Toronto city council approves renaming Dundas Street due to namesake’s connection to slavery - Toronto - "Ridding Toronto of the Dundas name will cost an estimated $5.1 million to $6.3 million. Costs include renaming Yonge-Dundas Square, two subway stations and all related signage, the report noted. The city also plans to make room in its budget to support people and businesses affected by the change."
Virtue signalling is not free
Henry Dundas descendant defends ancestor's record - "A direct descendant of Henry Dundas has said the slave trade would have been abolished decades later had it not been for his ancestor. Bobby Dundas spoke out after a row about an 1827 statue of Henry Dundas... after a failed attempt by politicians to get the abolition of slavery through parliament, "the only way to get it abolished and a majority vote through parliament was to insert the word 'gradual' into the legislation". He adds that had it not been for this amendment - made by Henry Dundas - the slave trade "could have been about for decades to come". Bobby Dundas added that his ancestor was a "politician of vision and integrity" who had "no personal involvement in the slave trade". Prof Brian Young, of Oxford University, has also written about Henry Dundas. He described him as "a lawyer with a sense of the possible", who "saw that the immediate abolition of slavery was impossible: there were simply too many established interests". Prof Young added that Henry Dundas inserted the word "gradual" into the legislative proposals to ensure it made it to the statute book and that slavery would ultimately be abolished. "Anything other than this would have been a provocation that would have put back the cause of abolition by decades", he added."
Kelly McParland: Can we rename everything in Toronto after Wayne Gretzky? - "If Henry Dundas held questionable views on the slave trade, a point on which there is some contention, George Yonge was a waste of space so monumental he was dismissed by one historian as representing “incompetence, ignorance, and the very worst impulses of colonial British aristocracy.” Dundas insisted he was no friend of slavery, but argued that banishing it from British territories overnight would simply drive it to other locations, and that gradual elimination was more likely to succeed. Yonge, on the other hand, proved so consistently incompetent he was eventually hustled off to the Cape Colony in today’s South Africa, where he quickly established a reputation for greed and corruption, and helped organize a scam enabling him to seize slaves from passing ships and sell them as his own. Or how about Wellington and Wellesley streets, both running east-west off Yonge in the city’s core, both named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, who may have defeated Napoleon and saved the nation, but went on to become so unpopular as a politician — as prime minister he staunchly opposed extending the vote to the working classes and other such riff-raff — that mobs twice lay siege to his London home, hurling rocks through the windows... If you hate all the offshoots of a past that intrude on modern rectitude, you’ve got to dump the Wellingtons, the Victorias and the Yonges, along with the Ryersons, Jarvises, Baldwins, Osgoodes and other locals who either failed to recognize they lived in a time that wasn’t as enlightened as 21st-century Toronto, or didn’t do enough to revolutionize thought when they had the chance... It’s all gotta go, and we’re going to need new names for the whole kit and caboodle. Simple, innocuous, unblemished replacements that can stand the test of time, meaning, first of all, no politicians, and preferably no one human, given that humans are prone to imperfection and thus unsatisfactory for praise and recognition. Oak Street, Pine Street, Elm Street, that sort of thing should do. Or, even easier: Main Road 1, Main Road 2, Side Road 3, like they do in rural areas where no one gets all that worked up about statues and such. Once Toronto is done we’ll have to move on to other crime spots. The town of Dundas, of course, will have to go. Ditto London, Ont., named after World Headquarters for the British slave trade and all its grubby appurtenances. Ottawa is an absolute cesspool of honours dedicated to figures from a hateful past: Elgin, Albert, Wellington, Gladstone … I don’t know who Catherine Street is named after but if we look hard enough maybe we can find something to disqualify her, too. It won’t be easy and it won’t be cheap, but good works never are. If we stick to it, though, we may some day be able to look back on a Canada cleared of anyone who had anything to do with anything, other than maybe Wayne Gretzky, though there are still a lot of people in Toronto bitter at that 1993 playoff result, when he really should have been called for high-sticking."
