Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Links - 25th June 2024 (1 - George Floyd Unrest)

Thread by @wanyeburkett on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - " I think it’s difficult for progressives to conceptualize that I feel about the BLM riots basically the same way they feel about January 6, which is to say that anybody who winked in their direction, anybody who offered anything except a full throated and categorical condemnation, anybody who wants to do anything except arrest and prosecute the people who participated, etc., etc., is to my mind completely disqualified from consideration for office. And, further, anybody who did not categorically denounce their colleagues who winked and nodded and excused the riots is similarly disqualified from public office.  I knew the sensible liberal view is supposed to be that Democrats didn’t support the riots, silly, but I think if you look at the standard I’ve laid out here you’ll find that it disqualifies quite a lot of the Democratic Party. This is just basically the liberal standard for January 6. You’re supposed to say that it was the worst thing that ever happened, qualify that in no way, and call out any member of your party who supports anybody who doesn’t do that.  That’s how I feel about the riots. To my mind you literally have to say, “the protests at the courthouse outside the George Floyd trial were an attempt to subvert the normal functioning of the criminal justice system via intimidation.” You literally have to say that, like, literally those words and then add, “and anybody who cannot bring themselves to say that is disqualified from public office.”  I am willing to talk about January 6 with anybody who can do that. I’m not going to have a fake discussion about the sanctity of our governing bodies with anybody who cannot say that about the protest outside the courthouse at the trial of George Floyd."

Richard Hanania on X - "Texas Governor Greg Abbott just pardoned Daniel Perry.   Perry, a veteran who was driving an Uber at the time, was sentenced to 25 years for defending himself during BLM riots against a protestor who approached his car carrying an AK-47.  Prosecutors pointed to his "racist online comments" and psychological experts testified on how dangerous he was.   The Austin police detective who was the lead investigator on the case later testified that the DA put pressure on them to withhold exculpatory evidence from the grand jury.   It took too long, but justice has finally been done."

Meme - Show. Your. Work. @ChadMPKirvan: "Question: if you’re holding a peaceful protest, why are any of the roles besides “peaceful protester” a thing?"
"PROTEST ROLES. There are many ways to participate in a protest and support each another. EACH FIGHTING OUR OWN WAY WE CLIMB THE MOUNTAIN TOGETHER.
SHIELD SOLDIER. frontliners who use woodboards, swim boards, or signs to form a first line of defense
PEACEFUL PROTESTER. protesters who don't want to fight, but join hand in hand with frontliners, sometimes using their phones to film police aggression
FRONTLINER. protesters who use umbrellas to guard against projectiles and cameras, while keeping hands free for when help is needed
RANGE SOLDIER. protesters who throw water bottles, umbrellas, and trash to stop police from advancing
FLAG BEARER. uses signs or a phone to signal to protesters when police are advancing or attacking
FIRE MAGE. protesters who come prepared to set fire to barricades and throw flammable projectiles
FIRE SQUADS. protesters who use water and traffic cones to suppress and extinguish teargas cannisters
LIGHT MAGE. protesters who use laser pointers to obstruct surveillance cameras, drones, and police visors
MEDIC. protest supporters who are able to treat injuries or have materials to treat teargas exposure
COPWATCH. protest supporters who use phones to record violent police and document police tactics and weaponry
BARRICADER. protesters who build barricades out of found objects at strategic positions to block oncoming police and traffic that trails protesters
ONLINE COMMS. online protesters who use social media apps like Signal and Telegram to report on police strategies and provide protesters with real-time strategic updates
DESIGNERS. protest supporters who make inspiring graphics, helpful infographics, or banners for protests"
Clearly, throwing molotov cocktails at the police is part and parcel of left wing peaceful protests and if you disagree they're peaceful, you're a far right fascist who's a danger to democracy
One way to view left wing violent protests - LARPing. This might explain why D&D has so many SJWs

