The protests against the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis began peacefully in Los Angeles. As night arrived, however, the peaceful protestors were overwhelmed by large numbers of looters and vandals, who came to break store windows, write graffiti, smash stores, and steal whatever they could carry away. In the vivid account in the Los Angeles Times, those who wanted to make a statement about racism were heard trying to stop the looters but they were brushed aside. Shopkeepers saw their stores burned, their inventory stolen, and were stunned to be the victims of wanton violence.
Similar scenes of looting and violence occurred in many other cities. In Nashville, a 25-year-old white man was arrested for setting fire to the city’s historic Metro Courthouse. It will take time to determine how peaceful protests were hijacked by thieves, vandals, and perhaps by provocateurs and saboteurs.
At times like this, we are reminded that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was an unequivocal advocate of nonviolence, which he said demonstrates moral principle. He would have been appalled by the destruction that marred and diminished the purpose of the initial protest.
The following account of the looting and vandalism in Los Angeles was written by a team of reporters from the Los Angeles Times:
By ALEJANDRA REYES-VELARDE, BRITTNY MEJIA, JOSEPH SERNA, RUBEN VIVES, RICHARD WINTON, KEVIN RECTOR, MONTE MORIN, ALEX WIGGLESWORTH, MELISSA ETEHAD, GUSTAVO ARELLANO, HANNAH FRY
Los Angeles County was hit by another day of protests and looting as police in Santa Monica and Long Beach struggled to deal with crowds breaking into stores and officials imposed curfews they hope will help.
The most serious unrest was largely limited to Santa Monica, where looters spent hours in the city’s upscale business district stealing items and setting several fires, and Long Beach, where a mall and some downtown shops were hit. There, some protesters screamed at looters, begging them to stop. Caltrans closed the 10 Freeway west at Bundy Drive to prevent people from coming into Santa Monica,
Protests in downtown Los Angeles, Huntington Beach and elsewhere were largely peaceful.
The demonstration decrying the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck, was initially peaceful. In Long Beach, hundreds of protesters, many chanting and holding signs reading “no justice, no peace” and “black lives matter” walked from the city’s downtown area through Alamitos Beach, along Broadway, before circling back to downtown along Ocean Boulevard Sunday afternoon.
However, shortly after 5 p.m., hundreds of protesters began looting stores at the Pike Outlet. The crowd used hammers and threw trash cans lids to smash the windows of businesses. Some protesters yelled for them to leave the stores alone. Others yelled “let’s hit Nike” before running toward the popular athletic store.
Several minutes later a mob rushed back and stormed into Forever 21, slipping from clothes scattered on the floor. At By Guess a man used a hammer to smash the store door before a man intervened and asked him to stop. Suddenly those wanting to loot the store began punching the man. A woman yelled for them to stop.
Chandarley Lim, 28, stood in the middle of the street that runs through the outdoor outlet mall yelling “peaceful protest” as a reminder that the demonstration was not supposed to be about vandalism.
“This is sad man,” she said of the looting. “This is not a good look. Don’t let the bad examples ruin it for the rest of us.”
Shortly after 6 p.m., Long Beach police declared an unlawful assembly in the area meaning that arrests would soon follow.
A similar scene unfolded in Santa Monica Sunday afternoon.
Hundreds of people walked from the Santa Monica Pier north along Ocean Avenue, carrying signs and chanting. The city issued a 4 p.m. curfew and some protesters were in a tense standoff with police, who were firing less-than-lethal weapons after some demonstrators threw objects toward them.
Shortly before 2 p.m., however, dozens of looters stormed Santa Monica Place, smashing windows of Louis Vuitton and several other stores. They left before police arrived.
Looters also ransacked the Vans at 400 Broadway, stealing shoes and skateboards from the store and storage room.
People carried merchandise past the Promenade as police guarding 3rd Street watched them walk by. They ran to a nearby alley, found what looked to be the back entrance to a store and swarmed inside.
Amid sirens blaring and shouts of “police!” the group ran back out of the alley, carrying shoeboxes. Some of them were picked up by a waiting car. They rushed to stuff the merchandise inside while police on motorcycles approached.
A couple blocks away, at 7th Street and Broadway, people were seen breaking into a pharmacy, using a skateboard to shatter the window before climbing inside. Next door, people smashed the window of a jewelry store. Firefighters at a neighboring station urged residents to go inside.
Police shut down all off-ramps into Santa Monica from the 10 Freeway and Pacific Coast Highway and told people to avoid the downtown area.
In response to the unrest across the region, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva announced a countywide curfew beginning at 6 p.m. Sunday and ending at 6 a.m. Monday. Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia also announced a curfew in Long Beach from 8 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday.
Paul Cain, who owns The Britannia Pub in Santa Monica, said he called police early in the afternoon to get a report about how safe it was outside. They told him the protesters were peaceful, marching down Ocean Avenue, and that he had nothing to worry about.
What seemed like moments later, he saw waves of crowds on the street. He ushered his customers sitting on the patio inside where they watched looters storm the area.
“The people were outside eating and drinking, and all of a sudden it arrived,” he said. “It happened in waves.”
More than four hours later, the looting throughout Santa Monica had not lost steam. Protesters crashed store windows with hammers and ran in, taking what they could before police arrived. Store alarms and police sirens sounded throughout the area. Bystanders and drivers all slowed to watch the destruction, many holding their phones out to document what was happening. It was a lawless scene, with few obeying approaching sirens or street lights.
Inside the Britannia Pub, every so often Cain would shout and point out the window toward people carrying arm loads of merchandise from the Gap and other stores.
“Take a picture of that,” he said. “He must be carrying his body weight in jeans.”
Protests were also underway Sunday afternoon in downtown Los Angeles, where National Guard troops established a perimeter around City Hall, and in Huntington Beach.
In Huntington Beach, police declared a protest near the pier an unlawful assembly about 1 p.m., said Angela Bennett, public information officer for the Huntington Beach Police Department.
She estimated about 500 people were demonstrating and said there were no reports of violence or vandalism. Video footage showed police officers lining up to face the protesters near Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street. No arrests had been made, Bennett said.
At the Promenade in downtown Long Beach, business owners were rushing to board up restaurants, clothing stores and galleries. Police and demonstrators were in a standoff near The Pike Outlets. Patrol cars were hit with eggs and water bottles as people began rushing police officers. By 5 p.m. some had started looting shops at the outlet, carrying armfuls of clothing out of a Forever 21 clothing store.
There were more protests in downtown Los Angeles, including a march to Pershing Square. Video showed an incident in which a police vehicle hit a protester before speeding away as people threw objects at the car. The person hit did not appear to be seriously injured. National Guard troops joined LAPD officers stationed on the steps of City Hall.
Neissa Diabate, 27, stood nearby holding a sign that read “America would not exist without the black community”.
“It’s actually wild that we have to be out here in the middle of a pandemic,” she said. They were there for George Floyd because “enough is enough,” she added.
“America has taught us that peace does not get us far,” she said.
