Sunday, June 7, 2020

Reflecting on a week of racial unrest

After witnessing the obvious murder of George Floyd, no matter where your political alliances reside, we were ALL united in how we felt (and still feel) about it...


There was little disagreement that it was WRONG and that something needed to be legally changed to prevent this flagrant misuse of authority from occurring again. There was a coalescence of unity, until the riots came and violent activism entered the fray...
The country is dealing with a period of unrest. It’s bad. Riots have engulfed most of the country’s major metropolitan areas for the past week. It’s all over the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police. It was an atrocity. Floyd was unarmed. He was arrested for a nonviolent crime. Floyd was subdued, handcuffed, and was killed when Officer Derek Chauvin, who has since been fired, kept his knee on the back of his neck as he was lying face down on the ground. Chauvin kept it there for nearly ten minutes. Floyd is heard calling out that he couldn’t breathe. Chauvin has been charged with second-degree murder. The three other officers involved in the incident were also fired and charged with aiding and abetting murder. There should be protests. This is an outrage. The use of force was outrageous, and I hope justice is served. In fact, that was the opinion for the vast majority of the country. Everyone was outraged over Floyd’s death. But that unity collapsed when rioters set a police headquarters on fire in the third precinct of Mill City and started to loot, vandalize, and set fires everywhere.
Rioting, looting and burning businesses and communities down to avenge police authority's excessive use of force rapidly replaced the tone of protest, working against and critically damaging what could have been a just civil rights cause...
When it comes to race relations, anyone who thinks rioting is the answer doesn’t grasp the question. Burning, looting and committing mayhem doesn’t bend the moral arc of the universe; it breaks it.

Peaceful protests over George Floyd’s killing have been overshadowed by images of rage-fueled violence and destruction. Resorting to rioting is strange because there is little disagreement that Floyd’s death in custody was senseless and criminal. ... Yet rioting sparked and spread. There is no rational purpose behind people burning buildings, torching cars, breaking windows, spray-painting obscenities and the other actions that have left city blocks looking like war zones. Some say these are expressions of anger and frustration, and maybe so, but they are also unjustified, foolish and counterproductive. While peaceful protesters are trying to create sympathy and build understanding, the rioters have undone that effort with flying bricks and flaming city blocks.
These weren't protests — they were riots. Period. Counterproductive to anything MLK supported in the struggle for civil rights, and apparently in opposition to what became of Floyd's own outlook prior to his untimely death...


When the unity collapsed, though, it quickly became a security issue that needed to be quelled (despite the media's stoking). After a week's worth, and finally aided by the National Guard activating across over half the states, things appear to be somewhat cooling and hopefully returning to some semblance of regular protest. Yet, even some of that is suspect however, due to the groups involved.

Reflecting over the week's upheaval, there appears to be a hydra-head of organizations that have latched onto Floyd's killing and utterly hijacked the cause...

The fury vented on the streets is not about George Floyd, his death was the spark but the fire has been planned for two generations.
Calls to defund or abolish the police are not about restoring an open and liberal society, they are about tearing it down and seizing power.

Arguably the most disturbing thing about the recent riots (yes, riots) following the murder (yes, murder) of George Floyd is the shocking alacrity and speed by which it devolved from protesting to plundering.

There was contrivance in all this madness: Cops discovering caches of combustible materials hidden in bushes; Mask-clad protesters hitting key targets.

Police found a busload of weapons in Ohio. In some cases, a peaceful protest would formally come to an end before curfew and the moment the peaceful leaders stepped away, violent agitators took center stage.

In the personal recordings of local protesters, the divide is quite clear: those working for a better world and those seeking to bury it. There is now a permanent faction in the liberal movement.

And of course damnable Big Media is right there alongside 'em, playing their part in the hijacking, stoking the flames, spreading disinformation and outright lies...

Despite mainstream media reports, antifa are not noble, well-intentioned activists but anarchists who use violence for their own ends destabilize and destroy society.
The entire narrative the media glommed onto in lockstep was that Trump was a monster who tear-gassed peaceful protesters to do something meaningless. None of that was true.
What’s happening now is a war, and the truth is on the line. We have to be very vigilant to ensure that what we believe and what we say is based upon accurate information, something that’s hard when you can’t trust our institutions anymore for reliable information.
The media lied about the Russia collusion hoax, about the Mueller probe, about impeachment, about the coronavirus—and now they’re lying about the riots.
...and inevitably ALWAYS blaming Trump...never mind this century's other presidents, who when it came to even attempting to improve the black community did very little...
President Trump had nothing to do with what is taking place in these cities. In fact, he immediately directed the Justice Department to provide assistance to state and local law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting the killing of George Floyd. The federal civil rights division, criminal division, and all other elements of federal law enforcement acted with lightening speed to ensure that justice would be done. The president has repeatedly spoken in conciliatory tones about the awful killing of Mr. Floyd. The entire nation was and is united behind the prosecution of this ex-police officers. But the Democrat leadership, the media, and the Left generally see this as another opportunity to viciously attack him and defeat him...

