Reading the thread, I was thinking some of the same things you then so aptly expressed. Like the way your correspondent just lumped all violence together - if peaceful means alone are not moving the needle (er, well, haven't yet moved it all the way), then riots are OK, as if riots = productive violence.
Reading the thread, I was thinking some of the same things you then so aptly expressed. Like the way your correspondent just lumped all violence together - if peaceful means alone are not moving the needle (er, well, haven't yet moved it all the way), then riots are OK, as if riots = productive violence.
I appreciate your distinction that unfocused riots are not a language, more like a screech. Much as I appreciate some of Dr King, I think you've extended his metaphor to include more nuance, still needed today.
One further point is that the volume of the screech is not a reliable indicator of the magnitude of the cause. So, say, people rioting in one geographic region and not rioting in anther, doesn't neccessarily mean that the former is motivated by a stronger injustice. Some cultures and subcultures are more ready to jump from words to violence, even given the same degree of stimulus. Also, a good deal of the violence, in France recently or in the US in 2020, was more opportunistic than cause motivated.
Personally, I don't think it's helpful to discuss the 2020 events as one thing. There were two relatively distinct things going on in the US. One was organized mass protests, almost exclusively in daytime with proper permits, and was mostly peaceful. A quite different group of people, overall, gathered in far smaller numbers at night, and were frequently violent. Some of the looters in our area appeared to be gangs coming in specifically to commit criminal acts for profit, opportunistically using the chaos but without any clear political goals.
Of course, sometimes the people planning on a night of violence peacefully attended the daytime protests as well. There are even videos of people switching from civvies to all black around twilight. But they were vastly outnumbered during the day, by peaceful protesters. So I'm not claiming the two things involved entirely different people, but the demographics of the daytime protests and the night time riots differed greatly.
So I believe there were the George Floyd protests (largely peaceful) in the daytime, and the George Floyd riots and looting (largely violent) in the night after the large bulk of the protesters had gone home. Conflating these two creates confusion at best, deception at worst.
"One further point is that the volume of the screech is not a reliable indicator of the magnitude of the cause."
Good God, I may well steal this at some point.😄 Perfect metaphor. I've been complaining for years that in many cases, the volume of the screech is inversely proportional to the magnitude of the cause. Think, for example, about how much airtime pronoun policing gets compared to, say, marriage inequality.
And yep, in the article, I quote a speech from one Rep. John Deberry who talks about marching with MLK and leaving once the rioters turned up because they weren't part of the movement. Certainly most of the protests in 2020 were peaceful. But I think today, too many people sympathise with the rioters because they're "down for the cause" instead of condemning them because they *hurt* the cause.
Nicely nuanced again, Steve!
Reading the thread, I was thinking some of the same things you then so aptly expressed. Like the way your correspondent just lumped all violence together - if peaceful means alone are not moving the needle (er, well, haven't yet moved it all the way), then riots are OK, as if riots = productive violence.
I appreciate your distinction that unfocused riots are not a language, more like a screech. Much as I appreciate some of Dr King, I think you've extended his metaphor to include more nuance, still needed today.
One further point is that the volume of the screech is not a reliable indicator of the magnitude of the cause. So, say, people rioting in one geographic region and not rioting in anther, doesn't neccessarily mean that the former is motivated by a stronger injustice. Some cultures and subcultures are more ready to jump from words to violence, even given the same degree of stimulus. Also, a good deal of the violence, in France recently or in the US in 2020, was more opportunistic than cause motivated.
Personally, I don't think it's helpful to discuss the 2020 events as one thing. There were two relatively distinct things going on in the US. One was organized mass protests, almost exclusively in daytime with proper permits, and was mostly peaceful. A quite different group of people, overall, gathered in far smaller numbers at night, and were frequently violent. Some of the looters in our area appeared to be gangs coming in specifically to commit criminal acts for profit, opportunistically using the chaos but without any clear political goals.
Of course, sometimes the people planning on a night of violence peacefully attended the daytime protests as well. There are even videos of people switching from civvies to all black around twilight. But they were vastly outnumbered during the day, by peaceful protesters. So I'm not claiming the two things involved entirely different people, but the demographics of the daytime protests and the night time riots differed greatly.
So I believe there were the George Floyd protests (largely peaceful) in the daytime, and the George Floyd riots and looting (largely violent) in the night after the large bulk of the protesters had gone home. Conflating these two creates confusion at best, deception at worst.
"One further point is that the volume of the screech is not a reliable indicator of the magnitude of the cause."
Good God, I may well steal this at some point.😄 Perfect metaphor. I've been complaining for years that in many cases, the volume of the screech is inversely proportional to the magnitude of the cause. Think, for example, about how much airtime pronoun policing gets compared to, say, marriage inequality.
And yep, in the article, I quote a speech from one Rep. John Deberry who talks about marching with MLK and leaving once the rioters turned up because they weren't part of the movement. Certainly most of the protests in 2020 were peaceful. But I think today, too many people sympathise with the rioters because they're "down for the cause" instead of condemning them because they *hurt* the cause.