1. The BLM protests were planned, in public at least, as peaceful protests. Things went wrong and they didn’t all end up peaceful and law-abiding, but I did not see any reports of people using major internet platforms to plan to start riots or cause property damage. The reports of planning of the DC riots on Parler, in contrast, seem to have been quite explicit about the intent.
2. (In my mind rather less clear cut.) The BLM protests were not based on objective lies. The DC riots were. Ignore all the people saying there was no proof of widespread voter fraud — that’s like people saying that there is no strong evidence that MSG causes headaches. In fact, there isn’t even a reason to suspect widespread voter fraud. The proponents of the fraud theory have, when they’ve presented evidence at all, presented comically weak evidence. The theory is obvious BS.
Can you finish watching it and tell me which part of it is racist? It's unfortunately now people pick the lies they want to believe and claim it's the truth.
Study Gandhi, MLK, John Lewis, Mandela - I understand BLM is a decentralized movement, but that's the problem. There is no leader and leadership. It has no coherency. It's dividing the society even more instead of pulling the entire populace behind it.
Social movement has a singular goal - to change the minds of people that oppose their views. BLM has managed to just bring out people who were already supporting them, it hasn't quite changed the hearts of people that were previously racists.
This is not how you make progress in the society. It is "pull", not "push".
Mandela was arrested and detained on Robben Island, in part, because he was part of a group that violently opposed the white supremacists of apartheid South Africa.
MLK never said that there wasn’t a place for violent resistance to white supremacy. In fact, he called out that if the white supremacists of his time weren’t careful, violent resistance would be all that was left (MLK and Malcolm X were more aligned than most people believe; MLK believed that the time for violent resistance to white supremacist violence had not yet arrived).
BLM is, in fact, a very _well_ organized movement and their leadership is consistently calling for protest that is vocal and meaningful, but not violent. Almost every single BLM protest last year that turned violent did so either because of (a) police rioting against the idea of being held accountable for their violence against BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities and persons or (b) white supremacists who thought it would be a lark to start some violence and blame it on the victimized.
BLM isn’t out to change open racists minds—they are correctly considered beyond redemption (and sometimes even beyond shame, like DJT and his coupistas)—and they don’t really care about changing the moderate person’s mind, either. They simply want the indiscriminate state violence against their community to stop. They want to stop the freedom with which the police murder their children.
They want there to be no more Rodney Kings, no more Amadou Diallous, no more Philando Castiles, no more Tamir Rices, no more George Floyds, no more Brianna Taylors, no more Jacob Blakes, no more Mike Browns. I could go on, but these are the ones that I can remember right now. Even _if_ some of them were committing crimes, the police are NEVER supposed to be judge, jury, and executioner…and most of the crimes with which those were accused had no chance of a death penalty. That the police have been able to not only murder BIPOC, but to do so with impunity AS A MATTER OF POLICY, is truly disgusting.
We as a society are lucky beyond belief that we _aren’t_ facing the violent revolution we deserve for our treatment of BIPOC communities and persons. Instead, we’re facing continued white supremacist violence.
I'm not so convinced of a supposed difference.
Aside? isn't that the whole point?
Someone who turns up in a Viking hat, tattoos and a spear isn't looking for a fight. A person looking for a fight wears a mask, armour, carries a gun and probably camouflage.
When people wear imagery and slogans to any demonstration, I afford them the courtesy of understanding that what they're displaying on their bodies is part of the message they want to communicate.
The core of the protest is electoral integrity and calls for the politically marginalised to have a voice, not racial supremacy.
That's not a few bad eggs. That's an enormous crowd of people all deciding, tacitly or not, consciously or not, that democracy isn't for them anymore. And phrases like "take our country back" aren't even subtle; anyone who's been paying attention recognizes them as dog whistles. The obvious indication is that this crowd believes the votes of the democratic majority are not legitimate because they came from people who aren't entitled to run the country. And, while we can certainly spend an entertaining afternoon sealioning about particular examples, it would be easier to just take a look at some of the wide angle shots of the crowd. The crowd is clearly communicating exactly who they think isn't entitled to have a voice in how the country is run, either explicitly by holding flags and banners, or implicitly by consenting to be represented by the people holding the flags and banners.
This movement, on the other hand, is quite transparently rooted in white supremacy, and had an explicit goal of trying to undermine democracy itself, and people showed up quite obviously looking for a fight. I mean, the news over the past few days have been plastered with images of a guy in a weird Davy Crockett the Viking hat, with enormous white supremacist symbols tattooed across his torso, brandishing a frickin' spear.