Meanwhile, on the south side of the Los Angeles Police Department’s headquarters a few hundred protesters shouted “hands up, don’t shoot” at a line of officers and guardsmen as a police helicopter orbited overhead. Cell phones rang out in the crowd with an alert about the countywide curfew.
“They changed the time. They changed the curfew…cowards,” a woman yelled using an expletive.
Earlier on Sunday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti had imposed an overnight curfew for a second night in the wake of the worst unrest in the city in decades, warning millions of residents and would-be protesters that they could be arrested if they ventured outside after 8 p.m. County officials later amended the order to get people inside by 6 p.m.
The curfew is necessary to maintain order after two straight nights of looting, arson and tense clashes between police and protesters in the street, Garcetti said.
“When times demand it,” the mayor said, “strong steps are required to bring peace back to our city.”
Saturday’s unrest eclipsed that of Friday in downtown Los Angeles. Violence extended into other parts of the city and left portions of the Grove mall in the Fairfax District ablaze. Police shot projectiles at protesters in multiple locations. Protesters threw rocks and other objects, as well as fireworks, at police.
Los Angeles police said 398 people were arrested Saturday on suspicion of crimes including burglary, looting, vandalism, failure to disperse, and firearms and curfew violations. Five LAPD officers were injured, with two of them hospitalized, officials said.
The most seriously injured officer was struck by a brick while in the Fairfax area, authorities said, The brick fractured his skull. Another officer suffered a broken arm, and another suffered a broken leg during the clashes with protesters.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore, appearing with Garcetti at a news conference at City Hall on Sunday, said the officer whose skull was fractured underwent surgery Saturday night. “I believe he will survive,” Moore said.
Garcetti said people who engaged in “destruction and looting” were only hurting others in the community.
“They have not just caused chaos and damage,” he said. “They are hijacking a moment and a movement.”
Saturday’s unrest — which undercut a weekend meant to be focused on the the reopening of restaurants, barbershops and hair salons shuttered due to the coronavirus outbreak — spurred other cities to enact overnight curfews.
The cities of Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Culver City and Torrance announced curfews for Sunday into Monday, as did the city of Santa Ana in Orange County.
In West Hollywood and Torrance, the curfews will be in effect each night until they are lifted by city officials. In Beverly Hills, the curfew took effect at 1 p.m. for the business district, which includes Rodeo Drive, and will be in place at 4 p.m. for the rest of the city.
“Violence, looting, and vandalism will not be tolerated in our city,” Beverly Hills Mayor Lester Friedman said. “It’s unfortunate that the message of the peaceful protesters has been diminished by criminal behavior.”
At dawn Sunday, five National Guard military Humvees were parked at 3rd and Hill streets in downtown L.A. Guardsmen dressed in full combat gear stood outside shattered storefronts as the morning light revealed the damage from the days before: broken windows, trash-strewn streets and graffiti-tagged buildings.
By 7 a.m., scores of Guardsmen toting M-4 rifles marched on patrol along Broadway between 7th and 8th streets.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in the city and county of Los Angeles shortly before midnight, which was when he activated the National Guard.
Los Angeles County officials also proclaimed a countywide state of emergency to deal with the unrest.
“This emergency comes as we are in the midst of battling another emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said Sunday in a statement. “This taxes our resources, but not our resolve.”
The proclamation will help authorities coordinate an emergency response and mutual aid and speed up the procurement of supplies, officials said. It also provides for future state and federal reimbursement of costs the county incurs. The dramatic move came after a day of deteriorating conditions. Demonstrators burned Los Angeles Police Department cruisers and looted retail businesses including the Apple Store and Nordstrom at the Grove. Some protesters even made it to Beverly Hills’ famed Rodeo Drive, where they were met by a line of officers.
Since the protests started, Garcetti and other city leaders had encouraged peaceful expression and voiced support for the marches. But on Saturday, the mayor said the conditions on the streets were getting worse by the hour. First, he ordered a night curfew for downtown L.A. Then, about an hour later, he extended it to the entire city. Less than an hour after that, he requested the National Guard.
The decision to call in the National Guard was criticized by City Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who represents a portion of South L.A.
“It’s clear that our fear is real that additional law enforcement will only further violence against people of color,” Harris-Dawson said in a statement. “Anarchists are taking advantage of our pain with looting and violence — this is not Black Lives Matter or members of our community who have suffered from systematic racism and oppression — these are domestic terrorists.”
The last time the National Guard patrolled the streets of L.A. was during the 1992 riots, which erupted after the police officers who beat black motorist Rodney King were found not guilty.
Compared with those riots, the events in Los Angeles on Saturday were significantly less widespread and dangerous. The protests and looting were limited Friday night and Saturday morning largely to downtown Los Angeles and on Saturday afternoon and evening to the Fairfax District.
Although officers were hurt when protesters threw objects at them, there have been no fatalities. The 1992 riots swept across large swaths of Southern California and left more than 60 people dead.
From Friday afternoon to early Saturday, police clashed with protesters across downtown, pushing them away from the 110 Freeway and getting into physical altercations.
Despite the curfew imposed by Garcetti that lasted until 5:30 a.m. Sunday, groups of people — mostly men — wandered the streets of downtown Los Angeles late Saturday night, smashing windows and spray-painting anti-police graffiti on plywood boards that business and property owners had hastily affixed to their buildings earlier in the day.
In Saturday’s violence near the Grove, police and protesters spent hours in a tense standoff, with officers shooting rubber bullets and striking demonstrators with batons while several police cars were set on fire and other vehicles were vandalized. Protesters also took over a Metro bus and climbed on its roof to take video of police.
Several hours later, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority suspended bus and rail service with little warning. The agency apologized Sunday morning to passengers who were left stranded across L.A. County.
The unprecedented closure of the Metro system drew immediate criticism from advocates and elected officials who said essential workers were left stranded on sidewalks, at stations and in bus shelters in the hours after the 8 p.m. curfews imposed in Los Angeles and other cities.
Metro’s chief executive Phil Washington told KNX 1070 News Radio on Saturday night that the agency chose to shut down service because he had seen “a lot of damage,” and was concerned for the safety of Metro employees.
Washington said Metro supervisors were driving around the city on Saturday night to look for people at bus stops, then calling nearby bus yards and asking them to dispatch vehicles to pick them up.
On Sunday morning, a Metro spokesperson said the agency would reimburse trips taken in a taxi, Uber or Lyft after the system shut down. Anyone seeking a refund should call Metro customer service at (323) 466-3876.
The large crowd that moved through the Fairfax District first gathered at Pan Pacific Park off Beverly Boulevard at a rally organized by Black Lives Matter and social justice group BLD PWR, where they chanted, “Defund police” and “Prosecute killer cops.” The rally’s speakers called for less public money for police departments and for schools and prisons to be overhauled.
“We’re living in the middle of an uprising,” Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors told the group. “Let’s be clear: We are in an uprising for black life.”
The scene turned more violent as the day wore on.
About a dozen destroyed or defaced LAPD cruisers sat abandoned on 3rd Street, yards from where a loud crowd of protesters faced a row of police. The odor of charred rubber wafted through the area. The cruisers’ windows were smashed, mirrors ripped out and the vehicles’ bodies scrawled with anti-police slogans.