Meme - Stephen Coughlin @S_Coughlin_DC: "As you review the "Protest Roles" graphic below, first making its appearance in 2020, note that the activities are those of an insurgency - properly defined using standard insurgency pyramid diagrams (below).   So, as these activities begin cycling up this May - coming into the month already executing at heightened levels, communicating in the open, on behalf of foreign entities no less - ask yourself why your elected leaders are facilitating this activity - even promoting it with the certain knowledge of the violence intended to be unleashed against the citizenry,  and then ask yourself why this doesn't constitute sanctioned sedition and as such, is sedition."
*Special Operations Research Office Resistance and Insurgency Pyramid*
"Overt:
Public component activities: Negotiated settlement
International strategic communications
Armed component activities:
Large-scale military and paramilitary actions
Minor military and paramilitary actions <- Now we're here
(Public component activity) Shadow governance activities
Clandestine:
(Public component activity) Shadow governance activities
Underground activities:
Increased political violence, terror, and sabotage
(Public component activity) Negotiations with government representatives
Intense sapping of morale of government, administration, police, and military
Increased activities to demonstrate strength of revolutionary organization
Sabotage and terror to demonstrate weakness of government
Overt and covert pressures against government: strikes, riots and disorders"
We're still told that it's all peaceful protest, and that if you oppose it, you're a fascist

Rich kid 'rioters' are ignorant about the poor working class - "Across the country, pampered children of the overclass are taking part in the vandalization, looting and burning of businesses, many of which are owned by immigrants and members of minority groups, under the guise of championing the Black Lives Matter movement. In the 1960s, Malcolm X characterized white liberals as “the most dangerous thing in the entire Western Hemisphere,” and now we are seeing why... These affluent white rioters are attempting to hijack the BLM movement, promoting mayhem to impress their friends. Meanwhile, they will face a fraction of the chaos and violence suffered by downtrodden Americans — if they pay any price at all.  These privileged people hold luxury beliefs, which are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while inflicting costs on the lower classes. Rich rioters burn businesses to the ground and cause chaos in the streets to increase their social status among their equally affluent peers, all the while claiming to fight for the underprivileged. In her 2018 book “Political Tribes,” Yale Law professor Amy Chua quotes a student from rural South Carolina: “I think protesting is almost a status symbol for elites. That’s why they always post pictures on Facebook, so all their friends know they’re protesting. We don’t like being used as a prop for someone else’s self-validation.” Privileged protesters are keenly aware of how many “likes” they’ll get if they post a photo with the right hashtags next to a burning building. Never mind that the building housed a pharmacy, and now elderly members of that community no longer have access to life-sustaining medication. These senior citizens aren’t even props for privileged protesters — they’re nonentities. The heirs of the overclass have little understanding of the policies for which they advocate, such as the infamous call to abolish the police. Only those who have never been victimized by violence could promote such a policy. These rich radicals despise police officers, many of whom are the same age as them but are far more likely to be non-white and come from working-class backgrounds. The Rev. Al Sharpton rebuked these rich radicals on Tuesday when he said, “To take all policing off is something that I think a latte liberal may go for as they sit around the Hamptons discussing this as some academic problem.” And indeed, in July, wealthy families hired private security guards for protection while they summered in the Hamptons.  Rich rioters are cultivating dangerous environments where violence can fester. Compared to Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year, the poorest Americans are seven times more likely to be victims of robbery, seven times more likely to be victims of aggravated assault, and twenty times more likely to be victims of sexual assault, according to the US Department of Justice. Rich rioters must be ignorant of such realities. Or maybe they hope the poor will become even more victimized than they already are."