LILLEY: Public supports renaming Dundas St. until they look at the cost | Toronto Sun - "Those aged 18-34 are most likely to support the name change at 74%, followed by those who are the most educated at 65%, and those with the highest annual income of $100,000 per year or more at 64%. The support for changing the name drops, though, once people think about the cost to both government and those living and working on the street about to be renamed. Once those factors are presented, suddenly, a majority of 61% oppose the city renaming Dundas St. and Dundas Square. Those aged 18–34 still offer up strong support for renaming at 63% but those who are the highest educated drop from 65% support to 48%, while those earning over $100,000 per year drop their support from 64% to 40%... The cost of renaming Dundas St., Yonge-Dundas Square, two subway stations, and more is pegged at $5.1 million to $6.3 million dollars. Governments spending money is nothing new; they do it all the time and often in ways that would make a drunken sailor blush. But having to change every card, legal document, mortgage, business card, and more … that hits people. A city staff report states that there at 4,970 properties on Dundas St. as well as 4,510 businesses, 48,975 dwellings, and 97,673 residents. Add to this the fact that there are 60 more streets that city staff have said, “could require further examination,” including 12 named for slave owners, and you start to see that this could be an extremely long and cumbersome process. Other streets that might need to be renamed, if we continue on this path, include Yonge St., Jarvis St., and Wellesley St. — all of which were named for people with stronger ties to slavery and the slave trade than Henry Dundas. Yet, it’s likely most Toronto residents could not have told you who Henry Dundas was or that the street was named for him — most in this city don’t know that these streets are named for long-dead people... We’d be far better off spending all those tax dollars on things that mattered, including reconciliation efforts. Few people from the past look good through today’s lens. All changing the street names will accomplish is making the young, the rich and the woke feel better without actually improving society."
Actually it will embolden the young, rich and woke to grievance monger even more
Need a new street name? I could go on all day | The Star - "Streets can’t be named after people because people popular in their own time can repel later generations. A public housing block in London named Cecil Rhodes House — Rhodes was the real deal in Victorian misogyny and race hate — was to be renamed Mugabe House in the woke 1980s. Mugabe was a tyrant who brought Zimbabwe to collapse. Missed a bullet there. It has been renamed Park View House. Because there’s a park and people can see it from their house. I used to live on Southwood Dr. because there was a wood and this was the southern bit. Other streets in the Beaches were named after trees, like Beech, Balsam, Spruce, Silver Birch, Willow. There was Main St., because obviously, and a Beaches Park because it’s the Beaches and there’s a park, and Woodfield because there was wood in a field. Perhaps Toronto streets should be named after trees. Who’d object to 61 Toronto tree names? Are there enough native trees, though, and will they survive global heating? I have a Stewartia pseudocamellia but it’s Japanese (remember the war, plus cultural appropriation) and it’s named after a 16th century Scottish botanist (tree thief, I bet). My Katsura is native to China/Japan so that’s fraught. My dogwood is basically Mexican and the boxwood is going to die in the current box mass death. Spruce Pine, I think not, what with ongoing beetle devastation. Forget trees. Perhaps Toronto’s streets, parks and incidentals could be named after moods. Good Road. Ambivalent Lane. Incandescent Ave. Passionate Intensity Blvd. Cordial. Stormy. Bleak. Vehement."
Gad Saad on Twitter - "It has come to my attention that the founder of @Yale was a slave trader. Given the Noble Cause of erasing from the history books ALL individuals/institutions who were participants in any slave trade, will Yale be toppled from our collective conscious? #EraseYaleForJustice
I believe that several other universities have founders who were directly linked to the slave trade. Perhaps use their endowments as reparations? I'm sure that the universities, all of which are bastions of progressive thought, will support such a Noble Cause."
Raymond James employee fired after confronting Black Lives Matter supporter writing message in chalk - "Financial firm Raymond James said Monday that employee Rob Larkins was terminated after he and a woman were captured on video questioning a man painting the Black Lives Matter slogan on what he says is his own property."
Vandalism is good. Opposing vandalism is racist
thebradfordfile on Twitter - "Antifa and BLM terrorists have been burning cities, assaulting innocent people, destroying businesses, and hunting police officers for months, so naturally Chris Wallace focused on “white supremacy.” Our media is an abomination."
Andy Ngô on Twitter - "What’s it tell you when a section of Americans openly wish death to the elected President of the United States and the First Lady, while protesting for the lives of violent criminals, thugs and rapists?"