Protesters spray-painted “Cops and Klan go hand and hand” on the side of a Citibank on Fairfax Avenue. Across the street, “Eat the Rich” was scrawled on the Writers Guild of America building.
Around 6 p.m., police arrested about 20 people, who were then loaded onto a sheriff’s bus. Dozens of protesters — many dressed in black and wearing masks — posed for photographs, each with a fist in the air, while standing atop a burned and graffitied car by Edinburgh Avenue and Beverly Boulevard.
At The Grove nearby, looters broke into the Nordstrom department store and the Apple Store and ran off with merchandise. As looters approached two security guards outside the Nike store, the guards begged them not to enter.
“We’re one of you,” one guard said.
Eventually, some set a small police kiosk at the mall on fire.
The police chief was personally leading the operation in the Fairfax District and rushed to the Grove after the looting began. Moore said he was troubled by how things had gotten out of control. He said he understood people’s anger and frustration but that the city needed to pull together.
“This is not the solution,” he said, standing next to broken glass from the Nordstrom facade. “We haven’t given up on L.A., and L.A. shouldn’t give up on itself. We can pull around this. … Policing doesn’t fix these kinds of societal problems. I need all of L.A. to step up right now and be part of the solution.”
There appeared to be divisions among the protesters.
When one smashed the front window of a nearby Whole Foods on 3rd Street with a hammer, some screamed, “Don’t do that! Please!” while others cheered.
The protesters also began to clash among themselves. Some who urged peace created a barricade of shopping carts around the store’s entrance to protect it, but moments later, another group jumped the barrier and broke down the store’s door.
The Spokes ‘N Stuff bicycle shop closed Saturday at 6 p.m. The owner, Joey Harris, saw people breaking windows at Sorella’s next door when he left.
“And that’s a black-owned business,” he said. “It obviously wasn’t about protests.”
He’s had his store here for 20 years. The store stayed open during the COVID-19 pandemic because it’s considered an essential business.
“They not only took my bikes, they took customer’s bikes as well,” he said, estimating that the losses could total $100,000.
Travon Walton, a 25-year-old student from Long Beach, arrived in the Fairfax area in the afternoon to join the protests. He said he saw many non-black protesters inciting the police from up close and said he worried that the black community would receive the blame.
“All the white people are in the front,” he said. “We’re going to be the ones that get the backlash.”
As the night wore on, there were more reports of looting on Fairfax and Melrose avenues, where several stores were ransacked and a Starbucks coffee shop was set ablaze.
“It’s horrible — they need any excuse just to take something,” said Mel, a 39-year-old Compton resident who would provide only his first name as he watched from across the street. Mel said he came to the area to witness history.
“It’s going to be in the news,” he said. “It’s going to be like the Watts riots. I wasn’t really alive for it, but I was alive for this one. I’ll tell my kids and family members what happened.”
What Lindsay Pierce saw on her security cameras Saturday night made her ill.
The Melrose Avenue business owner was monitoring her shop, Wax, by way of security cameras as the protests moved through the Fairfax District. At about 11 p.m., she said, three young men darted inside her store after its windows were shattered. They immediately moved to the business’ internet router and disconnected it, cutting off Pierce’s connection.
“I started sweating, I got sick to my stomach, I was just thinking, ‘Please don’t light it on fire,’” Pierce said Sunday morning.
She said she got only about an hour of sleep before she was up at 6 a.m. and headed to the store to survey the damage. All the business’ electronics were stolen along with some small merchandise, she said.
Around midnight Saturday, for at least half an hour, a procession of cars, SUVs and pickups pulled up in front of the Melrose Mac store at 6614 Melrose Ave. and disgorged their drivers and passengers.
With no police in sight, they scrambled empty-handed into the store through shattered windows and emerged moments later with what appeared to be boxes of computers. The looting was broadcast live on L.A. news outlets.
“It was like a McDonald’s drive-through outside the Mac store, where cars were pulling up and others were throwing in looted goods and driving off,” Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz told KTLA News on Sunday morning.
“They were in a line, one by one,” he said. “It was something the likes of which I’ve never seen anywhere.”
By early Sunday, the chaos was replaced by an eerie quiet.
Around 1 a.m., a few stragglers remained in the Fairfax District, the center of the prior day’s protests and looting. Fire crews doused storefronts that had smoldered for hours.
Metro buses, flanked by police motorcycle escorts, carried detained people who had zip ties on their wrists. Broken glass glittered on the sidewalk and hung from window frames.
Koretz, who represents many of the areas that incurred damage, said business districts along Fairfax Avenue and Melrose Avenue had been “devastated” by looting, vandalism and graffiti.
“This was the weekend that the city had given permission for restaurants and retail to emerge from COVID,” he said. “And instead, businesses that were already hanging by a thread are now destroyed.”
By 8:30 a.m., a Los Angeles beautification team was out along Melrose Avenue, near La Brea, beginning the long task of covering up profanity and other tags left on buildings down the street.
Helicopters flew overhead as the crew worked. The crew of five had started at 7:30 that morning.
“We haven’t even moved one half block,” said crew supervisor Ernesto Fabian as he scrubbed graffiti off a window with steel wool.
In the window were paper signs that read, “Black owned.”
“They don’t respect that,” he said. “They just keep tagging.”
The crew was supposed to work its way down to La Cienega Boulevard.
“I don’t think we can make it today,” Fabian said. “It’s going to take a couple of days to clean everything.”
Rodney Beckwith, who goes by his artist name, Flewnt, is the manager of Resist 323 on Melrose, a store selling custom clothing and art that saw one of its windows smashed.
He spent the night inside the store, where a garage door security gate was pulled down in front to protect it.
Beckwith was inside Saturday night when he heard people trying to break in through the back door. He shoved a table saw against the security door.
Eli Ventov has had his store, Reloaded L.A., along Melrose for nearly 12 years. The store had just reopened Wednesday after being closed because of the pandemic.
On Saturday, as they saw the protests start to grow, workers rushed to Home Depot and got painters paper to cover the windows so no one would break in.
No one did break in that night. But in the same building, people broke into the Dr. Martens store. Around 7 p.m., someone threw a bottle with gasoline inside the store, Ventov said.
“It went from this store, to this store, to this store,” Ventov said of the resulting fire, gesturing to shoe store Tony-K and then to his store.
Ventov stood across the street and watched his clothing and jewelry store burn.
“You see all your life running across your face,” he said. “I can’t believe it.”
“I understand where they’re coming from, but did you really need to come that way?”
“He stayed the whole time. We saw him on the news across the street watching his building burn down,” said Ramon Pazos, who works at the store. “There’s nothing we could do but watch.”
On Sunday morning Ventov stood outside the blackened store, where the roof appeared on the verge of collapse and the sky was visible through patches. He grew teary-eyed as a friend embraced him and told him it would be OK.
Ricky Flores swept inside the clothing store Flashback, where a sign out front read “Now open! Please wear a mask for entry.”
He and his friend had opened the store four years ago, with help from investors whom they eventually bought out. A year ago, business was going so well they moved from a smaller space next door to a larger one.
