4 ms·

Protesting racial injustice (peacefully) is absolutely required. Claiming such protests are "violent mobs" is nothing new: https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/sta

by ashayh 6y ago

Protesting racial injustice (peacefully) is absolutely required. Claiming such protests are "violent mobs" is nothing new: https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1300196044693741574/photo/1 https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1300196044693741574/p... Also note that some of the violence was instigated by the police: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/26/opinion/blm-protests-police-violence.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/26/opinion/blm-p... OTOH mobs in DC, Michigan were motivated by "masks=slavery" & "election fraud" both of which are completely imaginary, and EXACTLY one "leader" has been promoting it: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-longstanding-history-calling-elections-rigged-doesnt-results/story?id=74126926 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-longstanding-history-c...

TheOperator 6y ago
Protesting electoral fraud is also absolutely required, even if I am extremely extremely sceptical that it actually happened. Some of the protests that happened in the civil rights movement were indeed violent although this has been rather aggressively whitewashed in government approved public school classes meant to teach students the way to affect real change is to stand around with signs and sing songs and have racist white police officers beat you until you win (Kings flirting with communism and advocacy of reparations doesn't get much mention either). Ever hear of this guy called Malcolm X who wrote quite a bit about violence, he's definitely not somebody who could be allowed on social media. Race riots happened, people got beaten, some were killed largely by the police (just like in this most recent protest) but also by protesters (just like in this most recent protest). Did this delegitimize the civil rights movement? No, it was a noble movement, people just whitewash and dramatize it instead to prevent any degree of cognitive dissonance, and then compare modern day movements to the whitewashing to whitewash the modern day equivalents. Back then like today, the degree of violence was greatly exaggerated, disproportionately by the media and by racist segregationist's. Protests are mostly a dull affair filled overwhelmingly with non-violent people and only the exciting bits hit the front pages. The extent of violence by Trump supporters too is greatly exaggerated, mostly by media and their political opponents. If one police officer dies and 4 protestors, the only reasonable reaction is a speech crackdown against those who blame this incident on democrats dubiously. Since obviously cracking down on the free non-violent exchange of ideas and advocacy of peaceful protest is what prevents violence from happening. Point I'm driving at is that if the entire argument is based around the idea that any violence, or even violent mobs, delegitimizes a large movement than virtually all movements from BLM to the Civil rights movements to... whatever this is.... are delegitimized. Really the issue people have with the Trump supporters, above all, is that they're wrong and unpopular. As such they're a good test for exactly how much people REALLY support freedom of speech and the right to protest a cause that isn't broadly supported.
- loopz 6y ago
  Injustice implies good faith, riots unfortunate side effect. Lies and fraud implies bad faith, riots and coup being end goal. The intent is different, so it is false equivalence.
- weare138 6y ago
  >Protesting electoral fraud is also absolutely required, even if I am extremely extremely sceptical that it actually happened. But you can't compare people committing act of violence to perpatuate a lie at the greater expense of society to people protesting for civil rights. And no the people that stormed the Capitol building, which hasn't happened since the war of 1812 and was committed by a hostile foreign nation, were not 'protesting'. Sedition is not a right.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    >Sedition is not a right I've been seeing lots of people write things like this very recently. But honestly, when did you start using the word "sedition" and when did the word acquire emotional weight to you, as a dastardly crime? When and how do you think other people got familiar with the word? If I'm being honest, my association with the word sedition before pretty recently was almost entirely a very dim memory of the Alien and Sedition Acts being mentioned in grade school. And an even dimmer memory that they were unpopular and probably unconstitutional. It's not that I think it's necessarily wrong to use it, I just feel suddenly surrounded by people who are pretending that we all are used to using it and viscerally being outraged by people who commit it. Which feels weird since I can't remember seeing it in normal conversation in like 30+ years. Maybe it sounds better than treason, perhaps because treason is a word right wing types like to use?
    - djur 6y ago
      It hasn't been used in normal conversation before recently because we haven't had a significant political movement and officers of the US government who were engaged in acts worthy of the term.
TearsInTheRain 6y ago
Of course your causes are absolutely required and moral and just but those guys over there with their concerns, those we dont need to protect and claiming they are "violent mobs" is totally justified...
- markdown 6y ago
  Both the rioting by BLM protestors and the rioting by the Trump/GOP supporters would be moral and just if they were in fact based on truth. I mean, if the Presidency was indeed stolen by election fraud, protests and rioting would be justified. But unlike the BLM protests, they were based on lies. Those lies did real damage, and they haven't stopped, so publishers are cutting ties with them to avoid further crime and terrorism.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - abacadaba 6y ago
    > But unlike the BLM protests, they were based on lies https://www.npr.org/2015/03/17/393646640/hands-up-dont-shoot-movement-built-on-false-rumors-columnist-says https://www.npr.org/2015/03/17/393646640/hands-up-dont-shoot...
  - tomp 6y ago
    In his podcast/article “Can We Pull Back From The Brink”, Sam Harris disagrees that BLM movement isn’t based on lies.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    BLM protests are based on a lie from end-to-end: that society (all of it, not just a few places in the USA) is systematically racist against black people. That isn't true, not even in America. Heather Macdonald did a good, factual analysis of this claim in the WSJ back when George Floyd died (whilst overdosed): https://pointofview.net/articles/myth-of-systemic-police-racism/ https://pointofview.net/articles/myth-of-systemic-police-rac... The data doesn't indicate the BLM narrative is correct. It shows it's incorrect. Yet this nonsense also spilled over to the UK, leading to people yelling things like "hands up don't shoot" at unarmed police officers. Then the media tried to deny that these "anti-racism" protesters were hard-left activists, even as the BLM leadership referred to itself as "trained Marxists" and the BLM UK website talked about overthrowing capitalism. The New York Times tried to redefine basic facts about the founding dates of America. CNN described the protests as mostly peaceful in a report where their reporter was standing in front of burning cars and buildings. And so on. BLM has been nothing but lies. You just can't tell ... because the sort of people who are willing to point that out are being systematically erased from the internet.