Proud Boys leader arrested, accused of destroying D.C. church's Black Lives Matter sign
I bet the Proud Boys' activities are much more than 93% peaceful
Facebook - "White police officer cleared of charges in Wisconsin shooting of Black man"
"Look at Reuters leaving out the crucial fact that Blake was armed with a knife and refused to drop his knife in the Facebook post's headline. Fact can only be found in the main text. It's clear this is no longer the old, unbiased Reuters, but one that's desperate enough for outrage clicks as to want to hide the central fact on which the case turned upon, even if it results in misinformation that will cause cities to burn."
Michael Tracey on Twitter - "To me the wildest story of 2020 is still that the most widespread and destructive riots in at least 50 years occurred and it basically got covered up"
Federalist Perspectives - Posts | Facebook - "Guy defends himself and his business from rioters. Prosecutors agree that he defended himself. Charges get pressed anyway, out of concern for public pressure. GoFundMe removes his account. Suicide."
On the Omaha bar owner. Liberals will say that his suicide shows he was guilty
Black Teenager Is Fatally Shot in Argument Over Music, Police Say - The New York Times - "A Black teenager was shot and killed last week in Oregon by a white man who had confronted him in a hotel parking lot for playing loud music... Chief O’Meara said the department was looking into whether the shooting “was driven by race,” adding that a racial motive had not been “legally substantiated.”"
Race makes you play loud music?
BLM removes website language blasting 'nuclear family structure' - "Black Lives Matter scrubbed a page on its website this week that disparaged the “Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” prompting a former NFL lineman to blast critics who accused him of previously misinterpreting the organization’s incendiary message. The group, whose co-founder Patrisse Cullors has described herself and fellow co-founder Alicia Garza as “trained Marxists,” removed a page titled “What We Believe” that included its public policy positions as well as describing itself as part of the “global Black family”... “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable,” the website formerly read. The page, which was no longer available Thursday, also said BLM aimed to “dismantle the patriarchal practice” that leads to mothers having to work double shifts to make ends meet... A central tenet of Marxism is the dismantling of the “nuclear family structure.” The language was removed days after a poll found support for the group dropped 12 percent this summer as some of its protests descended into looting and violence. The change prompted former NFL lineman Marcellus Wiley to blast the group, saying his criticism of its mission statement back in June was misconstrued while reiterating that he’s a product of a tight-knit household. Wiley, a 10-year league vet and co-host of FS1’s “Speak For Yourself,” shared a news story about the sudden change to BLM’s website as he took the group to task. “Heard too many people tell that I was wrong for misinterpreting BLM’s mission statement and I took their words out of context,” Wiley tweeted. “You were saying?” Wiley took a second shot at BLM a day later, accusing some of his critics of forgetting his roots. “Seems some have forgotten I navigated from the bottom of this system,” Wiley, a 45-year-old native of Compton, California, tweeted to his 325,000 followers. “I planned & worked to succeed by any means, whether by using my brain or my body! Blessed to be an example of how important a nuclear family is to reaching your full potential. My experience is my expertise.” A message seeking comment from BLM regarding its website change was not immediately returned Thursday."
Matt Walsh on Twitter - "Can we just take a minute and laugh together about this? BLM attacked Boston Pride, a gay activist group that's been around for 50 years, claiming that they're too white. Boston Pride responded by apologizing and disbanding its entire organization in shame. Just fantastic stuff.
BLM just comes in and nukes its own allies for no discernible reason at all, and everyone on the Left is powerless to stop them or even voice an objection."