The store had just reopened Friday after being closed since March. But they closed Saturday because of the protests. They watched on the news as buildings across the street burned.
When Flores arrived Sunday morning, around 7 a.m., people were still stealing items from the store, he said. The alarm was blaring and people had broken the security gate the night before.
“I thought this was going to be cool,” Flores said, shaking the broken gate. “… They got through it easily.”
People stole three televisions off the wall, shoes and clothes. They even stole the ice cube trays from the freezer.
“What kind of a sick person takes the ice cube trays out of the freezer?”
He estimated losses totaled $200,000.
“It’s going to be hard to open back up with all the inventory gone,” Flores said. “If they say it’s safe to open back up in two days, it’s like, what are we going to sell?”
In Santa Ana, where protesters and police clashed, the streets were quiet by 2:30 a.m.
At the intersection of McFadden Avenue and Bristol Street, where many of Saturday’s skirmishes took place, the scent of melted plastic lingered in the air. Broken glass was scattered across the intersection.
One man standing with friends outside a nearby house described the entire episode as “dumb.”
“Do you have to loot?” he said. “You’re just making the city look bad.”
The man, who declined to provide his name, said he watched police officers fire tear gas at demonstrators, who threw rocks and other items at officers.
Workers at a Smart and Final on Edinger Avenue were cleaning up broken glass. A small cardboard sign that lay close by read: “Make lynching a federal crime.”
Nearby, Julio De La Chica said he had watched demonstrators break windows at the Smart and Final and an O’Reilly Auto Store, whose walls were scrawled with anti-police graffiti.
“I was stunned,” he said. “I’ve never really seen anything like that before.”
Jose Rodriguez has sold fruit from a cart on Fourth Street in downtown Santa Ana since the early 1990s. He remembers that when the riots that happened in the wake of the Rodney King verdict nearly 30 years ago, “no one down here cared.”
But as he prepared some mango with chile before closing up early on Sunday, the Mexican immigrant looked upon a Fourth Street he had never seen: empty. Boarded up. And nervous of what was to come.
Small business owners frantically put up plywood on their storefronts in anticipation of two rallies nearby. The sound of buzzsaws cutting down planks and nail guns fastening wood to concrete peppered the humid air.
The night before, a rally In another part of Santa Ana led to looting and soul-searching in a city long maligned by the rest of Orange county as a dangerous place. Rodriguez saw footage of the aftermath and didn’t like it.“I understand why everyone so upset,” he said. “But breaking windows and harming your own community isn’t the way.”
He added a dash of lime to two mango containers.“Let’s see what happens in a bit,” Rodriguez said. “You can’t be open right now. Because what’s coming might hit everything hard.”
Times staff writers Hailey Branson-Potts, Kim Christensen, Dakota Smith, Laura J. Nelson, David Zahniser, Kevin Baxter, Matthew Ormseth, Leila Miller and Emily Baumgaertner contributed to this report.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
yep….its gonna lead to LAW and Order in november elections
Today an airplane flew over the people on the beach with a banner: Liberals: Your Mayors and Governors=Violence
On Sun, May 31, 2020 at 9:13 PM Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “The protests against the killing of George Floyd in > Minneapolis began peacefully in Los Angeles. As night arrived, however, the > peaceful protestors were overwhelmed by large numbers of looters and > vandals, who came to break store windows, write graffiti, ” >
I remember my sociology professor telling us that if we weren’t part of a solution, then we were part of the problem. Now that protests have tuned violent, if you are out in the crowd, then you are part of the problem. Let those who would loot and destroy–for whatever motive–stand alone. Instead, look for constructive solutions.
If you’re more worried about looting of property than violence and death against blacks, then you’re part of the problem.
To dienne77,
Please do not put words into my mouth. I was not saying that I was more worried about distraction of property than loss of life. I was trying to point out that the protests were hijacked by individuals whose intentions had little to do with justice.
The protest have turned violent because of groups supported by CNN and NBCnews. Antifa has used the protests to carry out acts of violence. Most of the protest were not violent until they showed up.
Just what we need in the middle of a pandemic and a depression.
This is a total disgrace.
I feel very sorry for the business owners who are going to lose everything. Their stores just opened up and now many are ruined.
I also feel for the people who have been racially hit upon their whole lives. There is a repressed anger that is coming out…most wanted a peaceful protest but violence ensued. Many years of intense poverty and neglect are being shown to the nation.
……………………………………………………
As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it – whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, he is trash.
—Harper Lee
I hate racial discrimination most intensely and all its manifestations. I have fought all my life; I fight now, and will do so until the end of my days. Even although I now happen to be tried by one, whose opinion I hold in high esteem, I detest most violently the set-up that surrounds me here. It makes me feel that I am a Black man in a White man’s court. This should not be I should feel perfectly at ease and at home with the assurance that I am being tried by a fellow South African, who does not regard me as an inferior, entitled to a special type of justice.
—Nelson Mandela
To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.
–William Faulkner
If a white man falls off a chair drunk, it’s just a drunk.
If a Negro does, it’s the whole damn Negro race.
—Bill Cosby
A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.
—Saul Alinsky
And affirmative action is a very nice term for racial discrimination against better-qualified white people in jobs, employment, promotions and scholarships, and college admittance.
—David Duke
It’s creepy to have so much violence. I feel sorry for business owners who just opened up and now their places have been trashed and their life savings destroyed.
I feel sad for the protestors. Years of racial hatred and discrimination are coming out into the open. Trump encourages hatred.
There was violence close to where I live.
My Citibank is near River Oaks mall in Calumet City, IL.
[NWI Times] UPDATE: Many Indiana stores close near state line after River Oaks shuttered amid widespread looting in Cal City and Lansing
CALUMET CITY — Police shut down River Oaks Center and the River Oaks West Shopping Center in Calumet City, the Landings Shopping Center in Lansing, and the Walmart and adjoining Lansing Square strip mill in Lansing after many businesses in Cal City and Lansing were looted or had their windows smashed in Sunday.
The scene was chaotic along the Torrence Avenue commercial district Sunday after with multiple storefronts broken in and swarms of police blocking off entrances to various shopping centers. Some officers were in riot gear and a few wielded shotguns, batons and riot shields. Police were observed firing pepper spray balls at people running through the River Oaks mall.
https://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/update-many-indiana-stores-close-near-state-line-after-river-oaks-shuttered-amid-widespread-looting/article_3a7dd7c2-6edc-5099-9370-9665c8189cd2.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share
…………..
[NWI Times] WATCH NOW: Protesters threw water bottle filled with rocks at police; tense standoff created, cops say
HOBART — A group of more than 300 protesters gathered outside the now-closed Southlake Mall on Sunday to draw attention to racial injustice.
Later in the day, protesters walked to Route 30, halting traffic in both directions.
Protesters reportedly threw a plastic water bottle filled with rocks at police, injuring an officer, Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez said.
The action triggered an outburst among the crowd of protesters who had been moved off US 30 to the north in a tense face-to-face standoff.
Martinez said the county’s tactical unit was brought in a couple hours into the protest after peaceful protesters began leaving and there was word among the crowd and social media for potential violence to the mall.
