On Looting

I cringe when I hear about looting that can accompany demonstrations. (More about this in a bit.)

The above report cites Anti-Defamation League tracking of organized disinformation campaigns that mischaracterize protesters as “violent extremists, thugs, anarchists.” The ACLED study found that the rare instances of violence were traced to infiltrators to the peaceful groups. For instance, the “umbrella man” seen smashing store windows was a member of the Hells Angels and Aryan Cowboys, a white supremacist prison and street gang. His actions sparked looting.

Of course, TV wants visuals to tell stories. Burning cars and smoldering burned out buildings like below are the evidence the media seek. However, it must be said that damage to property, contrasted with loss of lives, should be seen as trivial. Unfortunately it is not. It seems laws give greater weight to property rights than human rights. The totality of black lives sacrificed at the hands of police and the deleterious impact on our collective souls should make property damage inconsequential.

Whites who feigned fear from graffiti on a federal building or attacks on a police station that had been abandoned used state and federal government powers to quash peaceful and nonviolent protests.

My cringing reveals my whiteness. As the cartoon illustrates, it’s only considered looting when black and brown people steal. There are few condemnations for the super wealthy using tax loopholes to raid the public treasury or to deny responsibility to contribute financially to the country. Looting is defined through a special lens of color.

Let’s be alarmed over lives lost, not store windows broken or shelves looted. Looting can be reversed; murder cannot.

Manufactured Violence

By June, Trump ordered federal troops, presumably a veteran hybrid group comprised of ICE and DHS agents with experience roughing up immigrants at our borders, to cities where he believed local and state police had failed to stop protests. The specialty teams came to town in full combat gear but suspiciously missing name and agency identification on uniforms. Further, these mysterious troops rented civilian vans to snatch peaceful protesters off the street and disappear them to unknown locations (not the local jails or police stations) before being released with and without charges. These tactics reinforced the wildest conspiracy notions about baseless state-run attacks on citizens.

The ACLED report states that 9% of BLM demonstrations were met with violent government intervention, compared to 3% of other types of demonstrations. Furthermore, government troops used force — tear gas, “rubber bullets” (large hard disks that can blind and paralyze targets), pepper spray and batons — in over 54% of engagements. In July 2020, force was used in 65 events; in July 2019 only in three events.

The violent over-reaction to peaceful protests by the government escalated tensions. That over-reaction manufactured the violence Trump wanted to see — a self-fulfilling prophecy. In Portland, before the feds came to town, 83% of the daily (since Floyd’s murder) gatherings were peaceful. After the military deployment,  violent demonstrations rose to 62% of all events.

The causal sequence is clear. Peaceful protest preceded the violence created in reaction to overzealous suppression by the federal military response ordered by Trump. Yet, Trump claims that American cities are ablaze and out of control (said for dramatic political effect). In reality, he is setting cities ablaze by misusing the federal goon squads.

The new military-led violence spread terror among the protesters. Witness the expression of the peaceful woman being tossed around violently and the dead eyes of her tormentor.

Easily Incited Americans

Trump lied about the peaceful BLM protests, dubbing them riots. He threw red meat to his followers with his racial taunts. In addition to the dispatch of his federal troops to select protests in (“Democrat-run”) cities, he encouraged his armed white supporters to counter-protest.

He said “go” and they “went.” See the pictures below.

The call to appear in support of Trump makes hypocrites of these Aryan types. In past years, they invaded and squatted on federal land claiming for themselves, the “sovereign citizens.” They quietly, and without acknowledgement, switched from anti-government to anti-protesters. The only consistency across time is their love of military-grade weaponry, the ability to terrorize people they perceive as enemies (thanks mainly to their guns), and a love of fascism and authoritarians.

The fact that they so readily drop what they are doing (do they not have jobs?), travel to distant cities and terrorize in the name of Trump, daring to fly the flag (Trump does call them “patriots”) convinces me how gullible they are. They are susceptible to right-wing media propaganda. The ACLED report calls them “non-state actors.” Besides shooting protestors with paint guns as they drive in intimidating and threatening caravans of trucks and cars, several of these perpetrators have driven cars into pedestrian crowds of protestors (some linked to KKK, on- and off-duty police officers, an army sergeant and an off-duty jail correctional officer).

Trump say the press are enemies. Journalists are under attack when covering BLM protests. ACLED counted over 100 incidents of attacks on clearly identified reporters by government forces.

The impact of Trump’s tacit approval of 17 y.o. Kyle Rittenhouse’s murder of two protestors and wounding of a third has yet to be determined. It is safe to predict that that murder of protesters will not be the last.

Simply put, with the number of counter-protests mounted by these domestic terrorists (an FBI term, not “militia” or “patriots”), peaceful Americans face Charlottesville nearly every day now.

Trump Gaslights America

The BS of Civility and Tranquility

In our work at WBI, we always contrast the severity of workplace bullying and abuse with its mildest form, incivility. Abuse harms people much more than simple rudeness. It’s noteworthy that most U.S. employers confess to experiencing incivility while denying bullying. To make the workplace civil is to have a public face absent conflict or inequities. Smoothness and quiet are goals. No problems are solved with civility as the goal because it never addresses any root cause of complex problems. Workplace civility is as shallow as a bumper sticker slogan.

So when we telescope from organizational life to our broader society with the context of racial animus driving division, it seems the dominant race with no incentive to ensure equality for all prefers “tranquility.” Why do the BLM protests persist? They have been heard, isn’t that enough? Sure police have some “bad apples,” but ….

The forced tranquility (perhaps what Trump imagined he would achieve by dispatching the storm troopers) is merely more oppression. With “order” as outcome, nothing changes.

Both civility in workplaces and social tranquility postpone the inevitable reckoning to solve historical problems and get on with equality.

From Martin Luther King’s April 1963 letter to local clergy from the Birmingham jail, the reader is schooled about the problem with the “white moderate” and a preference for “order.”

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 have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate …  who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”

I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action.

I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.”

Sadly 57 years later America is still stuck on race relations. The BLM breakthrough cannot lose momentum. It must gain strength and voice when the next Administration takes office. No more postponement.

From former President Jimmy Carter:

Dehumanizing people debases us all; humanity is beautifully and almost infinitely diverse. The bonds of our common humanity must overcome the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. … People of power, privilege, and moral conscience must stand up and say “no more” to a racially discriminatory police and justice system, immoral economic disparities between whites and blacks, and government actions that undermine our unified democracy.