"Intersectionality"
Catholic Nancy Pelosi Indifferent To St. Junipero Desecration - "After House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy shamed Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for not standing up to the mobs who have been tearing down statues of St. Junipero Serra in California, Pelosi dismissed the critique of her silence. “Given that today is the Feast Day of Saint Junipero Serra, her condemnation of mob violence would be especially timely,” McCarthy said. “Today should be a day for celebration. Instead, we’ve recently seen a violent left-wing mob tear down the statue of Father Serra in Speaker Pelosi’s district in San Francisco, California.”... a mob of about 200 people vandalized and toppled a statue of Father Junípero Serra in Pelosi’s hometown of San Francisco in Golden Gate Park. A day later, in downtown Los Angeles, more protesters yanked a Saint Junipero Serra statue off its pedestal at a park near Olvera Street. Pelosi’s indifference to a hero and saint to Hispanic-Americans and canonized by the first Latin American Pope, Pope Francis, is a sharp turn from 2015, when Pelosi and presidential candidate, Joe Biden, honored St. Junipero’s statue during Pope Francis’ historic visit to the US and canonization ceremony with Pope Francis inside the US Capitol. From 1769 to 1782, Saint Junípero Serra founded nine Spanish missions in California. Father Serra served the Indians by evangelizing, educating, providing food and shelter, and even jobs. He was instrumental in teaching the Indians about agriculture, which allowed them to advance beyond a hunter-gatherer society. Saint Junipero Serra, a Franciscan, was a defender of Native Americans against the violence and prejudice of Spanish government authorities, displayed as he vigorously upheld the rights of native tribes. When a friend and colleague of his was killed by an Indian, the Indian was executed. Serra was morally opposed to the execution and fervently argued against the death penalty, saying that he founded the missions to save lives not take them. Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles points out, that Serra’s argument was one of the first denouncements of capital punishment in Western culture. Pope Francis stated that Father Serra, “sought to defend the dignity of the Indigenous people he evangelized.” The Hispanic Council, a think tank whose mission is to share and preserve Hispanic heritage of the United States, said in a fiery statement, “This new attack on his figure lacks historical rigor. It’s also an attack on the Hispanic legacy of the United States and California, which must be respected and cherished, as Junipero himself represented in his time of dedication and service to the native population.” Even the Spanish Embassy to the United States pleaded on Twitter with the United States to respect St. Serra’s legacy and the positive role he played in US history... Instead of addressing the flagrant disrespect and diplomatic incident, San Fransisco Mayor London Breeds sided with protesters in a statement writing, “There is very real pain in this country rooted in our history of slavery and oppression, especially against African-Americans and Indigenous people. I know that pain all too well.”"
Meme - "I'M CHINESE. MY PEOPLE WERE SLAVES IN CALIFORNIA IN THE 1800'S MAKING RAILROADS. YOU DIDN'T KNOW THAT BECAUSE WE NEVER ASKED FOR HANDOUTS OR BLAME WHITEY FOR OUR FAILURES"
Meme - *police motorcycle* "Normalizing violent racism at a CHILDREN'S MUSEUM. Police donated this vehicle. The hostility was palpable."
It's Nicole - "Honestly you can not separate canine politics and anti-black racism. From police dogs, to pit bull bans, our relationship with dogs and the black community is fraught with violence and prejudice. Anyone who says that conversations surrounding BLM don’t belong in spaces typically designated for discussions about dogs (ie: your blog/ instagram/ work, etc…) is wrong. First of all the basic fundamental right of human beings is always relevant. Second canine advocacy is not as far removed from the topic as you may choose to believe. I personally have no time for those who believe animals deserve more compassion and decency than people."
Liberals want politics to infect everything
Meme - "Me getting a vasectomy at the doctors office, potentially stopping a future oppressor from being born #blacklivesmatter"
And we are told white liberals don't hate white people
Meme - "My white guilt is so prevalent that i dont feel comfortable with the idea of having 100% white children. I dont want to potentially contribute to the problem"
Meme - "The KKK: "whiteness gives you an advantage over POC no matter what."
Woke: "whiteness gives you an advantage over POC no matter what.""
Facebook - "Since we removing racist statues, which books are we taking out of our curriculum?"
"Asking for a friend #decolonizeyourcurriculum
_______________________________________
#teachersofinstagram #teachersofig #urbaneducation #blacklivesmatter #resist #blackeducators #youngblackeducators #blackstudentsmatter #representationmatters #socialjusticeeducation #literature #literarycanon #iteachela #iteachsocialstudies #counternarratives #decolonize #iteachhighschool #iteachmiddleschool #iteachelementary #educolor #teacherresources #elateacher #criticalpedagogy #culturallyresponsiveteaching #antibiaseducation #antiracist"
Weird. Liberals tell us that decolonising the curriculum isn't about removing anything, but adding new perspectives
Petition · Remove Memorials/Statues of Black Nationalist Malcolm X - "Malcolm X is known as a controversial figure who preached racism and violence against the white race. Malcolm X also considered and called himself a Black Nationalist. The very thought and idea of Black Nationalism has racist roots as it is a type of political thought that seeks to promote, develop and maintain a black race and identity for people of black ancestry. Black nationalist activism revolves around social, political, and economic empowerment of black communities and people, especially to resist assimilation into white culture (through integration or otherwise), and maintain a distinct black identity. Furthermore, Malcolm X was as known Black Party member and Black Panther Party member, both organizations having their roots in racism. These organizations pride themselves on emphasized black pride, economic empowerment, and the creation of political and cultural institutions for African-American people in the United States, a modern from of segregation. Malcolm X should NOT be a widely celebrated figure within African-American community as he stood for racism in America and promoted racism against white American people."
