few rallies/vigils/marches lately and all incidences of violence that I have witnessed either in person or through media has been instigated by the police. As far as I know,every documented case where a formerly peaceful crowd turns into chaos has been started with police shooting pepperspray, teargas, or whatever into the crowd.
I find it really hard to not come to the conclusion that the police is desperately trying to set a narrative to justify a history of violence by escalating more violence, but please, someone, restore my faith.
People protest peacefully, and police shoot tear gas into the crowd and attack whomever they can get their hands on.
I’ll admit, the outright brutality I saw in-person in Oakland was worse than what I’ve seen here in the recent days.
In Oakland, the police would purposely corral protestors into groups and literally beat the shit out of them. I saw this in-person multiple times. In Seattle, I haven’t seen that sort of corral behavior. However, police do shoot tear gas completely unprovoked and fire rubber bullets and mace without concern.
In both places, no looting was occurring at the main scene of the protests. In both cases, numerous videos show police breaking windows themselves.
In any case, it’s all the same: in a country that parades its freedom, people of color can’t protest without the president calling for them to be roughed up, and without the police willingly complying.
Unfortunately, some senior "dog whistle" politicians have labeled protesters "thugs" and "looters" and have called for "shooting" and "no quarter." These loose words are dangerous and may be unlawful: https://lawandcrime.com/george-floyd-death/republican-senato...
As a result of these statements, some armed enforcers including police, National Guard, and U.S. military may interpret these bellicose pronouncements as a declaration of war or a granting of letters of marque and reprisal against protesters and their property.
Good leadership would call for toning down the rhetoric but leadership appears to be in short supply. Gefickt, we are.
Referring to looters as 'looters' is not problematic.
Calling for shootings, using code-words like 'thugs' and referring to peaceful protesters as 'looters' is a problem - but let's not lose context here: there are riots and rioters are bad news.
I think in these ugly times it's even more important to be cool and clear about things.
Is removing anti-riot barricades ‘looting’ if protesters remove them from the street and out of the control of authorities in order to exercise their right to protest?
Branding someone a rioter empowers the utterer and subjugates the one deemed rioting in your framing. You seem to think it is justified to use violence against someone because of how you perceive their actions, even if they don’t hurt people, only property. There is a subtle but distinct difference. Using force to defend yourself and others has a long precedent and is largely uncontroversial in a public context such as this. However, a citizen in public generally can’t engage someone who is running away from them as they are not in imminent danger. Unless you think they are immediately returning with a weapon, you have to let them go once they get away or chase them and perform a citizen’s arrest. Shooting a fleeing person is frowned upon by the courts. Only police have that authority.
Why then are citizens taking it upon themselves to prevent looting and rioting? Defending businesses and private property from the inside and the entryway is one thing. Chasing fleeing ‘looters’ is a situation for disaster. Besides mistaken identity, which is already causing defenders and protesters who fought looters to be detained by police while actual looters escape, there are problems with armed individuals running into crowds of undifferentiable groups of protesters, looters, and rioters. How will the defenders know when to stop beating people up? How will they know if the protester defending the person next to them from collateral damage isn’t another looter? They will see what they want to see in the situation, on both sides.
Violence is not the way. I just don’t see how property damage is a mortal harm that justifies what I’m seeing. It may not be justified to damage the property, but as an individual or small group of defenders, there is no proportionality of response that makes sense against a large group of people. To start the fight is to lose on all sides. The protest will end when it ends. Lives shouldn’t end through protest, or through its consequences. One was enough to start this one. There’s a reason people do it, even if it may have knock-on effects. That’s the point. To shutdown protest because of its intended and unintended consequences is to make a means test for our constitutional rights. It’s not tolerated well in the streets or in the courtroom.
The defenders are unknowingly or knowingly participating in a counter-protest movement against the current legitimate George Floyd protests. It is being promoted through dog whistles by the right wing. It’s actually really obvious that authoritarians aren’t wasting this crisis. They start as many fires as they put out. I’m including rioters in that last part.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Branding someone a rioter empowers the utterer and subjugates the one deemed rioting in your framing" - a 'riot' is not a 'framing' - it's for the most part an objective fact. People trying to protest are not rioters, people smashing stores are rioters.
No doubt the press and various people will try to 'frame' in one direction or the other, but there's no escaping reality.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Chasing fleeing ‘looters’ is a situation for disaster" of course it is, it's crazy irrational, and I hope that would be illegal everywhere, though I'm not sure. I also would hope that nobody would frame that as 'defending one's property' because it's not.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "I just don’t see how property damage is a mortal harm that justifies what I’m seeing."