Target Store Closings Show Limits of Pledge to Black Communities - The New York Times - "When Target announced that it was opening a store in Mondawmin, a predominantly Black neighborhood in this city struggling with crime and poverty, it seemed like a ticket to a turnaround... in February 2018, with almost no warning or explanation, Target closed the store.  Residents, especially those without cars, lost a convenient place to shop for quality goods. And a marker of the community’s self-worth was suddenly taken away. “To open a store like Target in an African American neighborhood gave this area legitimacy,” said the Rev. Frank Lance, pastor of Mount Lebanon Baptist Church in Mondawmin. “When the store closed, it was like saying, ‘You are not worthy after all.’” Three years later, the store remains empty, and its closing still stings Mondawmin residents and Baltimore officials, who had expected the store to help their revitalization efforts in the area.  Many national retailers have faced criticism in the past for failing to open in Black and poor communities, creating food deserts or a lack of access to quality goods. In Mondawmin, Target invested in a struggling area, but the outcome was almost more disheartening: The company ultimately decided that, despite its social goals, the store wasn’t financially successful enough to keep open. The closing is a sobering reminder of the realities of capitalism in a moment when corporations are making promises to support Black Americans, saying their commitment to racial equity is stronger than ever... “You are telling me that these people wouldn’t shop at Target for lawn furniture or school supplies,” he said. “I am not trying to gloss over the problems, but there is also wealth here.”  “If shrinkage was a problem, hire more security guards or use technology to stop people from stealing,” he added... Pastor Lance refused to accept that a Target could not succeed here.  “If you are really interested in equity and justice,” he said, “figure out how to make that store work.”"
From 2021. Companies need to be prepared to lose money because of social justice.
When companies hire more security guards or use technology, they're slammed for being racist too, so

‘George Floyd died for us’: ASU art exhibit depicts George Floyd as Jesus Christ - "TPUSA's Frontlines has revealed that an Arizona State University art exhibit honoring the late George Floyd displays work that depicts him as Jesus Christ. Floyd died while in Minneapolis police custody and his death sparked the historic Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots of 2020.  The art exhibit titled, "Twin Flames: The George Floyd Uprising from Minneapolis to Phoenix" included imagery and narratives that elevated Floyd, who had a lengthy violent criminal history and a drug habit, to a mythical status.   Eliza Wesley, known as "The Gatekeeper of George Floyd Square," delivered a speech accompanying the exhibit in which she compared George Floyd to Jesus Christ. She described Floyd as the "chosen" one who died for "each and every last one of us."... "Had no George Floyd died, we wouldn't be here. God chose him. He was a chosen vessel. Many are called, but few are chosen," she concluded, per video footage taken by Frontlines...   Most notably, one of the paintings depicted George Floyd with a crown of thorns on his head, just as was placed on the head of Jesus Christ when he was crucified on the cross, per Christian teaching."
FRONTLINES on X - "One of the displays draws parallels to religious figures, with George Floyd wearing a crown of thorns. Why does the left continue to lift up and idolize a man we know was a convicted criminal? @TPUSA"
So much for no one treating him like a hero
The left always idolises criminals and thugs

wanye on X - "Kyle Rittenhouse is the only human being leftists have ever criticized for putting themselves in a bad situation that led to bad outcomes. In literally every single case of a police shooting, for example, time starts a fraction of a second before the police pulled the trigger and you’re not supposed to mention literally anything that wasn’t directly related to the shooting. You’re never supposed to mention why the altercation started, how it escalated. You’re not supposed to mention criminal history. You’re supposed to imagine that the universe started in its exact configuration at the moment the police officer pulled the trigger.  But with Kyle Rittenhouse you find that people suddenly have deeply curious about the events leading up to it! Where did the gun come from? What state does Kyle Rittenhouse live in? Who does he know there? Should he have been there in the first place? suddenly these guys are really interested in establishing a complete picture."