“Let’s burn this thing down,” was the message, he said…
https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/watch-now-protesters-threw-water-bottle-filled-with-rocks-at-police-tense-standoff-created-cops/article_97b50d29-3d71-5093-8478-c211780d117f.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=user-share
I feel particularly sad for the mom and pop shops that have been hanging on by a thread from the pandemic. Some of the smaller stores may not make enough money to carry insurance.
I was criticized on Twitter for daring to write about the violence. I fully support demonstrations and protests. I do not support violence, looting, and vandalism.
See the national mall and if you can bear it the video of mobsters attacking a woman trying to reason with a group intent on destruction of her property. Also read the comments. Organized mayhem has been enabled by the iphones and apps that nearly every person is carrying.
Had my own front door smashed in this weekend.
People need to stay home. Enough of this.
Oh FLERP I am so sorry. Praying for you & your family’s safety.
We’re fine. Just yet another expense. Worse is the constant sense that we are spiraling down the drain.
I am truly sorry to hear that. I hope you and yours are safe.
Yes, MLK was an unequivocal advocate of non-violence, but yet he understood the roots of violence and he condemned the conditions that led to violence as much as he condemned the violence itself. Fuller context of the “a riot is the language of the unheard” quote:
“Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention”
I get that, Dienne. But King did not make excuses for wanton destruction of people’s livelihoods. There are small businesses owned by black People that are being ransacked. How does it advance justice to steal shoes and bikes and destroy some other person’s life savings?
It doesn’t. But how have peaceful protests and other measures advanced justice for for black people? As Peter Greene has said many times, if you don’t listen when someone speaks softly and civilly, they will simply get louder and more agitated. It’s a shame that black businesses and mom and pop stores have been destroyed but once that kind of anger gets unleashed, it doesn’t obey very many boundaries.
That anger could have been dispersed at the very first march on Minneapolis by meeting the protesters with respect, hearing them out and responding appropriately by arresting and charging all four officers. But instead, the protesters were met with a militarized response and nearly every subsequent protest has been met with violence and escalation (the sheriff of Flint, Michigan being a rare exception, to his great credit).
If I put myself in the shoes of the poorest and most marginalized black people who have endured so much abuse and discrimination and violence, I’m hard-pressed to say I would have done anything differently in their place.
“(the sheriff of Flint, Michigan being a rare exception, to his great credit).”
Yes. I can’t help wondering what would have happened if only one or two people in that crowd in Flint, Michigan had been hurling bricks and bottles at the sheriff or throwing molotov cocktails and lighting police cars on fire. Would he have acted differently?
I posted below that in cities that are not on the radar of white racist instigators’, like Flint and Camden, NJ, the protesters were peaceful. I don’t think that is a coincidence.
I am angry that a lot of people who don’t care about police violence against African Americans are using the peaceful protests for their own end.
There are a lot of reasons for the African American protestors to be angry and want to destroy. And white instigators are using that for their own racist ends. Their goal is not to end racism, it is to destroy.
I imagine Nathan Robinson’s latest post is quite controversial and even I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet, but it’s worth considering: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/06/why-property-destruction-isnt-violence
Thanks for the link to this thought-provoking essay, Dienne. I think he’s right on the money with the distinction between destruction of objects and threat/ actual bodily harm (violence). Obviously not a binary thing: when you bust in residential front doors & break windows on their block it’s a threat of bodily harm – violence. At the other end of the spectrum many are so threatened by disorder that they see people carrying signs & chanting in streets as “violent protest” & call for head-cracking “law& order.”
People marching and chanting together, carrying signs, is peaceful assembly. It is protected by the Constitution.
People smashing plate glass windows, looting stores, and burning them is criminal. It is not protected by the Constitution or any state law. Looting and vandalism, torching cars, throwing Molotov cocktails discredits those who are exercising their constitutional rights of assembly and dissent.
The violence and civil disorders in the 1960s helped elect Nixon in 1968 on a law-and-order platform. Will the current chaos re-elect Trump, the president most hostile to civil rights and social justice of any in living memory?
Diane, it is not such an easy dichotomy, other than legally. I agree with your sentiment that peacefully assembled protests are protected by the Constitution, whereas vandalism & looting are outlawed by any state’s civil laws. However, all this addresses only the responsibility of citizens. What are we to make of a situation like that in Louisville, where a conglomeration of police & National Guards decided to bulk up & head for Dino’s Restaurant– outside downtown protests– because, well, police stats suggest there might be violence there? (Meanwhile the local word is that Dino’s chef is known for tempering potential violence w/good food). The parking lot is packed– one idiot shoots off a gun– police/ Natl Guard return a spray of fire, killing the chef.
Most of the violence reported seems to be similar, i.e., whenever the presence of police/ Natl Guards is overweening in proportion to protesting public: trouble, violence.
We’ve seen that peaceful protests “turn violent” after dark, and no doubt bad actors in many cases take advantage, & are breaking civil laws & should be arrested. But we’ve also observed that curfews have been arbitrarily declared w/scant warning & insufficient time allowed for crowds to disperse, while police/ Natl Guard suddenly bulk up, block ways to get home, & immediately start firing tear-gas/rubber bullets on peaceful protestors, which incites return violence/ looting/ vandalism.
The looting and vandalism in NYC—as I think FLERP and CarolBurris will attest—was not a response to any police action but opportunistic. As we saw when the military police cleared a path from the White House for the Trump entourage to walk to St. John’s Church, using clubs and shields and rubber bullets and tear gas against peaceful protestors, there was plenty of police brutality. But these protestors did not wait for sundown and ransack stores. The looters moved in packs after dark and came equipped with hammers to smash windows. Peaceful protestors don’t carry hammers.
Every story about looting says that peaceful protestors tried to stop the looters but were brushed aside.
bethree5: Here is another move that Trump, the “war president’, did to rescind what Obama wanted. I think its horrible that police department are armed with full force military equipment.
…………………………………….
Trump Reverses Restrictions on Military Hardware for Police
Aug. 28, 2017
President Trump rolled back Obama-era rules that limited the transfer of surplus military equipment to local police departments.
WASHINGTON — Police departments will now have access to military surplus equipment typically used in warfare, including grenade launchers, armored vehicles and bayonets, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Monday, describing it as “lifesaving gear.”
The move rescinds limits on the Pentagon handouts that were put in place by President Barack Obama in 2015 amid a national debate over policing touched off by a spate of high-profile deaths of black men at the hands of the police, including the shooting death in 2014 of 18-year-old Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo., by a white officer. Some local residents viewed police use of military equipment during the ensuing protests as an unnecessary show of force and intimidation.