How silly. Don't they know that accountability is only for white people?
Meme - "Protesters called the fire department about the dumpster fire."
"This had to be the most demoralizing moment of their lives when the "autonomous zone" had to call 911 & move their cute barricades so the real first responders could come put out their dumpster fire."
"Haven't been a country a week and they are already asking for foreign aid."
On CHOP/CHAZ
Peter Boghossian on Twitter - "Murders in larger US cities will skyrocket. Virtually everyone will claim to be mystified by this, or blame it on factors that have little or nothing to do with it. Question: do people who deny the actual cause of the spike in homicides care more or less about black lives?" - Jun 11, 2020
The Associated Press on Twitter - "Still reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and protests over the George Floyd killing, cities around the nation are facing another challenge: a surge in shootings that has left dozens dead. Experts say the spike in violence defies easy explanation." - Jul 8, 2020
Meme - "Black Lives Matter"
"Do Black Police Lives Matter?"
"No"
"Do Black Conservative Lives Matter?"
"No"
"Do Black Chicago Victims Lives Matter?"
"No"
"Do Unborn Black Lives Matter?"
"No"
"Do Black Small Business Owners Matter?"
"No"
"So Which Black Lives Matter?"
"The 2 Criminals Shot By the Police"
Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts | Facebook - "If you haven’t followed the trend, protectors that block traffic are now regularly armed. Not just with handguns, but with rifles, and they brandish these firearms to prevent them from leaving. It’s time the politicians end this escalation of felonies and stop these illegal and violent actions that put innocent people at risk. A man just trying to get home shouldn’t suffer six broken bones in a mob beating.
——-
“It’s unclear what started the standoff, but videos circulating on social media show the resulting confrontation between people in a crowd and the motorist, Joseph Hall, who remains hospitalized.”… “Hall, 53, said he’s a handyman who was headed home from his repair work at a nearby apartment complex when he swerved on Alberta Street to avoid a moped that cut him off.”…"
Meme - "*Joker* LIBERALS IN 2019: "NOOOOOO!!!! YOU CANT RELEASE THIS MOVIE! IT WILL CAUSE RIGHT WINGERS TO COMPLETELY MISS THE POINT AND BE VIOLENT AND CAUSE UNNECESSARY DESTRUCTION!"
LIBERALS IN 2020: *Joker holding ACAB sign*"
Meme - "President Trump: Retired St. Louis Police Captain David Dorn was killed by 'despicable looters'"
"I'm sorry, but do you have anything at all to say about the murder of George Floyd? Or any of the other murders of unarmed Black civilians at the hands of police officers who are then neither fired nor prosecuted? Looking at your profile, you have made plenty of posts about material objects. Nothing about these lost lives, nothing about institutional racism, nothing about what you might be able to do to help. I also have to wonder why your priorities are so squarely centered around the destruction of objects and not the taking of human lives. Pianos can be replaced, buildings can be rebuilt. No one can breathe life back into the Black and brown bodies left in the wake of a militarized police force."
Dead black policemen are material objects, apparently
Robert Sepehr on Twitter - "Dear white #BLM activists, I'm with you in your anti-slavery crusade. Keep in mind there was slavery in Africa BEFORE the European slave ships arrived, black tribes sold other Africans to them, and there's still slavery in Africa TODAY. In case you're not just virtue signaling ✊"
"The Native Americans who owned slaves"
Meme - "By u/northernrob2019: The Young Mother Shot by B LM for Saying 'All Lives Matter' Should be National News
Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators of r/unpopularopinion...
Rule 4: No trolling/satire. This is not an appropriate subreddit to express your inner troll."