Swann Marcus on X - "Rittenhouse was amazing because you'd get people a year after the incident who would make 5 consecutive claims, all of which were wrong
1. He crossed state lines with the gun (the gun was in Wisconsin the whole time)
2. He shot black people (all were white)
3. He went there to shoot people (there is literally video of him offering to provide first aid to *protesters*)
4. He fled the state (he tried to turn himself into the police right after the shooting and they inexplicably wouldn't take him into custody so he went home because he had no idea what else to do)
5. He went out of his way to shoot people (he shot zero people who were not attacking him first)"
And, when fact checked, the left wingers would continue spouting their misinformation

Meme - "Wesley spits the truth. Every word of it.
Wesley Yang @wesyang So grateful he didn’t obey a lawful order to sit down and chill out for 20 minutes while waiting for an ambulance to treat his fentanyl-induced panic attack — had he done that, he couldn’t be used as a propaganda weapon to burn down the country and extort sinecures for middle class blacks while thousands of other poor black people were murdered as a result of delegitimizing police protection of vulnerable, violence-prone communities.  Truly a heroic act that we should honor in hopes that others emulate him in the future.
President Biden @POTUS: George Floyd should be alive. He deserved so much more. Today, I join all those who loved him and all those touched by the civil rights movement he inspired in remembering the tragedy and injustice of his death"

Meme - Eric Haywood @EricHaywood: "What if they, like, just passed some laws instead of dressing up like a Wakandan chess set? *Democrats kneeling in Kente cloth*"

Malcolm FleX on X - "Whenever you're having a bad day, just remember that this was some random white dude at George Floyd's funeral."
Wilfred Reilly on X - "The "random white dude" was the Mayor of Minneapolis. He moaned "We didn't love him enough" over and over near Floyd's golden casket. This is all totally true, btw."

Meme - Nasir Jewelz: "I love White Women- white lives matters"