In a speech to the Fraternal Order of Police in Nashville, Mr. Sessions said Mr. Obama had made it harder for the police to protect themselves and their neighborhoods…
Bethree, the difference between peaceful assembly and criminal acts is not trivial. One is protected by the Constitution, the other is criminal behavior. Dienne talks about smashing windows at big chain stores or a Target, but doesn’t mention the small shops owned by individuals or families which represented their life savings, which were cleaned out by looters. See here: https://gothamist.com/news/bronx-small-business-owners-reel-night-looting-and-vandalism?mc_cid=a05dcecc0b&mc_eid=a73c1d1b77
Of course, I condemn police brutality. Of course, police brutality is far worse than property damage. That doesn’t mean that destroying property is therefore okay because it’s not as bad as police brutality. The long-term questions are whether there will be a genuine decrease in racism because of the current pushback and whether Trump will gain strength in the polls as the defender of “law and order.” I urge you to watch the statement by Terrence Floyd, George’s brother, which I posted yesterday. He condemned the same things I condemn.
Diane, “That doesn’t mean that destroying property is therefore okay because it’s not as bad as police brutality.” Absolutely agree, & didn’t mean to imply that. As you point out, the situations I described are quite different from the intentional & opportunistic looting & vandalism many are witnessing. My comments were echoing 2nd-hand reporting by my son of two early NYC protests attended by his roommate. I’m not sure I would even classify the action reported as “police brutality.” It sounds more like insensitive policing geared toward control of large (though peaceful!) crowds– via more police presence than necessary, & assertive, aggressive moves probably intended to head off the potential for acting out by drawing a line in the sand. NYPD walking a tightrope there, where it’s all to easy to overdo.
Thank goodness my son is sticking to Newark & Jersey City protests, which have been peaceful. However, even he (at those comparatively model protests) reports a sort of fear& loathing reaction to viewing massed police redirecting routes etc. They are there for his protection – these are his first experiences w/civil protest – but I listen & understand. He’s picking up a danger vibe, seeing how sensitive crowds are to any perceived injustice, & understanding how nervous & inexperienced some of those cops must be. He expresses it as, “I see how easily Kent State must have happened”; he fears it could happen again at any second.
Meanwhile I understand nycpsp’s concern that NYPD seems to focus too much on the peaceful-crowd control & too little on the spree criminalism. I suspect this is not either-or. Most likely these are 2 completely different kinds of policing, not a matter of where to deploy limited staff. I’ll be waiting for more info to understand the seemingly hands-off attitude toward looters/ vandals.
& Carol I so agree re: the militarization of the police via hand-off of excess army eqpt totally unsuited to local policing. Not a new issue, but Trump clearly shows his hand on where he stands. It’s like the gun-control issue writ large: you wanna allow stockpiling of deadly weapons by citizenry, you’re gonna get more gun casualties.
Fred Klonsky is absolutely on the money here: https://preaprez.wordpress.com/2020/06/01/the-script/
“We need to be laser focused on the killing of George Floyd and the systematic murders by police of Black people across the country and the broader conditions and policies that allow and promote it.
“Because that’s what matters.”
The attack on and siege of the CNN headquarters in Atlanta was very chilling and very discouraging. The CNN reporter was in the lobby of the building recording all the violence and destruction, with the mob directly outside viewable through the smashed windows. There was a phalanx of police in the lobby preventing the mob from entering the building. The rioters threw all kinds of projectiles at the police including, rocks, bottles, firecrackers, a big smoke bomb and an explosive about as powerful as a stun grenade. All things considered, the police in the lobby were very restrained, their main purpose being to keep out the violent horde on the other side of the smashed windows. If the rioters had gained entry into the structure, they would have probably burned the CNN building to the ground. One knuckle-headed white protester was attempting to smash what was left of the glass facade with his skateboard. He ended up injuring himself and other protesters bandaged up his wounds from the glass shards.
Sadly, the images of violence, looting and destruction will overshadow the peaceful protesters. The right wing will beat this meme to death. The mayor of Atlanta was enraged at the looting, violence and arson.
Protesters destroy a police car, and police destroy a protester’s eye, both will be called “violence” The word “violence” should be reserved for harm done to people. Otherwise, we risk making the term incoherent, conflating acts that do physical harm to people with acts that have not physically harmed anyone. So when Donald Trump tweets “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” we need to understand that “the shooting” and “the looting” are two very different kinds of acts.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/06/why-property-destruction-isnt-violence
A burning police car or any burning car is a bomb waiting to explode which can injure innocent bystanders. Not to mention spreading the fire to adjacent cars and buildings which can injure or kill police, firefighters or civilians. Firefighters battling an arson blaze can and often do become injured from the conflagration.
Dienne,
Let me understand your point. If you own a small business, a bike shop, a clothing store, in which you have poured your life savings, it is not violence if a group of angry people break the windows, steal everything in your store, then burn the store to ashes. Is this correct? The motive makes their actions legitimate? Suppose you are a struggling black or Hispanic family that rents the space and loses everything and is thrown into poverty. Is it still okay? You are saying, as I understand it, that any destruction of property is fine if the motives are pure. Yes?
Last night, a 25-year-old white man was arrested in Nashville and charged with arson after he set fire to the city’s historic Courthouse. There was some speculation that he was a white nationalist trying to discredit the protests. Was this criminal or should he be freed because no one was hurt?
Diane – you’ll have to take that up with Nathan Robinson. I was merely providing the citation which Mr. Holsworth neglected to provide. As I said above, I’m struggling with what Robinson wrote.
I actually think Fred Klonsky said it much more clearly (link in my comment above). The focus needs to remain on the killing of George Floyd. The rest is just the script that inevitably follows the wrongful death by cop (or vigilante) of a black person.
BTW, this is a false dichotomy: “Was this criminal or should he be freed because no one was hurt?”
Arson is a crime. It’s just that it’s a property crime, not a violent crime (unless people were in the building or it was done specifically to intimidate, as Robinson discusses). People should absolutely be arrested for crimes and an arsonist is definitely a criminal. But property is replaceable, people are not.
II agree w/you Dienne, & w/Nathan Robinson. We must emphasize the distinction between property crimes [civil] & criminal law [attempt on/ threat of/ actual bodily harm.] It can get dicy! Setting a car on fire e.g. has the explosive potential of bodily harm to those nearby; breaking windows/ looting closed stores does not, & civil punishments dished out should reflect the distinction. Just so, we need to exercise public monitoring over police actions, keeping in mind whether cracking heads is appropriate punishment for simply marching around w/protest signs after curfew.
The gray area, to me, is the imposition of bulked-up police force– they’re armed, & so threaten bodily harm/ death– on peaceful protestors. Especially at the beginning of curfew time. That is the point when the peaceful are intending to retreat to home, but might be blocked/ slowed/ threatened by law enforcement on the lookout for troublemakers. If law enforcement at that point begins to lob teargas/ shoot rubber bullets, they are inciting a backlash which regular citizens & lawbreakers alike will take as a green light to engage.
Intentional property damage may be considered a form of violence, albeit one usually (but not always) less reprehensible than violence which does bodily harm other living beings. For example, Bulldozing Palestinian olive groves may qualify as both property damage and lead to bodily harm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_damage
The looting of stores is inherently a class issue, whether you look upon it favorably or not (there are always exceptions of course). The act of looting is a long-standing American tradition, dating back to the theft of Native lands and African enslavement. And today, while wealthy people don’t loot strip malls, they are adept at looting natural resources and labor…
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/01/its-a-class-war-now-too/
Richard, I pose the same question as I did to another commenter. Is it okay to loot and burn black-owned businesses? Hispanic-owned businesses? Is it okay if whites are looting and burning shops?
