At What Point Does A Protest Become A Riot?

[Love And Submission]

I don't care what side of the political aisle you are on, burning down Autozones and pillaging Targets is not a form of protest. The fact that the media refuses to call these riots is the most infuriating thing ever to me.

If these aren't riots, what exactly needs to happen before something is classified as a riot?  Does setting NYPD cop cars on fire not count as a riot? I don't get it.

[RedRose]

I lived through several waves in my country. Saw the burned cars, the exploded shops, heard the mortar, attacked synagogues and churches, subways in flames with people escaping, and a video I wish I had never watched about a policeman being 'caught'. Please crush it before it becomes that.

[Tolvo]

Riots can be an effective form of protest. Whether or not they're riots is really irrelevant to me, to me human lives are far more important than property.

[Masked Insanity]

I find it quite shocking, and honestly telling, how much more empathy a lot of people feel towards a store than over the people hurt both leading up to this, and in this conflagration.

[la dame en noir]

Upset about buildings/corporations - but not actual human lives? There is an issue.

These protests became "riots" when undercover cops decided to instigate the damage. These protests became "riots" when these cops started shooting and gassing. These protests became "riots" when people that had nothing to do with the cause, came in and used it to their advantage.

The Target CEO doesn't take issue with their building being burned - at all actually.

But go ahead and have sympathy for inanimate objects. At least I know who cares about my life and who doesn't.

[Tolvo]

There is a reason in many queer radical spaces we have a bit of a rallying cry. "Stonewall was a riot."

[la dame en noir]

There is a reason in many queer radical spaces we have a bit of a rallying cry. "Stonewall was a riot."

I can't even begin to tell you how many queer folx I've ran into on TikTok and FB that think these riots are wrong. And many of us looking at them with crazy eyes. Then we have to teach their history to them all over again.

[Masked Insanity]

You know - I never considered myself i "political queer." And I did a lot to bury my queer identity (up to, and including, marriage and children). Maybe it is time I revisited that choice, hard.

[Regina Minx]

To quote someone who said it better:

Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impracticable for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.

But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that 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.

As the Guardian said a decade back:

Riots generally occur when groups have a sense of illegitimacy about how they are treated by others and where they see collective confrontation as the only means of redressing the situation. Indeed, by coming together in the crowd, people become empowered and can invert normal social relations. EP Thompson, the pre-eminent historian of crowds, argued that in a world where the powerless are generally invisible, the riot is a form of "collective bargaining". At the very least the rioters' problems have become a problem for the powerful and hence the powerful have been forced to take note of issues they had previously ignored.

Does any of this matter? Well, yes it does. Because our understanding of the nature of crowd action has fundamental implications for how we respond to them.

If, like Cameron, you see riots as an irrational and pathological phenomenon, then the response is first to repress (why reason with those who have no reason?) and second to look for problems inherent within the communities from which the rioters are drawn. Thus we see the government pledging a series of new repressive police powers such as curfews (which the police themselves don't want) and looking to uncover the source of moral sickness among disaffected youth.

If, however, you see the actions as a meaningful response to a shared sense of illegitimacy and lack of alternatives then you need to address the way in which this has arisen. That is, you need to look at the experience of relations between rioting communities and those with power, authority and influence in our society. The danger is that the repression agenda not only ignores this but that it actually creates experiences that both increase the sense of illegitimacy and decrease the sense of alternatives.

[Formless]

So let's say that my livelihood is reliant on my car. And a riot happened because an innocent person was killed, and my car got damaged. My income isn't enough to fix my car (if it is even fixable after the damage). But I'm supposed to be ok with that?

[Regina Minx]

So let's say that my livelihood is reliant on my car. And a riot happened because an innocent person was killed, and my car got damaged. My income isn't enough to fix my car (if it is even fixable after the damage). But I'm supposed to be ok with that?

I don't believe anyone is saying that they are ok with riots or that you should be ok if your car is damaged in one. That's not something that was said or implied. I'm going to go out on a limb, maybe by myself, and say that if the most upset you muster over the entire constellation of events and actions over the current situation is being upset over what happened to your car, then that's understandable. After all, you weren't related to George Floyd and weren't personally impacted by his death until the chain of events it unleashed affected you personally. I feel that's selfish and coldhearted, but fine.

But in the original post, it was stated that the destruction of retail chain stores was a source of outrage and upset and not the terrible, senseless, tragic death of George Floyd which triggered the current protests and riots. Not the hundreds of acts of police oppression, use of force, the lives disrupted and the over-policing of minority communities that played out before and since. Not the arrests of journalists on the street, not pepper-spraying people not part of riots and sitting on their porches, not police vans ramming crowds. If your greatest takeaway is that 'the riots are terrible because Targets are burning,' then perhaps read the King and Guardian quotes again.

[Formless]

But in the original post, it was stated that the destruction of retail chain stores was a source of outrage and upset and not the terrible, senseless, tragic death of George Floyd which triggered the current protests and riots. Not the hundreds of acts of police oppression, use of force, the lives disrupted and the over-policing of minority communities that played out before and since. Not the arrests of journalists on the street, not pepper-spraying people not part of riots and sitting on their porches, not police vans ramming crowds. If your greatest takeaway is that 'the riots are terrible because Targets are burning,' then perhaps read the King and Guardian quotes again.