Schools Must Resist Destructive Anti-racist Demands - The Atlantic - "Administrations must decide where racial reckoning becomes racial wrecking ball, even amid a sincere commitment to addressing racism both open and systemic.  At Princeton last summer, 350 faculty members signed an anti-racist manifesto that described the school as founded upon the pillars of its oppressive past, requiring an overhaul of faculty, curriculum, and admissions procedures to fumigate the campus of an all-permeating racism. Its nearly 50 demands included “exponentially” increasing the number of faculty of color; mandatory anti-racist training focused on identifying participants’ “vulnerability” and fostering “productive discomfort”; rewarding the “invisible work done by faculty of color with course relief and summer salary;” and most controversially, the formation of “a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty.” At Bryn Mawr College, anti-racist activists accused of intimidating students and faculty not actively involved in the protest essentially shut down the school last semester. Here, the claim was that Bryn Mawr is infested with a climate of racism that threatens Black students’ survival, and the “strikers,” as they titled themselves, demanded additional funding for the Black student center, a halt to evidently systemic “violence” against disabled students, and payment (as well as grade forgiveness) for protesters’ anti-racist “work” during the “strike.” President Kim Cassidy gave the “strikers” leeway, allowing some professors to cancel their classes or reformulate them into tutorials on anti-racism. Cassidy apologized for characterizing the strikers and their actions in a negative light. At New York City’s Dalton School, an elite private K–12 prep school traditionally a conduit to the Ivies, 129 faculty and staff members this summer signed a letter circulated among faculty, staff, and parents that was later leaked to the Naked Dollar blog. The letter recommends, among other things, redirecting 50 percent of donations to New York City public schools; the hiring of 12 full-time diversity officers, as well as a full-time supporter of Black students with complaints; the elimination of tracked courses by 2023 if Black students don’t perform as well in them as white students; public anti-racism statements from all employees; and an overhaul of the entire curriculum to reflect diversity narratives. At Northwestern University, activism has been more targeted, focusing on the elimination of the campus police force. Along with this issue, however, activists have called for exhuming the demands of Black protesters at the school in 1968. Even here, a certain disproportion is apparent between the demands and the tenor of the protest, which has included property damage, intimidation, blocking streets, and burning a banner in front of President Morton Schapiro’s home... even some of the faculty who signed the Princeton petition were not necessarily united in adherence to its specific demands, or in agreement as to the depths of the university’s depravity. Many wanted, simply, to deliver a nebulous acknowledgment that some anti-racist efforts would be beneficial. Although racism surely exists at Princeton, as it does throughout American society, Princeton is not the utter sinkhole of bigotry and insensitivity that the letter implies. American universities have long been more committed to anti-racism than almost any other institutions. Princeton is where, for example, Woodrow Wilson’s name was recently removed from the name of the School of Public and International Affairs in acknowledgment of his implacably racist beliefs—albeit in response to student pressure. The issue, as so often, is degree. Most liberals will acknowledge that it is useful and even urgent for institutions such as Princeton to be vigilant against subtle biases in attitudes and procedures. The question is whether, despite this modus operandi having been well established in such places for a few decades now, they remain so infested with entrenched racism that transformational manifestos such as the Princeton letter constitute progress as opposed to manipulation. Figuring out where to draw the line is ever elusive, but one clarifying development in the Princeton case was, of all things, a threatened civil-rights investigation of the university. The United States Department of Education announced over the summer that, in light of the Princeton manifesto, it was looking into whether the university had been misrepresenting itself in reporting adherence to federal nondiscrimination law—i.e., whether it had gone afoul of legislation designed to protect students. This approach was, of course, a ploy, rather than a sincere search for injustice... A Princeton truly all about racism, bigotry, discrimination, obstacles, and inattendance to same—as the faculty letter richly implied and even stated—would be gracefully submissible to charges of civil-rights violation... at pretty much all small, elite liberal-arts colleges in the 21st century, “woke” ideals are deeply inculcated and largely unquestioned... Unmet demands included a call for Northwestern to meaningfully help uproot racism in Evanston, Illinois, where it is located. This task would be Herculean, and, more than that, beyond the purview of what a university is supposed to be. Students in the ’60s also wanted the university to admit half of its Black students from the inner city. This kind of experiment seemed promising 50 years ago but has long since been proved unwise: The unforgivable but undeniable effects of long-term poor education in depressed neighborhoods make it all but impossible for students to get by at selective universities. Systemic problems in elementary and secondary education are, again, beyond the scope of a university. Not only are these manifestos’ depictions of the institutions overblown, but many of the demands in question would destroy the institutions themselves... The writers of manifestos might classify resistance as racist, denialist backlash. But the civil, firm dismissal of irrational demands is, rather, a kind of civic valor"
I thought it was good to hoist people on their own petard. Or alternatively to make sure people had skin in the game

