Another Night Of Fear And Anger

I watched some of the footage from last night and it looks like many of the same dynamics I wrote about yesterday are still in the forefront.

• There are groups of African American protesters who are largely peaceful - if enraged - and conducted lawful marches.
• There are groups of mostly young white people committing crimes against property.
• There is some looting going on.
• The police are rioting and attacking people all over the place.

Beginning with the police, we know what de-escalation looks like. It looks like Camden and Flint. It is possible to partner with citizens to create a positive law enforcement culture. The evidence is right there. I'll return to the police in a bit.

I want to talk about the people who are escalating things on the protest side, before we get to the cops. Let's look at the 27 year old white woman who threw Molotov cocktails at police. But please, please look at this video, and there are more like it, of BLM organizers trying to stop young white women from vandalizing property. Activists are trying to restrain chaos tourists. When you see violent confrontation with cops, it escalates from one or both sides, and much of escalation from the protest side comes from whites. 

Obviously, they could be agents provocateur who are trying to give police license to riot. But at least in that video above, they look like this armchair revolutionaries and cosplay socialists who are just generally angry and like to stir shit up. The woman who allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at the police has a history of this. 

The whole theory of voting for Jill Stein or sitting out 2016 was the Trump would "heighten the contradictions" and lead to a revolution.  Instead, it led to Speaker Pelosi and presumptive nominee Joe Biden. Sandernistas thought that this was Bernie's moment, and it wasn't. Why? Because African American voters were loyal to Biden. I can't help but notice that a lot of the unrest in NYC was centered in Brooklyn, not the Bronx.

White protesters simply don't understand the risks of interacting with the police like this bring.  African American protesters do. When young white radicals start spray painting buildings - or in one case literally shitting on a police car - they are basically changing the narrative from "peaceful protest in favor of not being killed by the police" to "let's just smash shit up." 

Of course, there is also the spectacle of just smashing stuff up. Here's aYouTube star smashing things up in a mall. He isn't poor.  He isn't black. He just wants to break stuff. Sure, there are people stealing things because the opportunity presents itself, but that isn't the protesters, any more than the remora is a shark.

Now, there is also video of undercover and plain clothes police doing this stuff, too. That - frankly - should tell you what you need to know about the efficacy and wisdom in turning protests over the death of George Floyd into a personal vendetta against Starbucks.

The police, however, are out of control. Not everywhere, but much of the violence you see on TV starts with police escalating things. Certain police departments seem worse.  The NYPD has been especially bad. You've probably seen the police cruiser plowing into a crowd. An old white guy being pushed to ground for no reason in Salt Lake City. Shooting people who are lawfully on their porch. The "light'em up" comment is chilling. The rage and fear in those cops voice; the desperate need to be dominant. 

They have also consciously targeted the media. There simply can't be a coincidence that Trump's rhetoric about the media isn't influencing how members of the press are being specifically targeted.  True, if the police are eager to riot, they don't want the media there covering it, so it helps to drive them off. One reporter has been blinded in one eye. The press have every right to be out on those streets, and the police targeting people who identify as media is straight up authoritarian police state shit.

It remains to be seen how this plays out over the next few days and weeks.  So far, only two people seem to have been killed - one by a drive-by shooting in Detroit. That's amazing and unlikely to continue. The general pattern is that day time protests are largely peaceful, but curfews allow the police to escalate. They've likely been spending the daytime hours fuming under verbal abuse and then the starting gun goes off and so do they.

We are, once again, absent national leadership. Trump will - if anything - endeavor to make this worse. It's not Obama's problem to solve, but I hope he's working with Dubya Bush and Bill Clinton to perhaps exert some sort of leadership here. Biden, too, has said the right things, but actions need to be taken. Obama and Biden should be in Minnesota, working to calm things down there.  Demonstrate leadership, because Trump won't.

Will this make a difference in November? I think Martin Longman is right that it is too soon to tell. In 1968, Humphrey was hurt by the riots of '68, including the police riot in Chicago. However, the King riots in '92 didn't hurt Clinton. It could be that the incumbent party suffers more than Democrats specifically.  However, civil unrest plays into the hands of authoritarians.

So much of this anger has been building for 3 1/2 years of living in Trumpistan. The young, white people are angry about a bunch of stuff, but they are piggybacking onto a movement that doesn't belong to them. White supremacists are using this moment to bring on the race war they've been craving.  The police are using this moment to crack skulls and play army man. One thing history DOES tell us is that in times of political violence it will be black bodies that pay the price first and most. The organizers of these protests know this. 

We are rudderless. Adrift. That allows the worst elements to hijack a moment of real pain for people who care about racial justice, and force things to spiral in directions that should scare anyone.  

Scared and angry people are not good decision makers, and we are all scared and angry.