I'll disregard your assumption on how I feel towards the main event in my hypothetical example.

However, what justifies the destruction of anything when you're protesting against someone who doesn't own the thing that was destroyed? A crime was committed, so people take it out on people other than the culprit?

Its a tragedy what happened. But its not an excuse to cause more tragedies. Do we also need to lose more lives during the riot for them to be bad? Remember you are talking about the livelihoods of people who did not commit the crime. How you justify that is beyond me.

Its best to learn the difference between a meaningful protest, and a mad outrage.

[Tolvo]

Well various police precincts have burned, the White House is on lockdown, in most areas the spots being focused on are not local(Though there are local places being damaged, a lot of them have said they can rebuild their stores but they can't rebuild lives and that it is the lives of those lost and who will in the future be lost to police who should be fought for). Not to mention how much of the escalation has come from police, who are attacking peaceful protestors and forcing them often to fight back. People have been killed, notably at least every instance I've seen by people who aren't protestors there. We have cops smashing and breaking things, on radio chatter talking about looting, we have them using less lethal(Not non-lethal, as rubber bullets due regularly kill, just the majority of people hit are injured or even crippled) rubber bullets on people filming them even from their own property(The police are fine with breaking private property as long as its own by private citizens instead of corporations or the government. The National Guard are doing this too). Police are making things much much worse, as is the government, and the national guard.

[Regina Minx]

Well, that's the problem with the obliteration of the social contract: once that's gone, there's no protection for anyone, regardless of whether or not they specifically did anything. At the moment that George Floyd died, the social contract ceased to be about justice; there's no way to square that murder, and the lack of punishment for that murder, with any conception of just rule. So society is now returning to the state of nature. Neither you, nor anyone else in charge, gets to say "Well okay, now we're going to start being just, and now we're going to insist that you all behave yourselves and trust our good intentions." That's just not how it works.

The situation up to the point that the situation exploded was that the prosecutor was going to slow-roll the investigation until things cooled down, then either exonerate the officer or throw it to a grand jury that was barraged with contradictory evidence, and say "Well, what can you do? Process is a bitch, ain't it!" We know that, because that's exactly what was done in the case of Tamir Rice, and Philando Castile, and Eric Garner. And the very fact that I can roll the names of Tamir Rice, Philando Castile and Eric Garner right off the top of my head is the reason both why that slow-rolling was unacceptable and forms the context of what the central problem is: the system is not seen as legitimate if it allows murders like this.

The question is not whether it's a terrible thing for Targets and Auto Zones to be burned and looted. Because duh. The question is how do we, as a society, reconcile the fact that our social contract is explicitly stated to be rooted in a fundamental justice and fundamental equality towards all people, with the fundamental injustice and fundamental inequality, that we see and that minority communities live and die under.

[la dame en noir]

Well various police precincts have burned, the White House is on lockdown, in most areas the spots being focused on are not local(Though there are local places being damaged, a lot of them have said they can rebuild their stores but they can't rebuild lives and that it is the lives of those lost and who will in the future be lost to police who should be fought for). Not to mention how much of the escalation has come from police, who are attacking peaceful protestors and forcing them often to fight back. People have been killed, notably at least every instance I've seen by people who aren't protestors there. We have cops smashing and breaking things, on radio chatter talking about looting, we have them using less lethal(Not non-lethal, as rubber bullets due regularly kill, just the majority of people hit are injured or even crippled) rubber bullets on people filming them even from their own property(The police are fine with breaking private property as long as its own by private citizens instead of corporations or the government. The National Guard are doing this too). Police are making things much much worse, as is the government, and the national guard.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Formless]

The question is not whether it's a terrible thing for Targets and Auto Zones to be burned and looted. Because duh. The question is how do we, as a society, reconcile the fact that our social contract is explicitly stated to be rooted in a fundamental justice and fundamental equality towards all people, with the fundamental injustice and fundamental inequality, that we see and that minority communities live and die under.

Will its simple.

When someone kills another, they should be killed. Give the family of the victim the choice of having the culprit killed or not.

Otherwise, you're just going around in circles.

[Remiel]

I'm curious what everyone's opinion is on Killer Mike's speech in Atlanta:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG0yrng0eY4

Personally, I thought it was on point.

[Regina Minx]

Will its simple.

When someone kills another, they should be killed. Give the family of the victim the choice of having the culprit killed or not.

Otherwise, you're just going around in circles.

And that’s the fundamental contradiction. George Floyd died because he was interacting with the state. We give the state a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, and literally the best way to save George Floyd's life would have been to use force on the agents of the state. Societies cannot live with that contradiction and still be societies. And we aren't.

[Regina Minx]

I'm curious what everyone's opinion is on Killer Mike's speech in Atlanta:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG0yrng0eY4

Personally, I thought it was on point.

