In mid-July 2020 I published on my Instagram my response to vandalism and looting during otherwise peaceful BLM protests. 3 months later, in mid-October 2020, I stumbled upon an article in the Washington Post that discusses The Monkey Cage’s research into those BLM protests. The Monkey Cage is
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So before I use The Monkey Cage’s findings to demonstrate the hypocrisy with respect to the perception of statistics that may or may not benefit a particular narrative, I’d like to share with you that response from my Instagram post. Please try not to project your assumptions onto me and put labels onto me while trying to stick me into the pro or anti-BLM categories. I am guided by a different set of principles and beliefs that go beyond a 2-option-only mentality. So if I happen to criticize certain people’s behaviours, it doesn’t automatically mean that my response is in any way racist. Of course, you’re entitled to think whatever it is you want to think, but I am clear on this: this opinion is related strictly to people who engage in vandalism activities and include people of all colours.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/16/this-summers-black-lives-matter-protesters-were-overwhelming-peaceful-our-research-finds/
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The data that The Monkey Cage found and discussed in their article, was based on the 7,305 events they had collected.
First, police made arrests in 5 percent of the protest events, with over 8,500 reported arrests (or possibly more). Police used tear gas or related chemical substances in 2.5 percent of these events.
Protesters or bystanders were reported injured in 1.6 percent of the protests. In total, at least three Black Lives Matter protesters and one other person were killed while protesting in Omaha, Austin and Kenosha, Wis. One anti-fascist protester killed a far-right group member during a confrontation in Portland, Ore.; law enforcement killed the alleged assailant several days later.
Police were reported injured in 1 percent of the protests. A law enforcement officer killed in California was allegedly shot by supporters of the far-right “boogaloo” movement, not anti-racism protesters. The killings in the line of duty of other law enforcement officers during this period were not related to the protests.
Only 3.7 percent of the protests involved property damage or vandalism. Some portion of these involved neither police nor protesters, but people engaging in vandalism or looting alongside the protests.
In short, our data suggest that 96.3 percent of events involved no property damage or police injuries, and in 97.7 percent of events, no injuries were reported among participants, bystanders or police.
These figures should correct the narrative that the protests were overtaken by rioting and vandalism or violence. Such claims are false. Incidents in which there was protester violence or property destruction should be regarded as exceptional — and not representative of the uprising as a whole.
In many instances, police reportedly began or escalated the violence, but some observers nevertheless blame the protesters. The claim that the protests are violent — even when the police started the violence — can help local, state and federal forces justify intentionally beating, gassing or kettling the people marching, or reinforces politicians’ calls for “law and order.”
Given that protesters were objecting to extrajudicial police killings of Black citizens, protesters displayed an extraordinary level of nonviolent discipline, particularly for a campaign involving hundreds of documented incidents of apparent police brutality. The protests were extraordinarily nonviolent, and extraordinarily nondestructive, given the unprecedented size of the movement’s participation and geographic scope.
This is important because public perceptions of the legitimacy of protests vs. policing have had fairly immediate effects on election outcomes and public policy. Those perceptions affect public attitudes toward movements for years.
Further, authoritarian leaders almost always try to treat protesters as criminals and to delegitimize their claims by exaggerating any incidents of violence and property destruction. These narrative techniques shore up support for broad-based repression against these groups, at little political cost to the autocrat.
In the case of Black Lives Matter, such claims are not only cynical, they are false.
No debet cotidieque sit. Usu lobortis philosophia ex, nostro maiestatis eum no. Ad pro latine comprehensam. Pri quis erant laudem an, et vix propriae omnesque delicatissimi. Ei pro autem quidam perpetua. No debet cotidieque sit. Usu lobortis philosophia ex, nostro maiestatis eum no. Ad pro latine comprehensam. Pri quis erant laudem an, et vix propriae omnesque delicatissimi.u00a0
