Riots Are Bad For Racial Justice… But How We Talk About Them Matters.

The video of Jacob Blake’s shooting in Wisconsin is shocking. The police officer follows Blake around his car, feebly tugs at his shirt to get him to stop leaning into the car, then swiftly shoots him several times in the back. It all happens in just a few seconds. When I saw it on Monday, I felt jolted as though struck by lightning.

Why didn’t the officer stop Blake from leaning into the car? Why did he shoot him so many times? A woman screaming and jumping nearby captures the anguish of the scene. Blake’s kids were right there in the car. It’s all too much, and yet it has become so terribly commonplace: another shooting of an unarmed black man by a white officer.

Watching the video, I instantly understood why rioting had erupted Sunday night in Wisconsin after it was released. Fox News’ website displayed dramatic footage of a car dealership in flames — clearly, I was supposed to be upset about the fires. Instead I was upset about the shooting. I sympathized with the rioters; I felt their rage was justified.

As MLK often said, “A riot is the language of the unheard.” He did not condone rioting, but he sympathized with it, and he cautioned leaders that riots would keep occurring until systemic problems were addressed. That’s how I feel, too.

I’ve been working on this essay about rioting for the last couple months. My focus has been what’s happening in my hometown of Portland, where protesters have gathered daily all spring and summer since just after George Floyd was murdered. The protesters here have been overwhelmingly peaceful. I want to make it abundantly clear that by “rioting,” I do not mean “protesting.” But small amounts of vandalism and violence have been occurring on the protests’ margins, as well as a great deal of police violence, and this has all been garnering national attention. I want to write about that. I am concerned about it.

The “rioting” in Portland is not exactly rioting, as I’ll argue below. It consists of frequent, minor acts that have persisted for months on the margins of otherwise peaceful protests. To me it also feels less visceral, less like “the language of the unheard,” more calculated and organized. Because of that, I’ve found I don’t feel the same sympathy about it. And I believe that it’s harming the Black Lives Matter movement, which is why I’m writing this post.

This latest police shooting of an unarmed black man, Jacob Blake, is an important reminder of what’s at the heart of the matter. Systemic racism and police brutality against people of color must be addressed.

Here are the major points I’ll be arguing:

• “Rioting” has different meanings. In Portland, it’s often more like “mischief.”
• Even this minor “mischief” greatly impacts the protests’ message.
• Violence by protesters harms social justice movements, according to research.
• White people must be thoughtful about whether to speak against vandalism and violence. Nevertheless, speaking up may be important.

These points are still works in progress. I recognize that I have little moral authority here — as a white person, I have far less at stake than a person of color. I have also not been involved in the downtown protests, although I’ve attended smaller protests closer to home. I’m open to counterarguments or criticisms. Everyone has blind spots, including me.

That said, I’ve chosen to write this post for a couple reasons. I fully support Black Lives Matter and worry that it’s being undermined by the vandalism and violence happening at the protests’ fringes. And I care about civil discourse and nuanced conversation. I hope to bring some nuance to the table on this issue.

“Rioting” has different meanings. In Portland, it’s often more like “mischief.”

“Rioting” is a tricky word. It has legal implications. Early in the protests, the Portland police agreed to stop teargassing peaceful protesters — instead, they said they would “only” teargas crowds that were “rioting.”

After that change in policy, they still used teargas quite regularly. But per their announcement, they now only use it after declaring a “riot.” This legal maneuver throws into question the definition of “riot.” Are the police sometimes declaring riots as a convenience when they want to disperse peaceful crowds? What is a “riot,” anyway?

When most people think of a riot, they picture what happened Sunday night in Kenosha, Wisconsin, with many broken windows and some auto dealerships set on fire. That is also what happened immediately after George Floyd’s murder. But that’s not what’s been happening for the last few months here.

Nowadays, our “riots” are far smaller. Each day since May 28th, hundreds or sometimes thousands of peaceful protesters have gathered downtown for hours, and sometimes, acts of aggression are eventually committed by one or a few people in the crowd. This usually occurs late at night. Perhaps a couple firecrackers are set off in the general direction of police. Maybe a dumpster fire is set, or some water bottles are thrown. Sometimes, government buildings are even broken into and set aflame, although those fires are quickly put out by sprinklers or police.