With all respect to Killer Mike, I still think King said it better:

https://youtu.be/dOWDtDUKz-U?t=1322

[Remiel]

I mean, I don't like it, but I get it.  If I felt like a second-class citizen in my own country, if I believed that the agents of law enforcement felt it was okay to use excessive force against me, and that I was to be treated like a potential criminal by default, based solely on the color of my skin, I would be mad as hell and probably tempted to riot too.

[Formless]

And that’s the fundamental contradiction. George Floyd died because he was interacting with the state. We give the state a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, and literally the best way to save George Floyd's life would have been to use force on the agents of the state. Societies cannot live with that contradiction and still be societies. And we aren't.

No, its because you view the policeman as part of the state.

The police has authority to make an arrest. If they fail to fulfill their duty, the state punishes them.

However, when a life is taken out in such circumstances where the police had every chance to avert that, and still fail, then they're courted on the basis of murder, not because they failed to do their job.

This isn't science. If it was a shootout, then you enter a grey area, but when someone is stepping on someone's neck, a cuffed person, whose already overpowered by two other people? No, that's a kill. And killers regardless of their uniform should be courted like a killer.

[Regina Minx]

The police has authority to make an arrest. If they fail to fulfill their duty, the state punishes them.

That is literally what's failed to happen for years now. See my previous remarks about Rice, Castile, and Garner. See what I said about how the response of authority to murders of this kind is to slow-walk it through the courts (much more slowly than Floyd was slow-walked through due process). How district attorneys throw the matter to grand juries with conflicting information and make weak cases and then throw their hands up in helplessness when those grand juries fail to return bills of indictment.

Convince me that if a member of the public had been the subject of that video instead of Chauvin, if it had been a carpenter kneeling across the neck of a bound man, that the prosecutor would have been concerned with process and a careful, slow, deliberate investigation. Convince me that the prosecutor wouldn't have lied by omission and implication with that very statement, because anyone who knows anything about the process of prosecution knows that investigations don't stop when charges are filed and arrests made. In short, convince me that the police aren't permitted to wage systematic injustice and inequality and I will agree with your assessment.

[RedPhoenix]

So let's say that my livelihood is reliant on my car. And a riot happened because an innocent person was killed, and my car got damaged. My income isn't enough to fix my car (if it is even fixable after the damage). But I'm supposed to be ok with that?

No. You're supposed to be angry at the people that commit murder and get away with it and leave the people no choice but to rise up and demand answers.

There is a reason in many queer radical spaces we have a bit of a rallying cry. "Stonewall was a riot."

Queer people really need to get this. Every Pride event has its foundation in acts that were once called riots, anarchy, looting and un-American. Those who only jumped on board when things became easy and accepted are also be the first to go "fine people on both sides" when we get murdered for who we are. I despise with all my soul the whitewashing of the LGBT history that implies we got where we are by being peaceful and docile and nice. Nobody gave a damn about us before we rioted in response to police brutality.

And that's when a protest becomes a riot. When the police move in with force and try to silence it. That's what's happened historically and that's what's happened everywhere in America over the past week.

What we are seeing is the police state causing massive damage to its own country in response to demands of being held accountable. They would rather arrest every single one of us and call us terrorists for chanting and walking down the street than hold a single one of their own responsible for killing someone. And they want you on their side because they'll run footage of broken glass a hundred times a night but won't show you the cops shooting people unprovoked. It's simple stupid propaganda that relies on the assumption that anyone watching it values the front glass of a target store more than a black life. Don't fall for it.

[Lustful Bride]

One thing that should be noted though is that not all of the rioting is directly linked to the protestors. Some of it is just people letting out rage and tired of inaction and abuses, but other times there is some clear evidence that the rioters are not locals to the area and have come in from multiple states over at times looking to start trouble. This skews things somewhat as even when people are trying to be peaceful and just have their voices heard, strangers are ruining their movement by suddenly walking up, lobbing a molotov or smashing windows.

I feel like Phillip DeFranco has done a good look at the events so far and pointed out some interesting outliers going on. People outside of the city/state showing up to instigation riots, and other times where the police seem to be actively going out of their way to start a fight. And on the other end more peaceful protests mixed with cops siding with the protestors.

I'd really only say that about a third of the damage is from the actual protestors while the rest of it can be traced to these unknowns suddenly showing up and riling people up or instigating violence themselves.

There's some clear footage in the video i will link below and a deeper look at things, though i will put a Trigger Warning because some of it is very troubling to see.

Trigger Warning: Violence and police brutality is depicted.

Kept as a link since some kids show up in footage and some of the scenes are really rough.


One thing I am rather curious about, is if it might be better if police forces in these areas should be all put on suspension pending further investigation and such, with National Guard forces instead taking over for them. Maybe even guard forces from outside the state moving into other states so that they do not have connections and previous bias with local areas. I don't know if that might make it better or worse, but its one thing i am curious about and if it could make the situation better. Though i will admit it might backfire and make it all worse.

[Tolvo]

The national guard are doing the same sort of horrible acts against civilians, against those they're allegedly supposed to be protecting. I don't see bringing them in as a solution. A good solution would be upending our police and prison systems, but they don't want to even entertain that. They want to keep up appearances, do photo ops kneeling with protestors then soon after put on masks and teargas everyone there. The state simply does not care.