Trump's policy and economic record in addressing inner city problems far exceeds both Obama's and Bush's 16-year presidencies combined. Both speak of systemic racism, trashing all Americans as irretrievably racist, whether they know it or not. What an appalling smear of we, the people, and the greatest nation on earth. What a detestable lie about the men and women, of all races and backgrounds, who work hard everyday and built this country into the world's beacon of liberty. And the two ex-presidents say little about the victims of the rioting and looting, the war on first responders, etc., as they are more concerned about their legacies and what the media will think of them. Meanwhile, they failed the people and communities they now claim to speak for, as Bush paints and pontificates from his Waco ranch, and Obama enriches himself like no ex-president in American history.

~ Mark Levin, 6/4/20 FB post & more on audio rewind

But don't you dare allude to there being no systemic racism in policing, even when the evidence bares that out (check out this thread in its entirety)...
...or say anything that condemns the selective outrage of virtue-signaling progressives, which completely misses the mark towards policy changes, much less unity...
There is near-unanimous agreement: George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. No matter their race, gender, religion or ideology, Americans across the country came together after they watched the brutal and shocking video of Floyd's murder.

But then came the mob of privileged white progressives to exploit this moment and declare themselves brave for speaking up. Spending less time talking about Floyd, and more about why they personally have experienced an awakening, these upscale urbanites turned a tragic death into an opportunity to pat themselves on the backs. And though you didn't ask, they are quick to tell you that they proudly fight bigotry.

Except, they don't. They only talk about fighting bigotry when it's part of a bigger movement they can attach themselves to.
The attempt to hold all whites responsible for the death of Floyd shows what a dead-end woke politics is.
The left’s multi-decade project to teach everyone that America is irredeemably racist has led to the emergence of a new regime in American life.
All decent Americans stand against racism. But if we’re to live as brothers, we must stop indicting all those who share a skin tone for the sins of others.
But what if these occurrences have more to do with the exploitation or misuse of authority than racial injustices? And what if we’re allowing the media narrative of the few to take hold of the many & further divide us? For what purpose(s)? It’s typically politics and how the few in power seek to run our country and our lives, because it’s easier to control groups of people if everyone has been factionalized, and it's easier to conquer the whole when we're divided. Nope, not supposed to talk about these very real issues that might just unite us. Goes against the narrative. Well, these courageous voices are rejecting media's racism and victimhood narratives, as well calling out #BlackLivesMatter for aiding such division...
Prominent black conservatives are seeing how the mainstream media are using the death of George Floyd — to portray America as racist, to vilify all police officers, to force the mantle of victimhood onto black Americans — and they are calling foul.

Notable figures including Candace Owens, Rob Smith, Terrence K. Williams, and Keith and Kevin Hodge are rejecting the roles that Democrat politicians and establishment journalists have assigned to black Americans in the wake of the protests and violent riots that have paralyzed major cities during the last seven days.

For their decision to speak out, they are being called “Uncle Tom’s,” “coons,” and white supremacists by left-wingers.
And with those latter few, but really taking all of this into account, consider how much these lives mattered before they were swallowed up by the ensuing mayhem, the majority of whom you can clearly see are Americans of color...

...the violence didn’t end with buildings reduced to ashes or broken windows. Lives can’t be replaced. Fifteen people have died since the protests, riots and looting began, including a former police captain, an officer of the DHS and a peaceful protester who was just trying to get home. They are, for the most part, young people. Like Floyd, many of them are minorities themselves.



Perhaps we can see the conflict here when we're constantly being told that America is systemically racist, yet the vast majority of its citizenry stand in solidarity with the black community over the unjust killing of George Floyd, not out of a sense of collective guilt or from any other virtue signaling, but out of a clear moral conviction that it was WRONG. The same kind of wrong that it was for these innocent people to lose their lives in all of the chaos that came afterwards. Whatever changes are made to avoid any of this from happening to anyone else must be approached with understanding on both sides, authority and civilian. And we must also reject what far too much of this devolved into from those forces that would seek to divide us. We've come too far in making a better place for ALL Americans.
ALMIGHTY God, who hast created man in thine own image; Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil, and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice among men and nations, to the glory of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Related links: Black Business Owner Confronts Looters in Los Angeles - 1992 L.A. Riots
WATCH: Black store owner decries looting, gives EPIC response to ‘black lives matter’
I Must Object: A rebuttal to Brown University’s letter on racism in the United States
Horowitz: New Marxist frontiers: The riots cured the incurable virus
Posted by an ebb and flow at 12:12 AM