But any of these actions, big or small, give police the pretext to declare a “riot.” They then use tear gas and other tactics to attack and disperse the crowd. Sometimes, reporters write that “riots” have been declared with no visible pretext. This means the police either made the pretext up or saw something the reporters didn’t.

My point is, the word “riot” has meanings that differ widely in scale. I wonder if we should be using another word altogether to describe the many small, isolated acts of vandalism and violence taking place in Portland. What about “mischief”? That word seems more accurate to me.

“Mischief” would also counteract the narrative that Portland is “under siege.” When the police report that rioting is happening here night after night, Fox News and other right-leaning outlets can gleefully use the word “rioting” to conjure images of burning buildings and widespread violence. But these outlets have sometimes scrambled to find actual images that live up to viewers’ expectations. Apparently, the Portland “rioting” is tame enough that some outlets need to embellish it to fit their violent narrative.

In one recent Trump campaign ad, a photo from a Ukrainian protest was used to depict American protesters supposedly attacking police, presumably in Portland, where Trump had recently sent federal agents. Another time, a Fox News article decried a shooting in Portland and implied it was linked to the protests, even though the shooting really took place miles away. These exaggerations and other falsehoods show how the word “rioting” is loaded and often misused.

The truth is that Portland has never been under siege. What’s occurring here nightly is mostly peaceful, though tense, and with some mischief thrown in. It’s technically “rioting”…but it’s not rioting, you know?

Nevertheless, even the “mischief” taking place here is significant. It gets a lot of attention-which means it affects how the protests and the movement as a whole are seen.

Even when minor, rioting or “mischief” greatly impacts the protests’ message.

For those of us who support the protests, it is tempting to downplay the vandalism and violence that occur on their fringes. I have downplayed them myself on social media. After all, only a handful of people typically participate in rioting, here in Portland or elsewhere. Isn’t it best to emphasize the story of the thousands of people peacefully protesting? Talking about rioting (or mischief) distracts from that story. And it distracts from talking about racism and police brutality.

But I’ve decided that we make a mistake when we refuse to talk about this. It’s not going away. The anger over racial injustice is real, and riots do sometimes break out. The Portland “mischief” has persisted for months. Most importantly, many people are already talking about it-not just conservatives, but moderates and progressives, too. And President Trump is building his reelection campaign around it! That makes it a very big deal.

Here are some ways I’ve heard Portland progressives downplay our city’s rioting/mischief:

• It’s only vandalism, not violence. It’s being called “violence” to make it sound worse than it is.
• The actual violence is being exaggerated. It’s only a few water bottles being thrown at police. The fires aren’t really harmful.
• Police infiltrators are the ones committing the violence, not real protesters.

On examination, these are shaky arguments. It’s disingenuous to say that the protesters have been entirely peaceful. When City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty claimed that all protest violence was being committed by police infiltrators, she retracted her statement hours later and apologized for spreading misinformation. And the protesters’ violence is not always so minor. There are many well-documented instances of fireworks being set off towards police, lasers being pointed at their eyes, and dangerous objects being thrown at them. Worst of all, there have been instances of buildings set on fire with people inside them. That is simply indefensible.

It’s sometimes hard to distinguish these instances of true violence from right-wing misinformation. There have been falsehoods in conservative media about Molotov cocktails and lasers causing permanent blindness in officers. But although protesters’ violence has been exaggerated at times, it is undeniably still occurring, and some of it is serious.

Another way we often downplay protest violence is to point out that it is dwarfed by the violence of the police. This argument has more merit. Both local police and the feds have frequently attacked peaceful protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets, and “bull rushes” that knock people down, even though such violent tactics have been proven ineffective at quelling protests. Here’s a video of one unprovoked beating of a peaceful protester by federal agents. Another man who was peacefully demonstrating was shot in the face by a less-lethal munition that critically injured him. He is now struggling with cognitive impairment. That is unconscionable.

Those are just a couple of countless documented instances of excessive force by police and the feds.

Nevertheless, there’s an irrationality when a movement against police violence appears to condone violence itself. Presumably, the goal of the Portland protests is to show the public and leaders that police brutality is a problem. This message gets across when the police commit unprovoked acts of violence. But the message gets muddied when protesters are sometimes provoking the police by committing acts that, to any reasonable person, require a police response. If someone in a crowd is lighting a building on fire, and the police cannot determine which person it is, it seems reasonable for them to take action to disperse the crowd away from the building. When the crowd then cries “police brutality,” sympathies are not nearly as strong as they might have been.

