Concerning the Conflations of Antifa, BLM, and the Protests
I wanted to address the lines being drawn by social groups between “antifa” and BLM in regards to the recent protests.
On Antifa…
“Antifa” means many different things, but it was primarily a mentality responding to the rise of fascism that enabled World War II that eventually evolved into a punk rock aesthetic.
But, anyway, talking about “modern” antifa: it’s not really a thing. It doesn’t have some secret organization. It’s a mindset, not a group. It doesn’t coordinate. It doesn’t have members. The mindset is basically “screw Hitler, and anyone who would commit human atrocities in the name of a world government.” It has no central manifesto that people follow beyond a resistance to fascism.
But, unfortunately our current conservative media has created a news cycle of fear around the topic. Probably due to the (back then) approaching November election. They did something similar with the “caravan” of criminals that were supposedly moving into the country in 2016.
Now that the dust has settled, multiple investigations both Federal and State have been conducted on the riots that occurred last year. On the one hand, no evidence was found that the riots had any alignment with “antifa” or similar broad concepts.
“While Barr and President Donald Trump have repeatedly singled out antifa, an amorphous movement of primarily leftist anti-authoritarians (the name is derived from “anti-fascist”), as a major instigator of the unrest, the term does not appear in any of the federal charging documents reviewed by Reuters…
“On social media, 17 individuals espoused violence — like threatening to start riots or harm police — or organized themselves using encrypted communications, the complaints alleged. Social media profiles reviewed by Reuters showed a range of views, including anarchism, anti-racism and anti-government messages.”
I should note that I’m not denying riots happened. They did. And I’m very mixed on them.
On the one hand, screw people who put others’ lives in danger. Screw the opportunists negating good will toward communities who are hurting to damage stores and steal goods.
But on the other hand, even if they were legitimate riots caused by angry communities who joined BLM to protest, there are two points that make this situation complicated. First, the 1968 Civil Rights Act regarding fair housing was passed not only because the efforts of Martin Luther King: they were primarily hastily passed due to massive, violent riots, following his murder. The oppressed and hurting people of our nation learned from this incident that nonviolent protests couldn’t break through the apathy of the system. This apathy or explicit ill-intent for King was evident in his unpopular polls in white communities at the time and the FBI’s drafting of a “suicide” note implying plans to to assassinate him.
MLK himself said that “riots are the voice of the unheard.” If there was legitimate violence due to civil unrest in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death and visceral police cam video, we as a society are allowed to empathize with that community without condoning them. Screw people who hurt local businesses and damage the cities we love. But also, god things must have been awful for it to boil over like this and it’s our responsibility to educate ourselves about what’s going on in our nation and help each other.
On BLM…
Regarding BLM: it is absolutely a cause that I support, as I myself living in Philadelphia have witnessed police brutality on black citizens disproportionate to their population. My best friend (a separate incident from Philadelphia, when we were children) was once arrested for entering his home, and I as his “white” friend had to talk the police out of cuffing the 12 year old kid. I understand that it’s not something pleasant to admit in our society, but there are systemic issues to our nation that have impacted black and other minority communities in very real ways. The list goes on; our unacceptable behavior spreads across generations. In WWII we built internment camps for our own citizens of Japanese descent. In the 1930s our government purposely conducted medical research using the black community denying them real treatment for decades to look at the long term effects of syphilis. In the 1980s, Philadelphia police firebombed an entire residential building to capture one man, undeterred because it was primarily blacks living there and the suspect’s priority eclipsed human life. This was after they had fired over 10,000 rounds at various rooms of the building with wanton abandon. Today, in the midst of the pandemic, we see that communities of color are disproportionately dying by orders of magnitude due to long-term problems with how our healthcare works to treat vulnerable minority populations. Just a few years ago, a black caregiver was shot while lying prone on the ground, when the call given was about the Autistic man under his watch.
I completely understand the mentality, as a knee-jerk reaction to the phrase “Black Lives Matter,” that one would think that “All Lives Matter” because that is how fairness is perceived. But the real conversation the movement was trying to bring forward was: “Black Lives Matter, too.” Of course everyone’s lives matter. That’s what they’re trying to elevate: vulnerable populations in our country are dying, and they just want us as privileged citizens to do something about it. Vote to help them. Reform our police system so their first choice in situations isn’t to raise their weapons (which any person with firearm experience would regard as basic responsible gun ownership). Get social workers to join the force so they can assist with mental health and non-violent situations.
I’d like to stress that these changes help all of us. Updating the composition and accountability of our police force would have helped Justine Diamond, an Australian tourist who was shot and killed after calling the police for assistance. It would have helped Ahumad Aubrey as well. Police, past and present, protect one another. Having a sense of community is respectable. Having a union and protections is an important aspect of working in a safe environment. But if these protections are designed to subvert the justice system in their favor, as is the case with qualified immunity, then it’s not something we should support.
Qualified immunity is a humanitarian and legal nightmare to traverse, as it destabilizes trust in the community of our officers while negating punitive measures taken against “bad apples.” The hoops one has to go through to have a case taken up against an officer is frankly insane. No citizen, regardless of position, should be given legal preference over another.
I’m not trying to demonize people who risk their lives by wearing a badge and joining the police force. I’m saying that members of the police, who wield power and responsibility beyond that of normal citizens, should also have increased accountability and training. That training should involve psychological, physical, and social techniques to de-escalate situations to reduce the fatalities associated with their career path. Because we surely can agree that police suffer trauma as well knowing their weapons killed those they wanted to protect.