Why even the need to load the question up that way? Is it okay for anyone to loot and burn businesses, regardless of the race or ethnicity or gender or religion of the business owner, or the looter, or the arsonist?
Dienne posted comments and a link saying that destroying property is not criminal if no one is injured.
No, Diane, that is absolutely not what that article said. The article is arguing that property crimes are not violent (because objects cannot feel or suffer). Property crimes are, of course, still crimes.
This NYTimes article on Erik Prince & his work with Project Veritas on Mar 7, 2020 is looking freshly relevant this am.
Folks arrested & photographed during the violent riot in Nashville, after the huge demonstrations during the day, were white & from out of state.
The money quote: “ with the training, Project Veritas will be “the next great intelligence agency.”
There has been abundant speculation that white nationalists are egging on violence. Saboteurs. Provocateurs.
See this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv-O4rnUToU
Trump is looking to place the blame for the destruction of cities during this protest on an outside group ANTIFA (anti fascist). Just as Hitler blamed the commies for the burning the Reichstag in 1933 when his Nazis had actually burned it. Trump needs to blame Antifa and everybody else for the violence and destruction his allies have wrought this week
During WWII, all America was ANTIFA- defeating Mussolini and then Hitler. So now Trump is anti- anti fascist- which makes him a fascist.
I am not at all a fan of Antifa or similar groups. So I guess that makes me a big fan of fascism.
I too oppose fascism.
Don’t you?
Are we Antifa?
Anyone here ProFascism?
One thing I noticed.
The lesser known, out of the public eye cities, like Camden, NJ, had peaceful protests despite those protests being almost entirely African American protestors who have all reason to be angry. The protest in Flint, MI was peaceful.
Those are cities that aren’t on the radar of white instigators.
Of course if you come into a place where people have been unjustly victimized by police violence, and your only goal is not to stop that police violence but to discredit the people justifiably angry about it, it is very easy to start violence. It is easy to break windows of stories and egg on people to take advantage of a situation you created. It is easy to toss bottles or start fires.
There were people at those rallies in larger cities in the public eye — I suspect most were white — who came with the ingredients to make molotov cocktails – gasoline! – and skateboards and backpacks full of things to foment destruction and violence.
The rage that African Americans feel at the injustices that have been ignored when they peacefully protest is understandable. But the white people who are there not to support the victims of racism but to destroy are not there because they care about racism.
Trump and the right wing seem to need to identify those white destroyers as something other than what they are — racists who are using African Americans and are willing to cause them harm so they can profit.
The law against (falsely) yelling fire in a crowded theater is because you are causing people who normally would not act to hurt others to take actions — because of human nature — to hurt others.
Now certainly no one in a crowded theater where someone yells fire HAS to react in a way that would cause harm. And many people in real fires in crowded theaters acted heroically. But it is much easier to act wrongly when a mob of people do. Especially when the purpose of that instigator is to incite the police to respond brutally to the crowd.
Those white destroyers caught on video were clearly not acting because they were filled with rage at their situation. They were acting to destroy and foment hate so that the protestors would be blamed and discredited. They were organized and they did not go to cities like Camden, NJ.
I hope they are all identified because I doubt many of them have any history of caring about racial injustice. It is clear some just have a history of inciting violence.
Just would like to point out that there have been a number of peaceful demonstrations in Newark, as well as Jersey City over the past few days; getting regular updates from my [white– & hardly the only white] son [participant].
nycpsp, I note in your comments a continual division into white actors and black actors. You imply that all black actors are either acting peaceably from justifiable motivations of racial oppression, or are stooges who need only incitement by white agitators to release [justifiable] slopping over the line into criminalism– thereby creating a bad-white-guy scapegoat for all looting/ vandalism.
There is probably some grain of truth in that, but it’s granular 😉 & maybe just a small, or at least only very partial view of the whole. It’s a simplified, binary, black-white racial lens. The danger is the temptation to excuse [even glorify] looting/ vandalism as a social statement. We can get partway there intellectually– mainly via classism, black/ brown dominance of lower classes, decades of spiraling rich-poor gap. But it goes nowhere toward fixing what’s wrong. & in the short term, just encourages law&order/ Rep/ Trumpista backlash.
I come at this as one married into an Italian clan. My in-laws were 1st-gen hardworking middleclass folks who deplored Hollywood sensationalism of Italian gangster anti-heroes. They saw them as scum, a predatory minority feeding off their own kind & giving a black eye to the vast majority, delaying them from assuming responsible role in American society. This is not so different. Infantilizing black criminals as pawns of white activists– comes close. And spits in the face of the vast law-abiding majority.
While I’m posting controversial articles, how do people feel about this kind of looting?
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/looting-minneapolis-police-george-floyd
Dienne, the two Jacobin cites nicely bookend the question. I cannot say the first one is wrong, just that it’s a big-picture, 50k-ft high long view of foundational issues, requiring incremental policy changes ongoing for a century, w/ backslips & occasional spurts forward. Relevance to the present moment probably only that it’s an election year, & defeating Reps at every level in the polls could help us move forward again. But pressing that view in the moment, as many peaceful protests devolve at curfew into law-breaking, strikes the wrong chord, & serves only (as the 2nd cite notes) to incentivize bassackward law&order Rep & Trumpista voters. It’s not either-or, it’s about timing.
Do riots “work”? https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/rioting-george-floyd-liberals-black-lives-matter
I had a similar conversation with my kid who cited a conversation between JFK and Robert Kennedy right after the May 1963 riots in Birmingham (a few months before the 4 little girls church bombing) as revealing that they had ignored the peaceful protestors and were finally going to do something. The riots were people getting tired of MLK’s non-violent protests being ignored, and JFK did propose civil rights legislation after them (although it LBJ who was president and probably did more of the work involved in its passage in 1964)
I can understand that POV, but there is one thing that I am certain of. When the rioting is instigated by white people who actually want to discredit the movement and not achieve change, it is far more likely to hurt the cause, not help it.
You rightly pointed out early that there were apparently well-equipped and well-organized white people this week who didn’t act “angry” at all. They acted motivated to create destruction that could be blamed on other people, and in every single interaction with the African American marchers, they acted disdainful and disrespectful and frankly, quite threatening.
I also think that there are successful ways that are not violent but that are very disruptive that work. That is to block traffic, block streets, bridges, block buildings, etc. Those often work, too, especially when there is a lot of strength in numbers.
From Thomas Paine’s Common Sense “When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example for the poor to plunder the rich of his property, for the rights of the one are as much property to him as wealth is property to the other.”
After the Nazis, we said, “Never again.” But we are seeing the exact same playbook being implemented, right now. Evidently we didn’t teach our students, well enough, exactly how the Nazis managed to grab power. Nazis have to have
an intolerable situation for the public at large (German hyperinflation, the pandemic and the resulting economic crisis), and an ability to
–create an internal enemy (the Communists and Jews in Germany, the looters here),
–engineer a crisis requiring extraordinary powers (the Reichstag Fire, the looting and burning of cities and whatever particularly galvanizing event the false flag operatives come up with next),
–solidify that power legally (the Enabling Act of 1933, whatever legislation Mitch McConnell cooks up to respond to the current situation).