Trolling = disagreeing with a liberal
Meme - "While y'all are at it, tear down this monument, which represents decades of systemic exploitation, grooming, subverting, and ritual abuse of women and children. *Hollywood*"
Rep. Jeff Duncan on Twitter - "Great news! @realDonaldTrump has DENIED Minnesota's disaster request to repair half a billion dollars in damage from the riots. Governors and Mayors who ordered police to stand down and watch their cities burn shouldn't get a penny in taxpayer aid!"
Louisville protest shooting suspect ID'd as Steven Lopez: What we know - "Steven Nelson Lopez, 23, is facing charges of murder and first-degree wanton endangerment, Louisville Metro Police officials said Sunday after releasing his arrest citation... Lopez has been a frequent sight at the protests, which have rocked the streets of Louisville for a month. Several Courier Journal reporters have seen him among the crowd in recent days, and a speaker at a Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression press conference Sunday morning said he'd been among the crowd for the past 12 days at least."
Liberals will still claim that the far left has never killed anyone
Louisville park shooter was homeless, has history of mental illness: 'He wasn't aiming for Tyler'
Weird. Liberals tell us that it's only mental illness when it's a white guy. And how come they're not reporting that he's really a member of the Proud Boys or a police infiltrator?
Meme - "Rogan O'Handley @Dcdraino: Friendly reminder that Democrats think DACA aliens shouldn't have to "pay for the crimes of their parents". but white people with no relation to slave owners should pay reparations. Makes sense"
RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Welcome aboard Hair Force One - "Tax exile Lewis Hamilton has applauded the toppling of statues and called for all ‘racist symbols’ around the world to be removed. He did so while wearing a baseball cap bearing a large Mercedes badge. The Formula One champ must have led a sheltered life. Otherwise he might have known that during World War II, under the Nazis, Mercedes used 40,000 slave labourers. The company even built Hitler’s car. Hamilton is reported to be paid £40million a year by Mercedes, a firm which made vast profits from slavery. Now he’s aware of their racist past, shouldn’t he give the money back?"
Cisco fires employees criticizing Black Lives Matter | The Post Millennial - "Tech giant Cisco has reportedly fired a number of its employees for making comments critical of Black Lives Matter, including the statement “all lives matter” in response to the popular refrain."
BREAKING: Black Lives Matter movement nominated for Nobel Peace Prize | The Post Millennial - "The nomination was put forth by Norwegian MP Petter Eide. BLM riots in the US led to the deaths of at least 25 people."
Activists call to change provincial name of British Columbia due to colonial past | The Post Millennial - "British Columbia may be getting a makeover as many people are now calling for the province to be renamed, according to The Tyee, as the name doesn't honour the Indigenous people's that lived there before the arrival of Europeans. It also glorifies explorer Christopher Columbus. In the wake of George Floyd's murder, many activists are calling for the statues of controversial historical figures to be taken down and names of cities and streets to be abruptly renamed. The term for this procedure is "iconoclasm" which is the practice of breaking down past idols. The idea is to delegitimize the values of a previous culture and to replace them with new ones... Much of the two nation's history is being unearthed to show that Columbus's first thoughts on meeting people of the Caribbean was that they would make good slaves or that Canada's first Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald helped to destroy First Nations by creating residential schools. A statue of MacDonald was removed from in front of city hall in Victoria, B.C. two years ago. Now the latest wave of iconoclasm is looking to go after anything and everything that nods to North America's colonial past. Several statues of Christopher Columbus have been toppled down by protestors or removed by city council over the last couple of weeks and now activists are petitioning to have the names of cities Vaughan and Kitchener changed, and now the province of British Columbia as well. No alternative names have been suggested yet for the province."