It’s a logical fallacy to imply that police violence justifies violence by the protesters. Specifically, it’s the tu quoque fallacy, a type of red herring in which wrongdoing is justified by accusing someone else of wrongdoing. To put it simply: two wrongs don’t make a right. Observers don’t think this fallacy out, but they sense it, and the irrationality contributes to an ineffectiveness of messaging.

This became starkly clear to me when I began talking with progressive friends in other parts of the country about the Portland protests. I discovered that many are as confused as my conservative friends when they see the images of the late-night “rioting.” These are friends who support Black Lives Matter. Even they have been wondering: Why shouldn’t the police be shutting down a protest that turns violent? Why are the other protesters putting up with this? Why is Portland?

Added to this confusion is the fact that many of those lighting the fires and throwing things at police appear to be white. I’ve been asked: “Are the protesters in Portland even listening to black people at all?”

The protests are mainly peaceful, in Portland and nationwide. But pretending that they’re one hundred percent peaceful is wrong, and the unfortunate reality is that violence committed by protesters always makes headlines more easily than peace. That means that however marginal it may be, even Portland’s minor “mischief” is greatly impacting the movement’s message.

Violence by protesters harms social justice movements, according to research.

Sometimes people wonder if the Portland “mischief” might actually be helping the cause. I’ve heard Portland friends ask: What if violence is essential to achieving justice? Doesn’t it draw attention to the protests? If not for the ongoing “riots” in Portland, would the country still be talking so much about racism and police brutality?

Here’s an example of this argument, pulled from a thread on Facebook:

It is sad how quickly we forget history. I see a lot of posts advocating for protesters to be more like MLK. You do realize that the reason the civil rights act of 1968 was passed wasn’t because of MLK, it was passed due to the greatest wave of social unrest (aside from the civil war) in our nations history from the assassination riots/Holy Week uprising. Those riots reignited what king had wanted, federal fair housing, and the bill was passed 6 days later directly from the riots — not king

But this statement is dubious at best, dangerously misinformed at worst.

Let’s set aside, for the moment, the question of whether violence is indeed helpful. It seems obvious that if it does help at all, it must be in conjunction with nonviolence. At the very least, this is not an either/or but a both/and. If only rioting had taken place in 1968, there would have been no fair-housing bill to pass! Dr. King had campaigned for that bill in 1966-nonviolently. By the time he was assassinated in 1968, the bill had been crafted but had stalled. The nonviolent work of King and others, including their willingness to meet with legislators, was essential to the cause.

Back to the question of whether violence helps. To be sure, vandalism and violence help bring attention to a protest-but it’s the wrong kind of attention. Erica Chenoweth, a Harvard professor of human rights and international affairs, researched all successful violent and nonviolent revolutions worldwide between 1900 and 2006. At the outset of her research, she believed that violence helped campaigns. She chose this topic in hopes of empirically proving her belief. But her research convinced her she’d been wrong- violence does more harm than good to a movement’s success.

Chenowith found that even when nonviolent campaigns fail in the short term, they are far more likely to succeed in the long term. That’s because they motivate and empower deep reform, which is supported by a broad swath of the populace. They garner sympathy. People examine and change their own beliefs. Violent campaigns, while sometimes successful in getting their demands met in the short-term, tend to alienate many people in the long term.

It is quite possible, though harder, to draw attention to a protest without acts of violence. The nonviolent protests of the 1960s helped change national opinions because of the contrast between the police violence and the protesters’ nonviolence. That was the protest leaders’ vision, and it worked. The 2017 Women’s March and the 1963 March on Washington were entirely nonviolent. All of these garnered widespread, sympathetic national attention.

The Facebook comment above is probably correct in saying that the 1968 riots revived the fair-housing legislation — although it’s also possible that King’s assassination alone would have spurred the bill’s passage even without the riots. But the riots also changed voter sympathies…for the worse.

Omar Wascow, a Princeton researcher who studied the nonviolent and violent protest movements of the 1960s, found the same thing Chenowith found: nonviolent protests were very effective while violent ones backfired. The 1968 riots tipped voter sympathies enough to hand President Nixon the Presidential election. They also strengthened racial divides that persisted long after the year’s end. That is the kind of short-term gain but long-term damage Chenowith is talking about.