In addition, they need to have their people in place to wield the instruments of state violence (federal law enforcement, the military, the intelligence services) and to rubber stamp that (the highest court).
Trump’s people have figured out that there is almost no chance that he could win the coming election. And now this opportunity to create a Reichstag Fire/Enabling Act scenario presents itself to the smarter but profoundly evil people around the orange wannabe fascist dictator. What I think is happening is that agents provocateurs (the contemporary American equivalents of the Sturmabteilung, or Brownshirts, have been used in false flag operations to co-opt the protests to turn them toward violence and foment such a crisis. And the looters are the angry but unwitting tools of this. Just waiting now for the galvanizing, shocking event that the fascists stage to move it to the next level, followed by an Enabling Act from Mitch McConnell and rubber stamping of this by a Trumped-up Supreme Court. The Constitutional out for them, the fascists have realized, is that in states of emergency the President can assume extraordinary powers.
Trump is desperate. He knows that if he loses this election, there is a high likelihood that he will go to prison. He cannot be pardoned at the federal level for state crimes. He’s not smart enough to use the crisis, but the sick fascists around him are.
We’ve seen this film before.
Well explained, Bob.
‘If you stick a knife 9 inches into my back and pull it out 3 inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound, and America hasn’t even begun to pull out the knife.”
—“Malcom X
I”d say this is something to worry about. Trump is militarily threatening to take over. Isn’t it illegal to use the military troops against citizens inside the US? Trump is using his great bullying tactics but has no problem with himself bunkering down. He certainly doesn’t have the ability to calm down a nation that is having huge problems…flaring racial hatred and COVID-19.
……………………………………….
Trump mobilizes military in DC to quell protests as tear gas fired into crowds
President Trump on Monday said he would mobilize “all available federal resources, civilian and military” to clamp down on protests across the country, declaring himself the “president of law and order.”
Trump said he was dispatching the military across Washington, D.C., and urged governors nationwide to “dominate” their streets by deploying the National Guard. If they refused, he said, he would send in troops to American cities.
The comments offered a stunning split-screen to the strife that has engulfed the nation following the death of George Floyd. While Trump spoke in the Rose Garden, hundreds of people were gathered just outside of Lafayette Park across the street from the White House to protest for a fourth consecutive night…
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/500576-trump-mobilizes-military-in-dc-to-quell-protests-as-tear-gas-fired
Oh good grief. Call out the military and then go to a church for a photo op and hold up a bible. Ewwwww. I’m surprised he could walk across the street. [Didn’t he need a golf cart?]
………………………………………………
He [Trump] then walked across the street to St. John’s Episcopal Church, a part of which was set on fire Sunday, to pose for photos. Upon arriving he held up a Bible and told reporters, “We have a great country.”
Op-Ed: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge
MAY 30, 20207:29 PM
The main concern of black people right now isn’t whether they’re standing three or six feet apart, but whether their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers will be murdered by cops.
…What you should see when you see black protesters in the age of Trump and coronavirus is people pushed to the edge, not because they want bars and nail salons open, but because they want to live. To breathe.
Worst of all, is that we are expected to justify our outraged behavior every time the cauldron bubbles over. Almost 70 years ago, Langston Hughes asked in his poem “Harlem”: “What happens to a dream deferred? /… Maybe it sags / like a heavy load. / Or does it explode?”
Fifty years ago, Marvin Gaye sang in “Inner City Blues”: “Make me wanna holler / The way they do my life.” And today, despite the impassioned speeches of well-meaning leaders, white and black, they want to silence our voice, steal our breath.
So what you see when you see black protesters depends on whether you’re living in that burning building or watching it on TV with a bowl of corn chips in your lap waiting for “NCIS” to start.
What I want to see is not a rush to judgment, but a rush to justice.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-05-30/dont-understand-the-protests-what-youre-seeing-is-people-pushed-to-the-edge
Over and over I see my white friends posting about support for the violence and writing reductive things similar to what someone wrote below “if you care more about buildings than people then you’re part of the problem”. These memes that are so simplistic actually are part of the problem by denying the voices of the POC who are not for the violence themselves and denying how much violence and rioting will actually affect their communities but not yours.
Also by the way if you support the violence so much white person please go and loot your own neighborhood because a lot of this violence is happening in neighborhoods in other cities such as Cleveland where they still have scars from the race riots 50 years ago. Your neighborhood is nice and shiny and you never had any violence there so go smash your own windows please.
And when you’re posing with your sign and instagraming how woke you are at the protest, and you’re proposing that every single person who is violent in the March is a person of color, rather than some privileged jerk like yourself who is also creating this problem, you’re fine.You’re gonna go home to your community and get your freaking latte and then you’re going to sit there and post some more stuff at the latte store about how you went to the movement to support the people of color who are “expressing themselves”. But you don’t have the balls to smash the latte store in your own neighborhood to actually live the reality that you’re forcing onto others with your “support“.
Theres lots and lots of people of color in this article who are quoted who condemn the violence. George Floyd‘s family has come out and begged people to stop looting and insulting his name. Many many other black community leaders are saying that they don’t want the looting or the violence. But over and over and over I keep seeing my white friends act as if they are somehow not obligated to post about those voices. Time and time again they post the same tired pro violence memes showing how “woke“ they are that imply that POC want violence. They do this because it’s a way to show off and it’s more about vanity than solidarity. as if every freaking person of color in America is looting. It’s actually extremely condescending and it’s a bunch of white people hijacking grief at the worst possible time. It’s completely reasonable to support both people who don’t want the violence who are people of color and people of color who are angry and frustrated and are acting out by sharing authentic quotes from POC equally. It’s not a white person’s place to only represent the words of black people that they want to repeat. So if you’re going to post the tired memes you are part of the problem white person. Stop making it all about you.
Thank you, Texas Title 1 Teacher. Well said.
I would say, white people, go watch the video posted by Trevor Noah. He explained it pretty well, in less words than you did.
My white millennial kids are marching in the NJ urban protests because they understand that message. Part of the reason they understand it so well: even tho they grew up in a privileged, hi-income town, their friends were every ethnicity [the beauty of NJ], & because they’re musicians, their colleagues include a regional rainbow spectrum from townie hip-hop & Indian/ Paki hisch friends to NJ college bands w/Mexicans & Danes & Philly rockers, to Ethiopian bands [they toured in Addis-Ababa] & they spread that multicultural base as they tour USA from TX to AK to MO to KY to Chicago to PA.
Don’t underestimate the millennials. They’re a new equation. And they vote. And they’re laser-focused on the current political upheaval.
Oops just made it all about me
Washington Archbishop Wilton Gregory condemned President Trump’s visit to a D.C. shrine honoring Pope John Paul II and the tactics used for the photo opportunity at St. John’s Episcopal Church.
Joe Biden criticized the president’s decision to clear protesters from a Washington street for the visit to St. John’s Episcopal Church.