Wokal Distance on Twitter - "Don't force your beliefs on people, not everyone celebrates Christmas. *BLM mob trying to force someone to join in the chanting*"
Two months since the riots, and still no “National Conversation” | by Michael Tracey | Medium - "There is a reasonable argument to be made that these riots were unprecedented in U.S. history — or at the very least, since the 1960s. Yet if one surveyed the national media today, you’d barely even know anything happened. Nor would you likely be aware that those who bore the brunt of the destruction — largely minorities whose sensibilities don’t fit into any neatly-delineated ideological category — are still acutely suffering from the fallout. Yes, civil unrest has of course occurred before. But the riots of 2020 exhibited features which belie any easy historical parallel. For one thing, consider their enormous geographic scope. While the most extreme riots in cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and particularly Minneapolis did receive considerable attention — however fleeting, incomplete, and unnecessarily inflected with knee-jerk partisanship — there were also smaller-scale riots in surprisingly far-flung places that you hardly would’ve known about unless you lived in the area, happened to visit, or intentionally sought out what remains of the bare-bones local media coverage... These riots exploded with such intensity, across so many jurisdictions, and within such a contained period of time — roughly speaking, a one-week stretch beginning May 28, the day the chaos in Minneapolis/St. Paul reached a grisly apex — that no other instance of past civil unrest seems quite analogous. Complicating matters is that the riots occurred in tandem with a protest movement now believed to be the largest ever in U.S. history — one which saw demonstrations, vigils, and general rancor extend even into the most unassuming expanses of suburban and rural America... the severe ramifications of these riots have been widely ignored — if not consciously obfuscated — by a media class that was near-unanimous in its approval of the accompanying protest movement. That they could have so quickly “moved on,” particularly from the wreckage of Minneapolis/St. Paul — where residents commonly told me that their lives are still in “agony” — is galling. I’m not a rocket scientist, and it doesn’t take some kind of profound journalistic acuity to walk around riot-affected areas, talk to citizens, record their stories and impressions, take some photos and record some video, and compose some tweets. And yet, I heard from hundreds of people across the United States and world who were shocked that they’d have never been aware of what happened in Minneapolis/St. Paul if not for my dinky little Twitter thread. When I visited a month after the peak of the riots, much of this major American metropolis still lied in ruins. Not that normal life hadn’t mostly resumed; it had. But it’s resumed in the way that war-torn areas configure some ad hoc routine that enables the resumption of semi-normal activity amidst the rubble and despair. In speaking with locals, many of whom have lost their livelihoods and/or had to plead for their children not to be burned alive, it often seems like the extent of the ruination they’ve experienced was barely ever appreciated in the first place... Many people online have made it clear that they don’t believe me, but I swear I have not “cherry-picked” any of these interviewees. Of the dozens and dozens of randomly-selected black Americans that I have so far spoken to across the United States, only two expressed what one might call a “positive” view of the riots, and they were both young men. Everyone else I have encountered is unabashedly scornful of rioting, and many even express apprehensions about the basic logic of a movement referred to as “Black Lives Matter,” which incongruously appears to them to have caused increased suffering in their predominantly black neighborhoods... they were almost uniformly supportive of the deployment of National Guard to quell the chaos — unlike journalists and activists, who tend to portray the deployment of military forces to urban areas as an unambiguous sign of fascist terror... Residents of Chicago’s predominantly black South and West sides remarked that the looting appeared to begin at apparel stores like Foot Locker, and then branched out from there. Here’s how one man described the progression. Opportunistic “looting” should generally be distinguished from the more ideologically-motivated “rioting,” as those who “looted” were generally locals (mostly but not exclusively blacks) who simply took advantage of an unprecedentedly chaotic situation to seize goods. Whereas “riots” motivated by consciously insurrectionist ideology — consisting of arson attacks and other actions intended to maximize chaos — appear to have been largely instigated by left-wing activist whites. You could possibly group both activities under the banner of “rioting,” but it’s worth drawing a distinction between these two different kinds of conduct which arise in a riot context... One worker said they’d been told by an ad-hoc activist group to proclaim themselves “black owned” (the owner is, in fact, black) so that people don’t get the wrong impression when they see mostly Hispanics working there... An open question is who actually initiated the arson attacks in Minneapolis. According to multiple accounts relayed to me, those who instigated these most extreme acts of destruction appeared to be white left-wing activists who were not from the area. This then consumed municipal resources and created a vacuum that enabled a portion of the local, largely black and minority populations to engage in opportunistic looting... Does the ubiquity of these types of signs, in which owners declare their ethnic or racial status, seem healthy to you?... A low-income housing project that had been under construction, now effectively destroyed:. One of the early promoters of the former “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” (CHAZ) in Seattle had triumphantly used an image of the building set ablaze in her/their Twitter bio... The man, an immigrant from Sierra Leone, said the following: “I grew up in a war zone, and I’ve never seen anything like it.”"
Weird. Liberals claim that the riots only involved a few blocks