Should the Black Lives Matter Agenda Be Taught at School? - The Atlantic - "a public-school district that serves mostly elementary and middle-school students in Evanston, Illinois, held its third annual Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action—using a curriculum, created in collaboration with Black Lives Matter activists and the local teachers’ union, that introduces children as young as 4 and 5 to some of America’s most complex and controversial subjects. For example, parents of kindergartners in District 65 were asked to spend time at home discussing a book on race that teachers had read aloud to their children. Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness, by Anastasia Higginbotham... The book teaches that the truth about “your own people, your own family” can be painful. Next to an illustration of the mother locking her car door and grasping her wallet while driving in a neighborhood where Black children are standing on the street, the narrator notes, “Even people you love might behave in ways that show they think they are the good ones.” Later, the little girl castigates her mother for trying to hide the police shooting and other racism. “Why didn’t anyone teach me real history?” she yells. “I do see color … You can’t hide what’s right in front of me. I know that what that police officer did was wrong!” The book instructs a young white reader that she doesn’t need to “defend” racism, and it presents her with a stark decision. An illustration depicts a devil holding a “contract binding you to whiteness.”... In Evanston, parents are asked to quiz their kids on whiteness and give them approachable examples of “how whiteness shows up in school or in the community.” In its focus on “whiteness” and its invitation to readers to challenge racism by interrogating and rejecting it, the worldview of Not My Idea is similar to that of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility, now a staple of diversity-and-inclusion programs and anti-racism training. Not My Idea is also a jarringly didactic assignment for kindergartners. The BLM at School movement is gaining momentum in Democratic strongholds around the country, where millions have felt impelled to respond to the high-profile police killings of Black Americans and the inequities that such incidents expose. Parents and educators in these enclaves are largely united in believing that Black lives matter, and that schools should encourage students of all ages to reject racism and remedy its injustices, much as previous generations of schoolchildren were taught to “Just Say No to Drugs” and to “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” In all such campaigns, a distinction can be drawn between the galvanizing slogan, which by design is popular and difficult to oppose, and the ideological and policy goals of the people promoting it. In other words, people might believe deeply that Black lives matter while disagreeing with Black Lives Matter organizers about specific claims. But for the BLM at School movement, agreeing with the broad slogan implies a particular approach to anti-racist activism—one that draws on academic approaches such as critical race theory and intersectionality; rejects individualism and aspirational color-blindness; and acts in solidarity with projects including decoloniality, anti-capitalism, and queer liberation. Indeed, with the educational resources it creates and curates, the national BLM at School coalition unapologetically aims to create a new generation of allied activists...
'They present every issue with such moral certainty—like there is no other viewpoint. And we’re definitely seeing this in my daughter. She can make the case for defunding the police, but when I tried to explain to her why someone might have a Blue Lives Matter sign, why some families support the police, she wasn’t open to considering that view. She had a blinding certainty that troubled me. She thinks that even raising the question is racist. If she even hears a squeak of criticism of BLM, or of an idea that’s presented as supporting equity, she’s quick to call out racism.'...
he wants kids to be taught about housing rights, eviction, redlining, police abuses, urban pollution, and all of the other systems that harm the lives of Black people, in the hope that theirs will be the generation that fixes those problems... The “Black villages” principle declares that “we are committed to disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, and especially ‘our’ children to the degree that mothers, parents and children are comfortable.”... Not My Idea, for example, seems to teach children with white parents that they should not count on their goodness or trustworthiness. And as someone whose profession requires watching awful videos of police killings, I would strongly urge parents to switch off a TV rather than let their young child see one—a choice that the book seems to criticize. Many parents will also find the book’s subject matter too mature for kids not yet in the first grade... "It is not appropriate for really young children that they only hear about Black history through a lens of slavery and civil rights.”... Americans pursue racial justice through a variety of political ideologies, policy agendas, and tactics. Kids should know that a “correct” approach cannot be identified objectively. One might agree that Black lives matter and that Black people have been unfairly harmed by historical racism without also endorsing, say, “Black villages” or other distinct ideas embraced by activists. The Evanston curriculum elides that distinction. The only critique of the Black Lives Matter approach to social-justice activism that students get is literally a caricature... The lesson goes on to introduce the concept of intersectionality... sitting through the slideshow, which asserts that to be Black and female is to be “the most unprotected person in America,” many students might come away with the impression that Black women are the demographic group most likely to be killed by police in America. That is false. According to a 2019 paper published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the lifetime risk is highest for Black males... “I think we’ve come to the point, however, where our children (all children) are being used as pawns … I feel we can and should work together for a more just, equitable world,” the parent continued, “but don’t believe that one political organization with its own idea of how to get there should be the arbiter of that progress.”... many teachers aligned with Black Lives Matter explicitly reject a neutral posture. This issue was the subject of a 2020 webinar titled “Black Lives Matter at School: A Discussion With Educators on the Intersections of Activism and Pedagogy.”... educators should not be neutral as to the question “Should my students be taught what to think, or how to think?”...  perhaps the quality of Evanston students’ education during the district’s three Black Lives Matter at School action weeks is best measured by parents asking whether their kids can now accurately explain not only the values and beliefs of Black Lives Matter but also the strongest criticisms of the movement’s approach."
Left wing indoctrination is not a bug, it's a feature
It is more important to be morally correct than factually correct

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