President Trump has recently been taking a page directly from Nixon’s playbook, using the same “Law and Order” language Nixon used to get reelected in 1968. After Trump sent federal forces to Portland, his popularity ratings ticked upward. Trump’s reelection would do great and lasting damage to the cause of racial justice.

It thus seems important to disavow violence as a method of protest, if we want this movement to be effective. Spontaneous rioting, like what has erupted this week in Wisconsin, is harder for me to condemn because it feels so visceral. But it at least makes sense to speak out against the more persistent Portland “mischief” that has been dominating so many headlines.

Nevertheless, many people feel uncomfortable speaking out on any of it-especially white people. And there are good reasons for this hesitation.

White people must be thoughtful about whether to speak against vandalism and violence. Nevertheless, speaking up may be important.

One reason many of us are afraid to weigh in on the vandalism and violence is our privilege. Many white progressives understand that it’s not our place to judge how people of color respond to injustice. We know the history: too often, white people have told black people to be patient, not to get angry, or even not to protest at all.

Added to that concern is the way some people who condemn rioting appear to “care more about buildings than people.” That dynamic is evident in Fox News’ coverage. Many people claim they are only upset about rioting but say they would support peaceful protests, when in truth, they were also outraged when Colin Kaepernick peacefully knelt for the national anthem. It begs the question: Is there any form of protest by black people that’s acceptable to them? It seems that for such people, it’s not really the manner but the topic of protest that’s upsetting-the topic of racism.

I want to ask these people: With all your outrage over burning cars and “disrespecting” the flag, where was your outrage over George Floyd’s death???

Tone policing is dismissing someone’s concerns by saying their tone is too emotional. It’s another logical fallacy, and it’s rampant among people who condemn rioting but deny that the rioters’ anger is justified. Many white progressives know tone policing is a problem. We want to avoid it. To make it clear that we do support the protests, we avoid commenting at all on any of the protesters’ methods.

I see that white people like me don’t have the moral authority to speak out. But at the same time, I am also not convinced that our staying silent about vandalism and violence is best. Let me explore this further. I’m proceeding here with great humility — again, I know I could be wrong.

Here’s one argument in favor of speaking out against protest violence: condemning the violence does not necessarily mean disrespecting the protests. It sometimes does, as I just described. But Oregon’s largest newspaper, The Oregonian, has put out a few excellent editorials urging local leaders to both address systemic racism and condemn the violence. Their most recent editorial, this past Sunday, points out the false dichotomy in assuming you can’t do both:

It is possible to condemn the violence caused by a small group of protesters while emphatically supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. It is possible to call on police to manage protests while holding officers accountable for unjustified force. And it is possible to defend police as a necessary part of public safety while examining how to reduce and change law enforcement’s role. None of these goals are diametrically opposed. But in these polarized, Twitterized times where nuance is viewed as weakness, and middle ground is mistaken for “both-sides-ism,” leaders are refraining from articulating such common-sense principles.

I agree with this nuanced view. Saying you’re against something happening at the protest’s margins does not mean you’re against the protests themselves.

Here’s a second argument for taking a stance against vandalism and violence: such a stance is not necessarily tone policing. Again, it can be. But it doesn’t have to be.

Saying you are against vandalism and violence is not always a comment on protesters’ emotions, anger, or protesting in general. It’s not always telling anyone not to be angry, not to protest, or to refrain from nonviolent direct action. And speaking against the “mischief” in Portland does not even mean you’re condemning all rioting.

Speaking out can instead mean weighing in on how our community ought to be dealing with criminal activity — and activity that should be criminal. The people committing vandalism and violence are not breaking unjust rules. This is not like the Freedom Riders breaking the “whites-only” rules of the 1960s by sitting at lunch counters and using public transport. Vandalizing buildings and lighting them on fire, and throwing hard objects at police, should be outlawed.

So the question is not: How do we change these rules to bring about justice? It’s: How do we justly enforce these necessary rules?

As community members, it seems reasonable for any of us to comment on this question-even those of us who are white.

In practice, the answer to the question of enforcement can mean policies that support the right to protest but draw the line at vandalism and violence. Recently, Portland’s new District Attorney Mike Schmidt announced that he would be dropping many of the charges against protesters who had been arrested this year by Portland police. Protesters charged with interfering with police, disorderly conduct, criminal trespass, escape, or harassment won’t be prosecuted as long as they didn’t commit deliberate property damage, theft, or acts of force. As he explained:

“What we’re doing is recognizing that the right to speak and have your voice heard is extremely important… If you’re out there committing violence, you’re damaging property, those cases are going to be prosecuted. If you’re a person who is out there demonstrating and you get caught up in the melee, those are the kinds of cases that [will be dropped].”