by ashayh 6y ago

TheOperator 6y ago

Protesting electoral fraud is also absolutely required, even if I am extremely extremely sceptical that it actually happened. Some of the protests that happened in the civil rights movement were indeed violent although this has been rather aggressively whitewashed in government approved public school classes meant to teach students the way to affect real change is to stand around with signs and sing songs and have racist white police officers beat you until you win (Kings flirting with communism and advocacy of reparations doesn't get much mention either). Ever hear of this guy called Malcolm X who wrote quite a bit about violence, he's definitely not somebody who could be allowed on social media. Race riots happened, people got beaten, some were killed largely by the police (just like in this most recent protest) but also by protesters (just like in this most recent protest). Did this delegitimize the civil rights movement? No, it was a noble movement, people just whitewash and dramatize it instead to prevent any degree of cognitive dissonance, and then compare modern day movements to the whitewashing to whitewash the modern day equivalents. Back then like today, the degree of violence was greatly exaggerated, disproportionately by the media and by racist segregationist's. Protests are mostly a dull affair filled overwhelmingly with non-violent people and only the exciting bits hit the front pages. The extent of violence by Trump supporters too is greatly exaggerated, mostly by media and their political opponents. If one police officer dies and 4 protestors, the only reasonable reaction is a speech crackdown against those who blame this incident on democrats dubiously. Since obviously cracking down on the free non-violent exchange of ideas and advocacy of peaceful protest is what prevents violence from happening. Point I'm driving at is that if the entire argument is based around the idea that any violence, or even violent mobs, delegitimizes a large movement than virtually all movements from BLM to the Civil rights movements to... whatever this is.... are delegitimized. Really the issue people have with the Trump supporters, above all, is that they're wrong and unpopular. As such they're a good test for exactly how much people REALLY support freedom of speech and the right to protest a cause that isn't broadly supported.

loopz 6y ago
Injustice implies good faith, riots unfortunate side effect. Lies and fraud implies bad faith, riots and coup being end goal. The intent is different, so it is false equivalence.
weare138 6y ago
>Protesting electoral fraud is also absolutely required, even if I am extremely extremely sceptical that it actually happened. But you can't compare people committing act of violence to perpatuate a lie at the greater expense of society to people protesting for civil rights. And no the people that stormed the Capitol building, which hasn't happened since the war of 1812 and was committed by a hostile foreign nation, were not 'protesting'. Sedition is not a right.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  >Sedition is not a right I've been seeing lots of people write things like this very recently. But honestly, when did you start using the word "sedition" and when did the word acquire emotional weight to you, as a dastardly crime? When and how do you think other people got familiar with the word? If I'm being honest, my association with the word sedition before pretty recently was almost entirely a very dim memory of the Alien and Sedition Acts being mentioned in grade school. And an even dimmer memory that they were unpopular and probably unconstitutional. It's not that I think it's necessarily wrong to use it, I just feel suddenly surrounded by people who are pretending that we all are used to using it and viscerally being outraged by people who commit it. Which feels weird since I can't remember seeing it in normal conversation in like 30+ years. Maybe it sounds better than treason, perhaps because treason is a word right wing types like to use?
  - djur 6y ago
    It hasn't been used in normal conversation before recently because we haven't had a significant political movement and officers of the US government who were engaged in acts worthy of the term.

TearsInTheRain 6y ago

Of course your causes are absolutely required and moral and just but those guys over there with their concerns, those we dont need to protect and claiming they are "violent mobs" is totally justified...

markdown 6y ago
Both the rioting by BLM protestors and the rioting by the Trump/GOP supporters would be moral and just if they were in fact based on truth. I mean, if the Presidency was indeed stolen by election fraud, protests and rioting would be justified. But unlike the BLM protests, they were based on lies. Those lies did real damage, and they haven't stopped, so publishers are cutting ties with them to avoid further crime and terrorism.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- abacadaba 6y ago
  > But unlike the BLM protests, they were based on lies https://www.npr.org/2015/03/17/393646640/hands-up-dont-shoot-movement-built-on-false-rumors-columnist-says https://www.npr.org/2015/03/17/393646640/hands-up-dont-shoot...
- tomp 6y ago
  In his podcast/article “Can We Pull Back From The Brink”, Sam Harris disagrees that BLM movement isn’t based on lies.
- thu2111 6y ago
  BLM protests are based on a lie from end-to-end: that society (all of it, not just a few places in the USA) is systematically racist against black people. That isn't true, not even in America. Heather Macdonald did a good, factual analysis of this claim in the WSJ back when George Floyd died (whilst overdosed): https://pointofview.net/articles/myth-of-systemic-police-racism/ https://pointofview.net/articles/myth-of-systemic-police-rac... The data doesn't indicate the BLM narrative is correct. It shows it's incorrect. Yet this nonsense also spilled over to the UK, leading to people yelling things like "hands up don't shoot" at unarmed police officers. Then the media tried to deny that these "anti-racism" protesters were hard-left activists, even as the BLM leadership referred to itself as "trained Marxists" and the BLM UK website talked about overthrowing capitalism. The New York Times tried to redefine basic facts about the founding dates of America. CNN described the protests as mostly peaceful in a report where their reporter was standing in front of burning cars and buildings. And so on. BLM has been nothing but lies. You just can't tell ... because the sort of people who are willing to point that out are being systematically erased from the internet.