Now this is a really meaty question. I agree with you, and I think most people would agree - however - in these cases the police are not using mortal aggression. There are literally riots and looting all over the country, and the police are using pepper spray, shields etc. - there were lethal responses where shots were fired (and FYI police and civilians have died amidst the riots). Also - things like rubber bullets can kill, but that's due to a probabilistic problem, not any kind of intention. Maybe the police should not use those things, but it's more of a very specific question about safety.
>>>>>>>>> "The defenders are unknowingly or knowingly participating in a counter-protest movement against the current legitimate George Floyd protests. "
There are a few things to unpack here:
'The defenders' if you mean police, then they are very lawfully authorized by you and I, the community, to move the rioters and looters out of the area, arrest them etc.. We should not for a second confuse them with some crazy folks with guns or weapons attacking protestors, that's clearly immoral and illegal. And we should also not confuse 'protesters' with 'rioters'.
As far as 'right-wing narrative' - although that is true, if anyone can't see that that there is a massive and systematic 'social narrative' (left wing?) being driven by millions of participants, even those who should be neutral, is living in a bubble.
Most importantly - there is rioting and looting. This is not being done by the police, or by some secret Russians, this is being done by people within the protest movement and it's clearly wrong. It's definitely happening and it's absolutely reasonable to point that out, and to do so is not to necessarily support some kind of narrative.
In fact, to not characterize rioters and looters as such, would be an offense against the truth, just as characterizing protesters standing on a corner with signs as 'rioters' would be as well.
Because there are a lot of people driving narratives of some kind or another (pretty much every political force and most in the press), doesn't mean we're entitled to just 'go with it', we have a responsibility to try to stay 'clear-eyed', perhaps more than ever.
1. Rubber bullets kill when they are used in the exact opposite way they were intended. They are not meant to be fired at people's heads. If used, they should be fired at the legs to incapacitate. This is covered in training. I very much doubt it's an accident that they wind up hitting someone in the temple.
2. I did not explicitly authorize escalation between my city police and protestors. If you want to know what works when it comes to preventing riots and looting, read: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/de-escalation-keeps-pro... I watched in my city as protestors were turned into rioters because the police reaction to the middle finger and some naughty language was riot gear and tear gas.
3. You're very confused. You explicitly say we should not confuse protestors with rioters, and then go on to say that rioting and looting is being done by people "within the protest movement". You can't have it both ways. What you don't seem to understand is that it can simultaneously be the case that there are people who are committing "crimes" to have their voices heard, and people who are committing crimes because it's an opportune time to commit them. What you fail to recognize, is that we may disagree about what a crime even is societally. And to wit, that is exactly what we're disagreeing about right now. By strict legal definition, looting is a crime. However, the motivation for the crime colors it. If someone was starving and stole a loaf of bread it would be a crime, but the motivations for that crime color it. I would not, for instance, tear gas a starving person for stealing a loaf of bread.
-- In the end, your version of "clear-eyed" is code for "whatever I deem to be the valid laws of this society", not necessarily what is truly just.
If you believe these looters are doing so for justice, then know that the people who killed Floyd will be tried for their crimes and that you can not cast all law enforcement officers with the same stone. The people that pinned down Floyd all should be punished, but if you believe all of america’s officers are the same, isn’t that like condemning all blacks when one commits murder? However, if you believe that there is systematic racism in law enforcement, wouldn’t it be healthier to petition for change peacefully and specifically instead of fucking up the city because someone was murdered?
People are more important than property, I‘m sure you‘ll say, so then I can rob you and torch your home? Of course not. If these recent flashes of theft and vandalism can be justified, please enlighten me.
Also, a new bill is being introduced to end Qualified Immunity. What are the reasons for protest at the moment?
"Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena. They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights. There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act. This may explain why most cities in which riots have occurred have not had a repetition, even though the causative conditions remain. It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.
A profound judgment of today’s riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, ‘If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.’
The policymakers of the white society have caused the darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums; and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide by law in the ghettos. Day-in and day-out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; and he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions for civic services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison. Let us say boldly that if the violations of law by the white man in the slums over the years were calculated and compared with the law-breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man. These are often difficult things to say but I have come to see more and more that it is necessary to utter the truth in order to deal with the great problems that we face in our society."
Protests and looting are a symptom of much deeper ills.
Also,
> you would be hard pressed to find a law that oppresses anyone by race. Racist laws? No. Classicist laws? Yes.
With all due respect, this position exposes a lack of understanding of US history, and I'm not just talking about slavery or the civil rights act.
Some things to Google if you want to open that Pandora's jar:
- Redlining
- Poll taxes
- Nixon starting "War on Drugs" to target black communities
- Federal exclusion of black families from New Deal homebuying programs
Many of the laws and policies that have targeted black people specifically are also classist through a certain lens, but when you look closer it's usually targeting poor people because poor Americans are disproportionately black.