This policy seems like a great compromise to me. The announcement especially carried weight because “Schmidt was surrounded by four Black leaders from Portland who are part of his 15-person transition team, a rare display of public collaboration between community members and a Multnomah County district attorney.”

So those are some arguments for speaking out against the “mischief” as a white person. It is possible to support the protests and to avoid tone policing while declaring you’re against any violence-especially because violence is likely to hurt the cause.

Added to this logic is the fact that many local black community leaders eloquently spoke out against the rioting that occurred immediately after George Floyd’s murder. These leaders included City Commissioner and longtime activist Jo Ann Hardesty, local NAACP chapter President Rev. E.D. Mondainé, and the People of Color Caucus in the Oregon Legislature. After the first night of rioting, Hardesty said:

What happened last night had nothing to do with black America. It was not about standing up for black people’s rights. It was not about acknowledging the death and harm that has taken place.

Mondainé said:

The self-concern, the casual destruction and the self-righteous determination to put others in harm’s way that was on display last night in this city does absolutely nothing to honor the legacy of George Floyd or to improve the systemic problems that led to his murder…To our non-black allies, do not commit violence in our name.

Months later, there were more comments from these leaders and others against the more minor vandalism and violence that I’m calling “mischief.” One nuanced article by The Oregonian cites various black activists and leaders who hold a range of opinions. Various interviewees are firmly against the violence, including Eric Ward, “a longtime civil rights strategist and executive director of the Western States Center, a Portland-based organization that monitors right-wing extremism.” The article reports:

People lashing out during the protests “have legitimate anger, but I would respectfully disagree with them,” said Eric Ward… “I would say they are applying that anger in a wrong way… Pulling down the boards of the federal courthouse or the Justice Center doesn’t stop police from brutalizing Black and Latino and Indigenous people on the streets of Portland… “I would say to activists at the end of the day: What is it that you have achieved to stop the killing of unarmed Black people? …That is the question everyone on the street should be asking themselves as to every action they take out there.”

Listening to these wise, experienced black leaders, I feel more comfortable speaking against the vandalism and violence. And as a white person, it seems like the best way to speak out is to amplify their voices.

I also wonder if we who believe rioting or “mischief” is harmful have a responsibility to speak out. Isn’t silence actually a form of weighing in? By default, when it comes to violence, silence is complicity. That’s true of violence against black people, but isn’t it also true of community violence in general? And if we stay silent, aren’t we failing to support the black leaders who have spoken out against it?

I think white Portlanders do have a responsibility to figure out where we stand on this, or at least to give it careful thought. If we thoughtfully conclude that we are against the vandalism and violence occurring at the fringes of these peaceful protests, we may have a responsibility to amplify the black voices that have condemned it. But if we do so, we still need to be very careful in what we say. We must make it clear that we support the peaceful protests and are committed to racial justice-otherwise, our comments lapse into tone policing.

Summary and Conclusion

I first started writing this post because of a problem I encountered when talking with conservatives about racism. I wanted to help my conservative friends see that racism is ongoing and systemic change is needed. That’s something people on the political right often have trouble seeing or won’t acknowledge. When I would bring up systemic racism and police brutality, they would bring up the “rioting” here in Portland. They were irked by what they saw as a moral weakness on my side: our refusal to acknowledge that vandalism and violence were happening and were largely going unpunished.

I realized that if I wanted them to open their minds to the reality of systemic racism, I first had to acknowledge the reality they were naming. Yes, I would say. I agree with you that the Portland “mischief” is a problem. You do make a good point. Now: can you also see that racism is a problem, too?

These conversations and others, and my research, have convinced me that the Portland “mischief” is significantly hurting the Black Lives Matter movement. Other, larger rioting must be hurting the movement, too, but that feels more visceral and is harder for me to outright condemn. But I am concerned about all of it.

As a white person, I recognize that I have little moral authority to speak on this, but I am doing so anyway after careful consideration. It’s crucial for the movement to succeed; I want it to be as effective as possible. I also want to support the black leaders who have spoken out in favor of nonviolence.

I hope this blog post is helpful and that it sparks some productive conversations.

Originally published at http://katiesonger.com on August 27, 2020.